Thursday August 12 was a normal day for my husband Kris and I. He had gotten up to play "old man" basketball in the morning while I got ready to teach my last day of interpersonal before the baby was born (one month and counting). I had a doctors appointment and then I was going to head to class, while Kris would head home to finish packing for a long overdue vacation, with a huge baby shower and then spending a week just the two of us (plus Cage, the dog) at our cabin in eastern Oregon. It was a day that the two of us had looked forward to for a really long time and little did we know but there was another reason for this anticipation. The next 24 hours would completely turn our world upside down!
9:30 AM~We headed out the door to the doctor's office for a routine check up, me in my car and Kris in the escape with Cage because we had packed Cage's bag for vacation and it was in the car which caused Cage to look dreadfully sad when we tried to leave the house without him. So, Kris decided to take Cage with us as the appointment was only to last about 30 minutes.
9:40 AM~I head into the medical records department to get a copy of my prenatal paperwork so that if something happens while we were on vacation, I would have all of my charts and notes with me. Better safe than sorry. Yet when I asked for my paper work they had said the clinic asked for it back for my appointment that day. This caused a little frustration because I submitted a request for a copy of my paperwork a week before and really how long does it take to run a stack of papers through the copy machine?
9:45 AM~A bite defeated but stubborn enough to go complain to someone else, I walk down to the doctor's office, where I find Kris waiting patiently for me. I check in with the wonderful gal at the front desk who, with a wink and a smile, hands me an envelope with my name on it and says "not how it is suppose to be done but records has a tendency to take forever with requests, so when the official one comes just act normal." Shh, don't tell medical records!
10:00 AM~Finally my name is called to go back, pee in a shot glass sized cup (tougher than you think), get weighed like a cow getting ready for show (up to 208, yes I just posted my weight) and head to my room to wait even longer for the doctor to come in.
10:15 AM~At this point I am getting a bit nervous because I need to leave by 10:30 at the latest if I am going to make it to Albany for the start of class at noon. I keep looking at Kris and asking for the time, which he so patiently tells me with a reassuring "don't worry, you'll have plenty of time." I knew I would have time especially since I told my students that I might be a bit late but still I hate being late.
10:30 AM~Doctor comes in. Dr. Morishita is really a great doctor and I understand that she is busy with appointments and delivering babies and whatnot, so I keep telling myself that I need to be patient as a patient. The checkup begins and we listen to baby's heartbeat, check my blood pressure and see if there are any questions. My blood pressure is a bit high but I tell her that "it is probably because I just dealt with medical records" and she laughs, saying "you're probably right." Then Dr. Morishita turns to Kris and I with a more than normal serious look on her face and says "I know you guys are planning on leaving for a long vacation but we really don't like people to travel after 35 weeks and you are entering into your 36th week. Are you having any contractions?" Now this is a question that many people had started to ask me and my initial response was "why don't you ask me if I have ever been kicked in the balls because I really have nothing to compare it to, so how would I know?" I simply responded with the fact that I was having some discomfort and cramping which I guess are contractions? She responded "would you like me to check your cervix to see if there has been any change just to make sure?" I wanted to make sure that things were ok before leaving town, so I agreed, Dr. Morishita stepped out, I got into position and the doctor came back in. "Well, I would say that you are about 1-2 cm and about 90% effaced" says Dr. Morishita. "There has definitely been some change because at the last appointment you were 1 cm and about 70% effaced. That was six days ago, so yeah there has definitely been some change, so I would like to send you upstairs and hook you up to the monitors just to see if you are having contractions, to be safe" Dr. Morishita says. I look at Kris with a little annoyance on my face but agreed because its a good idea to be "safe."
10:45 AM~Kris and I head over to registration and they ask if I am having any pain. I stupidly reply "yes" so they immediately send me to the ER registration. Now we have gone to ER before and needless to say I was a bit more annoyed and frustrated at this point but again agreed because I wanted to be "safe."
10:50 AM~Sitting in the ER registration room, answering a laundry list of questions and getting more and more annoyed. In between questions, I was frantically searching online on my phone (I LOVE MY iPHONE!) for our department secretary's phone number to let him know about my situation and that I would not be able to make it to class. My students would just have to get over me canceling class, I think they can manage. The nurse from labor and delivery comes in to the room to take us upstairs, yet we still aren't registered, as we were suppose to register at the first desk we went to, so we headed back to general registration to get the necessary paperwork done.
