Kate's story

I've been wanting to write about my beautiful girl for a week now!  Actually, 8 days!  But she demands my attention a lot, which I don't mind at all.  Right now, she's in my baby carrier, sleeping soundly against my chest.  Ah, life is good.

I've been waiting to share a birth story for years, so here it is!  All the gory details ;) haha - not TOO gory :)

       I started with regular contractions Thursday, March 24 at about 10.  Matt had gone to the gym, and contractions were about 6 minutes apart.  They were painful, but not intolerable. I labored like that all night - right around 4-6 minutes apart, varying degrees of strength.  The doctor told us we could go in, but since this was our first, I could likely be sent home.  We decided to go in at around 7 in the morning.  I was checked, found to be at 1 cm dilated, and told to walk the halls.  After another 2 hours, I was at 2 cm, but not progressing super fast.  Our fantastic doctor (no, really, he's AMAZING) decided to send me home with a sleeping pill since I hadn't slept and told me to come back when they were more consistent in strength and time. 

     I came home, took a bath and, thanks to Ambien, a nap.  I woke up and contractions were still happening, but very irregular.  I got very frustrated as the evening went on, thinking I was going to be in labor forever and NEVER get this baby out!  I threw a fit around 12:30 a.m. Saturday morning and decided to just go to bed.  If the contractions got strong enough to wake me up, I'd consider going in.  Around 3, they woke me up.

      At that point, they were much stronger than they had been, and were consistently strong - about 8 minutes apart.  I was pretty sure I had lost some water, but wasn't sure as it wasn't a constant leak or gush.  We called Dr. Wilson again, and he said to come in to see how we were progressing.  When we got out of bed, walked around and got into the car, the contractions spiked in strength and were much closer together - now 4 minutes.  All my contraction/labor pain was in my back, but I was a trooper - now going on 33 hours and just breathing through the pain - listening to my tunes.  I was very proud of myself!

      We got to the hospital and were checked by a resident and found to be 4cm dilated and 90% effaced (my doc was there, but his 24 hour on-call shift was ending.  He popped in to say GOOD JOB :)).  The pain level shot through the roof very quickly, and through tears, I knew I couldn't do it on my own.  The back pain was more than I could handle.  Still in triage, going through paperwork and getting IVs, I was asked if I wanted an epidural.  I had truly wanted to birth my baby naturally, but the pain was more than I could admittedly handle.  I cried, but said yes. 

     We were taken back to our room, 436, and I was given my epidural right away.  THANK GOODNESS.  I was checked again and was at 6 cm - within an hour of my last check.  They checked me again in 30 minutes when another doc came in, and I was at 9 cm.  They couldn't decide if I had a very thin bag of waters around my baby's head (which apparently was VERY low and ready to go!), or if my water had broken.  They decided they weren't going to try to break it even if it was there, because labor was moving so quickly, and the on-call doc wasn't there yet! 

     Dr. Wychanco came in and checked me - and yes, my water had broken, but the baby's head was acting like  a cork, plugging it (we didn't know that yet, she just thought I hadn't noticed it breaking - what?!).  She said that I was ready to push if I wanted to get started!  WOW.  It was now 11:00 a.m. and had been checked the first time in triage at 7:30.  Once things got moving, they REALLY moved!

    That's where things SLOWED DOWN.  The baby was posterior position, which explained my back pain.  What that means is that even though she was head down, her face was pointed up, not down the way it's supposed to be.  That makes for a lot of back pain and hard pushing.  About 30 minutes in, I asked for a mirror.  I know, it sounds "gross" to those of you who haven't delivered a baby, but I NEEDED motivation.  I was getting very tired, and we had a long way to go.  I could see my baby's head starting to come down and out, and it helped - some.  She was VERY stuck in there because of her position. 

     At 1 p.m., 2 hours after we started pushing, we were still going.  By this point, the baby's heart rate started to greatly dip with each contraction, and unlike it had been the last 2 hours, it wasn't coming back up.  It is somewhat normal for the heart rate to drop during pushing/contractions, but then it normally returns to normal fairly quickly.  I knew something was wrong, because no amount of flipping my body, or playing with my belly was getting the heart rate to return to normal.  Soon, there was a huge team of hospital staff in our room, and I was getting into stirrups to deliver Baby Roo.  What I later found out was that there were nursery nurses, NICU nurses, the anesthetist, our doc, our 2 residents, and 2 nurses for me.  It was a full house. 

     They told me they were going to use the vacuum to help get the baby out.  The first time, the vacuum popped off.  The 2nd time, along with an episiotomy, got the baby out.  But instead of Matt getting to cut the cord, like we planned, or the baby being placed on my chest, like we planned, the baby came out completely limp.  Something was horribly wrong and my heart sank.  I was horrified.  Her cord was wrapped around her neck, and she had swallowed some waste material, called meconium.  The NICU nurse whisked her away from the doc and they started to work.  I still didn't know if I had a baby girl or a baby boy, but I knew something was horribly wrong.

    The baby wasn't breathing.  At that point, they didn't even want her to breathe.  Because she had swallowed the meconium, they wanted to be able to suck out her lungs before she took a big gasp.  They worked on her for what seemed like forever.  Finally, Matt was able to go over to see her and said, "IT'S A LITTLE GIRL!"  I kept asking if she was ok, but no one by her would answer.  The doctors working on me told me that they were just sucking out the junk, and that she would be ok.  Matt said that they were talking about her strong heartbeat, and that she was ok.  Little did I know, all of them were just trying to keep me from panicking.

     Kate was eventually ok.  Her apgar scores were 3, 5, then 9.  3 is REALLY BAD.  9 is REALLY GOOD, so she made huge progress fast.  Thank goodness.  Finally, she was able to have skin-to-skin contact, but I was still being stitched up.  Daddy stripped down and took Kate on himself.  It was a beautiful sight. 

    It was a scary time for a while, but Kate is here, and she's amazing.  We struggled with some high billy rubin levels, but have gotten past that.  We're picking up weight and I'm loving breast feeding.  She's an incredibly laid back baby, and we are so lucky.  Our little girl is perfect.  And she's home and here at last.

I love you, Kate, and would do it all again for you in a heartbeat.