Vanessa, our night nurse, came in around 11:30pm to get things started. She had to draw some blood for labs and start my IV. I've always had pretty good veins but for some reason she could not get anything from my veins. I got poked 4-5 times for labs & PIV start. =( I had a pretty gnarly bruise on my left forearm to prove it! She checked my cervix again and I was still only 3cm but she said that she could feel Olivia still "floating" way up high in her bag of fluid. I was very confused. I thought my water had broke. She (and the doctor who was on for the night) said I had a "high leak" in my amniotic sac and they may have to break my water for me, again, to get things going. First they were going to start my IV with Pitocin to get my contractions going and see if that did the trick. Pitocin was started at 12:20am. Wow - that medication is powerful. I definatly felt those contractions coming then! I wanted to hold off as long as I could for the epidural and I asked Vanessa when is the earliest they put it in - she said about 4cm.
By 2am my water still had not broke. The doctor came in and broke it for me - and that's what I thought your water breaking was supposed to feel like - a huge gush came out of me! Lots of liquid!!! And then the contractions really came on. I was getting very uncomfortable but still only 3 cm. Vanessa offered me to sit in the rocking chair, or go for a walk, or sit on a birthing ball. I chose a birthing ball - I had been sitting on one at home for the last couple weeks in hopes of opening up my hips for birth. She brought one in and lined in with lots of absorbent pads (because I was still leaking a lot of fluid) and I sat on it. It hadn't even been 10 minutes and I had the contraction of all contractions! It was so painful!!!! I was shaking so bad, I couldn't talk, and just was moaning. Tim kept saying "push the nurse button" but I was so frozen in pain. It was time for the epidural! During this contraction I created a lake on the floor around me - my amniotic fluid just kept gushing out. It was impressive! When Vanessa came in I think she was surprised on the amount of fluid around me on the floor - like I said, it was a lake! I told her I was ready for the epidural and she went to get the anesthesiologist (who happened to be awake and doing another epidural on the floor).
Around 3am the wonderful drug man (anesthesiologist) arrived and got all set up. Vanessa was helping me sit on the edge of my bed, hunching over, the anesthesiologist behind me working on my back, and the charge nurse was in the room too just helping out. Getting the epidural was actually more painful then I thought. I was crying out in pain and he said he kept hitting a nerve because my right leg kept twitching. As this was all going on, Tim was sitting up in the chair bed (in front of me) and we all hear him moan and then fall forward onto the arm rest of the chair bed and then slump back in the chair bed - passed out cold! As he was falling back into the chair bed, his arms kept rhythmically jerking - like a seizure. It was actually pretty scary to watch. Everyone stopped what they were doing and the charge nurse ran over to him to help him out. He was only unconscious for about 10-15 seconds and then he woke up, in quite a daze and was as white as the white sheets on the bed! Once he was back awake, the anesthesiologist kept going on my epidural and the other nurse was helping Tim - putting cold wash clothes on his head/neck, getting him some juice to drink, bringing a fan in to blow on him. Poor guy does not do well with hospital stuff.
After the epidural was in I was a whole new person! I didn't feel any pain anymore - it was wonderful! =) Tim went to sleep almost right away - a deep deep, almost comatose sleep. I remember asking Vanessa to check on him to make sure he was still breathing once. Vanessa put a foley catheter in me around 4am (since I would not be able to get up and go to the bathroom anymore with the epidural in). I finally fell asleep from about 4:30am-6am. Both Tim & I had been awake since 5am on Monday and were exhausted. At 6am, Vanessa came to check my cervix and I was 6 cm. I was a little disappointed - only progressed 3 cm in about 8 hours! All I kept thinking was this could take forever!
The day nurse, Nicole, came in around 7:30am along with the doctor on for the day, Dr. Callanan to introduce themselves. Nicole came back at 7:45am and checked my cervix - and a surprise to me - I was 10cm. I even said to her "are you serious?". So she went out and started bringing all kinds of "stuff" into the room to prepare for delivery. I remember just looking at Tim thinking I can't believe we're going to have a baby soon! By 8:15am I started to push with each contraction. The epidural was working great and I couldn't feel any pain, just the pressure of the contractions. I pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. Nicole said the baby had lots of dark hair! A resident was also involved in my care and he would periodically come in and check on me too. Everyone kept telling me I was pushing great but that baby just was not coming down. I pushed for 2 1/2 hours and by 10:45am Dr. Callanan came in and said that Olivia wasn't progressing enough and didn't think she would, so in her opinion she thought I needed a C-section! All that hard work for nothing is what I thought! Tim & I both listened to her reasonings and explanations and agreed to the c-section.