11:00 AM~Finally we make it upstairs to the labor and delivery exam room and I get hooked up to a blood pressure cuff (which goes off every five minutes, more annoyance), a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor. Kris at this point has passed his threshold for hunger and inquires about lunch. We decide that the doctor will probably be a while so he heads out to take Cage home, who has been in the car the entire time and to get some lunch. I called my mom to update her on the situation and told her once I talked to the doctor I would call her back.
11:05AM~Like two ships passing in the night, as soon as Kris leaves, Dr. Morishita comes in. "I really want to talk to you and your husband about the situation and about going on vacation" she says. "He just left to get some lunch and to take the dog home, because he has been in the car all morning" I respond. "Funny, I was just heading out to grab some lunch and let my dog out as I live close by" she replies. Then we came to the conclusion that she could do the lunch/dog thing like Kris and will probably will be back about the say time and we could all talk about the options.
12:00PM~Kris comes back with lunch and I have to pee again, or so I thought. I went to the bathroom and came back to the bed and I was still going. "Weird, I think somethings wrong" I said. Kris responds "wrong like, where?" "Well my pants are wet" I respond as I stand up and sure enough there is a puddle underneath me. "I think your water broke" Kris says as he runs out to the nurses station to inform them of the situation. Sure enough, water broken!
12:30PM~Dr. Morishita comes back and says "well we were going to talk about the options but your water has broken, so you aren't going anywhere. You're staying here and having a baby, yeah!" I quickly called my mom and said "well I think the baby shower is out this weekend because my water broke." My mom said "wait, what? Really? I'll call you back." Then she hung up. I assume at this point phone calls, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, tweets, texts, emails and facebook posts clogged up the networks as my mom spread the word, ran around like a chicken with her head cut off and ran home to pack and come to Newport.
AT THIS POINT MY HEAD EXPLODED! THE NEXT TIME I GO OUTSIDE I WILL HAVE A BABY WITH ME, AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I know that to this point there have been a lot of details and dialog but the next 12 hours will go much quicker, mostly thanks to the large amount of drugs that I was on and the fact that I will be posting information that I got second hand from other people.
1:00PM~I get my IV placed, which was interesting because I guess I am a bleeder and when the nurse hit the vein, it looked like something had been slaughtered in my room. Then I got petosin, a synthetic version of the hormone that causes contractions and it certainly worked because I could only stand the contractions for a few hours before I needed something for the pain.
4:00PM~I got my first pain shot, which was fabulous! It really took the edge off. We were waiting for someone to go home from one of the birth suites and for the room to be clean so that we could move into our room, in which we would be spending the next five days.
5:00PM~After another shot of fetinol and some maneuvering on the bed and many IV tubes, we moved across the hall to our room and got settled. Just before moving I talked a nurse (with a Ben Franklin) into calling in the anesthesiologist for a consult on an epidural. The fetinol just wasn't cutting it. Just kidding about the Ben Franklin, as the nurse took one look at me and said "you look like you need something a bit stronger."
6:00PM~My mom got there, very excited and immediately set up shop in our room. She was staying at a hotel nearby but need a second home base to camp out at during labor. Also my new best friend, Brent the anesthesiologist, came in and placed the epidural. It was amazing how it didn't hurt to get placed and how quickly it worked. It took me some time to figure out how the drugs worked because if I laid on one side too long, that side would be useless and completely numb. So, I had to make sure I was laying flat or shifting from side to side.
7:00PM~My dad showed up. I soon realized, as more and more people came, that this was really happening. I was going to have a baby! I got really excited but was completely scared at the same time.
7:30PM~Kate and Bre showed up. This was interesting because the policy is that during labor you are only allowed to have three support people. My three people were Kris, my mom and my sister Kate. The nurses were so great and easy going, as the allowed my dad and Bre to be there as well. We all just sat around for a while, talked and laughed once I lost complete control of my right leg, which ended up feeling like a 50 pound ham hock and falling all over the place thanks to gravity.
8:00PM~The nurse came in to check and I was completely effaced and at about 5 cm, which was a pretty quick change from the 1-2cm ten hours earlier. Also I had gotten a great picture message from Amanda and Casey which consisted of a picture of the two of them with a sign that said in big letters, PUSH!!!!! I quickly called them to thank them, as kindly as I could in drugged up stupor, for the great motivational tool.
10:00PM~Another nurse came in to check my progress and said "huh, unless you have a hidden cervix farther back that I can't find, I think you are fully dilated. Let me get the doctor in here to make sure." Dr. Morishita came in and checked and sure enough I was complete and it was time to push. At that note, my dad high tailed it out of there and Kate and Bre were on his heels, followed by my mom with tears in her eyes. Everyone was really excited. Kris and I looked at each other, both with tears in our eyes. Without saying a word I knew that we were both ready for this and still both scared but we were in this together. It was definitely time to push. Over the next two and a half hours I changed positions, pushed, grunted, breathed, sweat, pushed again, change more positions and worked harder than I ever had in my entire life. It was tough to get the hang of what everyone was telling me to do when it came to pushing because I had never done it before but I gave it my all. At one point Dr. Morishita said "have you been doing kegels because you muscles are so strong which is great but you need to be able to relax those muscles in order to get the baby out." I thought that's ironic that everyone tells you to do kegels to prep for labor and I apparently had done them too well because it was inhibiting me from delivering or so I thought.
11:45PM~At this point all I could think about was how tired I was from pushing, for only an hour and 45 minutes and the fact that Casey had so eloquently reminded me that if I didn't deliver before midnight I would have a Friday the 13th baby. Well that last thought lasted for about two seconds and I was back to pushing. The pain and work of labor was so great, that the fabulous lunch Kris had brought to the hospital earlier came right back. Totally normal I am told but it didn't make labor any easier.
12:20AM~I was getting really tired. Kris was so great and supportive through the entire process, holding my dead leg, rubbing my back, counting while I pushed and really motivating and coaching me. He is the best! I finally got to the point where I needed to just buckle down and do it. So I pushed like no other and POP, out came her head! At this point we realized that the reason I had to work so hard pushing was because the baby was face up. She had been getting stuck on my pelvis, which ended up giving her a nasty bruise on her forehead. Now at this point the epidural had been turned off because it had been so strong that I could not tell when I was having contractions which didn't help the labor progress. So I was doing this au natural!
12:21AM~Push. push, push, push and BAM! Baby was born! They pulled her out, the nurse cut the cord and then rushed her over to the warmer where Dr. Burns the pediatrician and a team of nurses were standing by ready for action. I am not sure how much time elapsed but Kris and I just stared at the warmer, waiting for our little girl to cry but nothing. It was so scary. I don't think I breathed or blinked for what seemed like hours but I am sure it was more like minutes. We both watched as the team went to work with the air bag, rubbing and cleaning our little girl, trying to get her to breathe on her own. I could feel the anxiety building up in me and I squeezed Kris' hand so tight that I was sure I broke his fingers. His arms were around me, still from pushing her out, and we just waited. Then all of a sudden there was a cry that was the most beautiful noise I had ever heard in my life. I said "oh, she sounds like our cat," which she did and everyone in the room laughed. The team continued for a few more minutes to rub her down, clean her up and get her all set. Then they brought her over to Kris and I and we got to hold her. This was without a doubt the best experience in my entire life. Kris and I looked at each other and I thanked him for giving me this wonderful gift. She was absolutely perfect! The two of us just laid there with our daughter, weird to think about, and stared at her in amazement. It was so completely surreal.
12:50AM~I handed our little girl over to Kris while I went back to the work of after birth. Dr. Morishita had asked that I push again to get the placenta out but nothing was happening. Usually they like to get the placenta out within about 30 minutes of the baby being delivered but mine was a no go. The doctor had explained to me that from time to time the placenta can attach to the uterus, called a retained placenta, which makes after birth difficult. She worked manually for some time trying to get the placenta out which was the worst pain I had ever been in in my life. Labor was a breeze compared to the pain of having a placenta scraped out of you. Again the pain was so intense that I got sick to my stomach again, which as before didn't help. After some time of manually working as well as working with some pretty nasty looking tools, Dr. Morishita explained "I can't get the placenta out either manually or with tools. The next step is that we need to take you down to the OR either restart the epidural or give you a general and get the placenta out ASAP. I don't want to hurt you anymore so we really need to get you down there. Also, once we get in there there is a chance that if the placenta is really attached, we may need to do a full hysterectomy. If it comes down to a choice between future fertility and life, I am going to choose life." Kris and I agreed, well Kris really because I had been given a few more shots while the doctor was working on the placenta, and I was prepped for surgery.