Once I signed that consent it was like a whirlwind in my room. People were taking all the equipment out that Nicole had brought in for the birth, I was getting meds left and right - by mouth, through my IV, through my epidural. We were rolling down the hall to the OR by 11am I think! It was so fast! They got me all prepped in the OR and then brought Tim in. He was dressed all in OR scrubs too - I had to laugh because he always jokes that he's a doctor and now he was finally dressed like one! =) They brought a stool over for him to sit on right next to my left ear & in front of the blue "screen" they created so we couldn't see what was going on with the surgery. Someone asked him if he would like to stand up and see when Olivia was coming out and he said "NO" very quickly. No one wanted him passing out again and he knew his limits!
I didn't even realize that they had started cutting into me (again loving that epidural - which they either increased a lot or changed drugs because now I really couldn't feel or move anything where as before I could still move my legs). Someone said at one point "ok we're almost to the uterus and then we'll have the baby out" and I remember thinking when did they even cut me open! When Olivia came out (11:37am) Tim was brave enough to stand up and look at her quickly over the blue screen. She was crying from the get go! The doctors discovered she had her cord wrapped around her neck twice and the way she was facing in the birth canal was, as the doctors called it, "sunny side up". I guess most babies when they are being born vaginally their faces are facing your tail bone & that makes it easier to come through the birth canal. Olivia was facing up towards my pelvic bone. They thing between her cord and the way she was facing she would have never progressed in normal labor.
Olivia's APGAR scores were good - 8 at birth & 9 at the 5 minute mark. She weighed in at 7lbs, 3.6oz and was 20 inches long. Her head (OFC) was 13in (I think). She had a ton of dark hair! I couldn't believe it!
After they did all her measurements and wiped her down a little, they handed Olivia to me so I could see her.
I held her for a few minutes and then Tim & Olivia headed to the nursery. I was left in the OR and was getting "put back together". I remember the anesthesiologist asking me how I was doing and if I was in any pain and I said no. As soon as I said no I remember feeling all kinds of pain. I started yelling "Oww, oww, OWW!" Everyone, including myself, was surprised by this. I remember the doctors telling me that they were stopping what they were doing until my pain was under control & the anesthesiologist kept pushing Fentanyl into my IV. I just remember me crying out "oww" and the anesthesiologist kept saying "pushing 1 of Fentanyl.....pushing 2 of Fentanyl.....pushing 2 more of Fentanyl...pushing another 1 of Fentanyl". I asked him at one point how many micrograms of Fentanyl was he giving me! He told me not to worry about it. My pain was finally under control enough for them to finish stitching me back up. By this time I had awful cotton mouth from the oxygen mask I was wearing which I'm sure they had to turn up after all my extra Fentanyl. I kept moving my mask away to wipe my mouth and the anesthesiologist kept saying "Jen, you need to keep the oxygen mask on...I just gave you a lot of Fentanyl". It was not the most wonderful ending to my procedure. I still don't know what happened - why I felt all that pain all of a sudden. Did the epidural stop working for some reason? Did they turn it down? They gave me a medication through my epidural that was a long acting pain medication - did that mess something up?
I was taken to the recovery room and was very loopy. I don't remember too much until Tim brought Livi into the room in her basinette to see me - that was about 1:30pm. I was so Fentanyl drunk for the next couple hours. I remember Tim's parents coming and seeing me in the recovery room but I don't remember much else. I remember throwing up after I was able to drink some water - not fun with fresh stitches & staples. I remember calling family members to tell them that Olivia was here but those conversations were very difficult for me to get out - I could not focus on what I was saying. I was taken to my postpartum room by 2pm and slept for a little while.
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| Getting checked out in the nursery |
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| This picture makes her look like she's about 5 feet long! |
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| First Bath in the nursery |
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| The nurse gave her a little mohawk |
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All cleaned and ready to go see mommy in the recovery room
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That evening, my mom & stepdad (Grandma & Grandpa Harrison) and Tim's sister & brother-in-law (Annie & Jason) came to visit. I was a little more lucid that evening for the visitors. I ended up getting up for a short walk late that evening too with lots of help from my nurse and LPN. It was weird to be on the patient end of this relationship - being so dependent on my RN for help. She had to help me to the bathroom and even get cleaned up.
We decided to keep Olivia in our room all night and not send her to the nursery. I have decided to breast feed and so the nurses would just have to bring her in every time she wanted to eat anyways. Plus, I didn't like the idea of not having her near me. I mean she was inside me for 9+ months and now that she was out - I didn't want her very far away. Tim went to sleep before 10pm - remember that we had both been up since 5am on Monday with little sleep since. We were both so exhausted. Olivia had different plans - she was awake/fussy until about 3:30am. I let Tim sleep that night and I stayed up with Livi. I remember at one point the nurse asked me if I wanted her to take Olivia to the nursery - and as easy as it would have been to say "YES" and declined and just held/rocked my baby in my bed.