1:30AM~The nurses instructed me to "scooch" hips then shoulders from one bed to the other, which was really tough because I was still kind of drugged. All I remember at this point is that one of the nurses wanted to move the ultrasound machine and another kept telling her that the doctor wanted it to go down to surgery with me. This exchange happened about three times and at one point I wanted to scream "leave the damn ultrasound machine because it needs to go down with me to the OR" but I was too tired and drugged to have any kind of coherent conversation with anyone. My family, who had been patiently waiting in a labor waiting area for about an hour, had been given bits and pieces of information about the baby after she had been born and how she needed to be jumped started but that she was doing just fine. Unfortunately, they had not been given any information about my retained placenta situation. All of a sudden my best friend Brent was back and said that we will take good care of her in the OR and off he went to my room to check on me before surgery. All of my family in that waiting room had the same reaction to this news, WTF!!!!!!! At this point they were a little upset to find out haphazardly that I needed surgery and commotion ran a muck. One of the nurses who had been in the room while the doctor worked on the placenta saw this interaction and went over to talk to my family members, because Kris had been in with me and our baby the entire time. She gave them an overview and said the doctor would be out to talk to them in a bit. Dr. Morishita explained everything to them and what was going to happen. At this point Kate and Bre left to head back to Corvallis and my mom and dad were left in the waiting room. Kris was in our room with the baby when the nurses were getting ready to wheel me down to surgery.
2:00AM~Kris handed our little girl off to the nurses so that he could walk as far as the operating room door with me. I was so out of it at this point that all I remember was bright lights, kissing Kris bye and telling him I would be out in a little while. I do remember that he looked so worried but tried to keep a brave face. Then I was wheeled in to the operating room, asked to scooch again on to an even tinier table and then I was out.
4:30AM~The next thing I know I am in recovery as a nurse is placing these massage braces on my legs to keep the circulation going while I recovered. Kris was in our birth suit. My mom headed to the hotel after the doctor came and gave them a good report on the surgery and our baby was in with the nurses, so that Kris could get a bit of sleep. I had to be in recovery for about an hour and I remember one of the nurses coming back to check on me and having those damn massage braces alternate between legs but consistently massaging my legs, which after a while gets pretty annoying.
5:30AM~I was wheeled back into my birth suit, which had been cleaned top to bottom and I guess it was quite the blood bath because Kris told me that at one point there was a nurse hunting down bloody foot prints in the room after the doctor left the room. It was so good to see Kris and there was definitely relief on his face. I had no idea what had happened from scooch on a new bed to being wheeled down to surgery to when I came back from recovery but I would find out later that morning. With everything that had happened, I was overwhelmed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
8:30AM~Kris is asleep on his pull out bed, our baby is asleep in her bassinet and I am just waking up, feeling like I just got off a 400 mile bike ride and really hung over. My best friend Brent came in and woke me up to give me a report. This is where I found out about how scary and tough of a situation I was in. Once I got down to surgery they gave me a general and I was completely put out. It took Dr. Morishita a while to get the placenta out, even though I was knocked out and not in any pain, that placenta didn't want to come out. I came very close to having a full hysterectomy. Then the placenta finally came out but then the issue became how to stop the bleeding. Brent said "at this point it was touch and go and I said a little prayer." After some time of profusely bleeding, Dr. Morishita was able to control the bleeding but not before Brent had called for a blood transfusion. Normally people have about 14 units of blood in them and I had lost about half of that between the birth, after birth work and once the placenta came out. Dr. Morishita didn't want to have a transfusion done because she didn't like the odds of something going wrong even though the odds are like one in a million. So no transfusion, which is why many of the pictures of me in the weeks following, I look like an extra from one of the Twilight movies. I thanked Brent for everything he did and decided to order some breakfast.
After all is said and done, I am so extremely glad and thankful that we ended up with a healthy baby, healthy mom. It was scary to think back about all I had been through especially finding out about what happened to me after the fact. But having that little girl healthy and happy was all that mattered to me. I would definitely learn over the next few days just how much my life was going to change and with Kris by my side and after going through what we went through over the last 24 hours, I knew we were ready for anything!
9:40 AM~I head into the medical records department to get a copy of my prenatal paperwork so that if something happens while we were on vacation, I would have all of my charts and notes with me. Better safe than sorry. Yet when I asked for my paper work they had said the clinic asked for it back for my appointment that day. This caused a little frustration because I submitted a request for a copy of my paperwork a week before and really how long does it take to run a stack of papers through the copy machine?
9:45 AM~A bite defeated but stubborn enough to go complain to someone else, I walk down to the doctor's office, where I find Kris waiting patiently for me. I check in with the wonderful gal at the front desk who, with a wink and a smile, hands me an envelope with my name on it and says "not how it is suppose to be done but records has a tendency to take forever with requests, so when the official one comes just act normal." Shh, don't tell medical records!
10:00 AM~Finally my name is called to go back, pee in a shot glass sized cup (tougher than you think), get weighed like a cow getting ready for show (up to 208, yes I just posted my weight) and head to my room to wait even longer for the doctor to come in.
10:15 AM~At this point I am getting a bit nervous because I need to leave by 10:30 at the latest if I am going to make it to Albany for the start of class at noon. I keep looking at Kris and asking for the time, which he so patiently tells me with a reassuring "don't worry, you'll have plenty of time." I knew I would have time especially since I told my students that I might be a bit late but still I hate being late.
10:30 AM~Doctor comes in. Dr. Morishita is really a great doctor and I understand that she is busy with appointments and delivering babies and whatnot, so I keep telling myself that I need to be patient as a patient. The checkup begins and we listen to baby's heartbeat, check my blood pressure and see if there are any questions. My blood pressure is a bit high but I tell her that "it is probably because I just dealt with medical records" and she laughs, saying "you're probably right." Then Dr. Morishita turns to Kris and I with a more than normal serious look on her face and says "I know you guys are planning on leaving for a long vacation but we really don't like people to travel after 35 weeks and you are entering into your 36th week. Are you having any contractions?" Now this is a question that many people had started to ask me and my initial response was "why don't you ask me if I have ever been kicked in the balls because I really have nothing to compare it to, so how would I know?" I simply responded with the fact that I was having some discomfort and cramping which I guess are contractions? She responded "would you like me to check your cervix to see if there has been any change just to make sure?" I wanted to make sure that things were ok before leaving town, so I agreed, Dr. Morishita stepped out, I got into position and the doctor came back in. "Well, I would say that you are about 1-2 cm and about 90% effaced" says Dr. Morishita. "There has definitely been some change because at the last appointment you were 1 cm and about 70% effaced. That was six days ago, so yeah there has definitely been some change, so I would like to send you upstairs and hook you up to the monitors just to see if you are having contractions, to be safe" Dr. Morishita says. I look at Kris with a little annoyance on my face but agreed because its a good idea to be "safe."
10:45 AM~Kris and I head over to registration and they ask if I am having any pain. I stupidly reply "yes" so they immediately send me to the ER registration. Now we have gone to ER before and needless to say I was a bit more annoyed and frustrated at this point but again agreed because I wanted to be "safe."
10:50 AM~Sitting in the ER registration room, answering a laundry list of questions and getting more and more annoyed. In between questions, I was frantically searching online on my phone (I LOVE MY iPHONE!) for our department secretary's phone number to let him know about my situation and that I would not be able to make it to class. My students would just have to get over me canceling class, I think they can manage. The nurse from labor and delivery comes in to the room to take us upstairs, yet we still aren't registered, as we were suppose to register at the first desk we went to, so we headed back to general registration to get the necessary paperwork done.
11:00 AM~Finally we make it upstairs to the labor and delivery exam room and I get hooked up to a blood pressure cuff (which goes off every five minutes, more annoyance), a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor. Kris at this point has passed his threshold for hunger and inquires about lunch. We decide that the doctor will probably be a while so he heads out to take Cage home, who has been in the car the entire time and to get some lunch. I called my mom to update her on the situation and told her once I talked to the doctor I would call her back.
11:05AM~Like two ships passing in the night, as soon as Kris leaves, Dr. Morishita comes in. "I really want to talk to you and your husband about the situation and about going on vacation" she says. "He just left to get some lunch and to take the dog home, because he has been in the car all morning" I respond. "Funny, I was just heading out to grab some lunch and let my dog out as I live close by" she replies. Then we came to the conclusion that she could do the lunch/dog thing like Kris and will probably will be back about the say time and we could all talk about the options.
12:00PM~Kris comes back with lunch and I have to pee again, or so I thought. I went to the bathroom and came back to the bed and I was still going. "Weird, I think somethings wrong" I said. Kris responds "wrong like, where?" "Well my pants are wet" I respond as I stand up and sure enough there is a puddle underneath me. "I think your water broke" Kris says as he runs out to the nurses station to inform them of the situation. Sure enough, water broken!
12:30PM~Dr. Morishita comes back and says "well we were going to talk about the options but your water has broken, so you aren't going anywhere. You're staying here and having a baby, yeah!" I quickly called my mom and said "well I think the baby shower is out this weekend because my water broke." My mom said "wait, what? Really? I'll call you back." Then she hung up. I assume at this point phone calls, smoke signals, carrier pigeons, tweets, texts, emails and facebook posts clogged up the networks as my mom spread the word, ran around like a chicken with her head cut off and ran home to pack and come to Newport.
AT THIS POINT MY HEAD EXPLODED! THE NEXT TIME I GO OUTSIDE I WILL HAVE A BABY WITH ME, AHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I know that to this point there have been a lot of details and dialog but the next 12 hours will go much quicker, mostly thanks to the large amount of drugs that I was on and the fact that I will be posting information that I got second hand from other people.
1:00PM~I get my IV placed, which was interesting because I guess I am a bleeder and when the nurse hit the vein, it looked like something had been slaughtered in my room. Then I got petosin, a synthetic version of the hormone that causes contractions and it certainly worked because I could only stand the contractions for a few hours before I needed something for the pain.
4:00PM~I got my first pain shot, which was fabulous! It really took the edge off. We were waiting for someone to go home from one of the birth suites and for the room to be clean so that we could move into our room, in which we would be spending the next five days.
5:00PM~After another shot of fetinol and some maneuvering on the bed and many IV tubes, we moved across the hall to our room and got settled. Just before moving I talked a nurse (with a Ben Franklin) into calling in the anesthesiologist for a consult on an epidural. The fetinol just wasn't cutting it. Just kidding about the Ben Franklin, as the nurse took one look at me and said "you look like you need something a bit stronger."
6:00PM~My mom got there, very excited and immediately set up shop in our room. She was staying at a hotel nearby but need a second home base to camp out at during labor. Also my new best friend, Brent the anesthesiologist, came in and placed the epidural. It was amazing how it didn't hurt to get placed and how quickly it worked. It took me some time to figure out how the drugs worked because if I laid on one side too long, that side would be useless and completely numb. So, I had to make sure I was laying flat or shifting from side to side.
7:00PM~My dad showed up. I soon realized, as more and more people came, that this was really happening. I was going to have a baby! I got really excited but was completely scared at the same time.
7:30PM~Kate and Bre showed up. This was interesting because the policy is that during labor you are only allowed to have three support people. My three people were Kris, my mom and my sister Kate. The nurses were so great and easy going, as the allowed my dad and Bre to be there as well. We all just sat around for a while, talked and laughed once I lost complete control of my right leg, which ended up feeling like a 50 pound ham hock and falling all over the place thanks to gravity.
8:00PM~The nurse came in to check and I was completely effaced and at about 5 cm, which was a pretty quick change from the 1-2cm ten hours earlier. Also I had gotten a great picture message from Amanda and Casey which consisted of a picture of the two of them with a sign that said in big letters, PUSH!!!!! I quickly called them to thank them, as kindly as I could in drugged up stupor, for the great motivational tool.
10:00PM~Another nurse came in to check my progress and said "huh, unless you have a hidden cervix farther back that I can't find, I think you are fully dilated. Let me get the doctor in here to make sure." Dr. Morishita came in and checked and sure enough I was complete and it was time to push. At that note, my dad high tailed it out of there and Kate and Bre were on his heels, followed by my mom with tears in her eyes. Everyone was really excited. Kris and I looked at each other, both with tears in our eyes. Without saying a word I knew that we were both ready for this and still both scared but we were in this together. It was definitely time to push. Over the next two and a half hours I changed positions, pushed, grunted, breathed, sweat, pushed again, change more positions and worked harder than I ever had in my entire life. It was tough to get the hang of what everyone was telling me to do when it came to pushing because I had never done it before but I gave it my all. At one point Dr. Morishita said "have you been doing kegels because you muscles are so strong which is great but you need to be able to relax those muscles in order to get the baby out." I thought that's ironic that everyone tells you to do kegels to prep for labor and I apparently had done them too well because it was inhibiting me from delivering or so I thought.
11:45PM~At this point all I could think about was how tired I was from pushing, for only an hour and 45 minutes and the fact that Casey had so eloquently reminded me that if I didn't deliver before midnight I would have a Friday the 13th baby. Well that last thought lasted for about two seconds and I was back to pushing. The pain and work of labor was so great, that the fabulous lunch Kris had brought to the hospital earlier came right back. Totally normal I am told but it didn't make labor any easier.
12:20AM~I was getting really tired. Kris was so great and supportive through the entire process, holding my dead leg, rubbing my back, counting while I pushed and really motivating and coaching me. He is the best! I finally got to the point where I needed to just buckle down and do it. So I pushed like no other and POP, out came her head! At this point we realized that the reason I had to work so hard pushing was because the baby was face up. She had been getting stuck on my pelvis, which ended up giving her a nasty bruise on her forehead. Now at this point the epidural had been turned off because it had been so strong that I could not tell when I was having contractions which didn't help the labor progress. So I was doing this au natural!
12:21AM~Push. push, push, push and BAM! Baby was born! They pulled her out, the nurse cut the cord and then rushed her over to the warmer where Dr. Burns the pediatrician and a team of nurses were standing by ready for action. I am not sure how much time elapsed but Kris and I just stared at the warmer, waiting for our little girl to cry but nothing. It was so scary. I don't think I breathed or blinked for what seemed like hours but I am sure it was more like minutes. We both watched as the team went to work with the air bag, rubbing and cleaning our little girl, trying to get her to breathe on her own. I could feel the anxiety building up in me and I squeezed Kris' hand so tight that I was sure I broke his fingers. His arms were around me, still from pushing her out, and we just waited. Then all of a sudden there was a cry that was the most beautiful noise I had ever heard in my life. I said "oh, she sounds like our cat," which she did and everyone in the room laughed. The team continued for a few more minutes to rub her down, clean her up and get her all set. Then they brought her over to Kris and I and we got to hold her. This was without a doubt the best experience in my entire life. Kris and I looked at each other and I thanked him for giving me this wonderful gift. She was absolutely perfect! The two of us just laid there with our daughter, weird to think about, and stared at her in amazement. It was so completely surreal.
12:50AM~I handed our little girl over to Kris while I went back to the work of after birth. Dr. Morishita had asked that I push again to get the placenta out but nothing was happening. Usually they like to get the placenta out within about 30 minutes of the baby being delivered but mine was a no go. The doctor had explained to me that from time to time the placenta can attach to the uterus, called a retained placenta, which makes after birth difficult. She worked manually for some time trying to get the placenta out which was the worst pain I had ever been in in my life. Labor was a breeze compared to the pain of having a placenta scraped out of you. Again the pain was so intense that I got sick to my stomach again, which as before didn't help. After some time of manually working as well as working with some pretty nasty looking tools, Dr. Morishita explained "I can't get the placenta out either manually or with tools. The next step is that we need to take you down to the OR either restart the epidural or give you a general and get the placenta out ASAP. I don't want to hurt you anymore so we really need to get you down there. Also, once we get in there there is a chance that if the placenta is really attached, we may need to do a full hysterectomy. If it comes down to a choice between future fertility and life, I am going to choose life." Kris and I agreed, well Kris really because I had been given a few more shots while the doctor was working on the placenta, and I was prepped for surgery.
1:30AM~The nurses instructed me to "scooch" hips then shoulders from one bed to the other, which was really tough because I was still kind of drugged. All I remember at this point is that one of the nurses wanted to move the ultrasound machine and another kept telling her that the doctor wanted it to go down to surgery with me. This exchange happened about three times and at one point I wanted to scream "leave the damn ultrasound machine because it needs to go down with me to the OR" but I was too tired and drugged to have any kind of coherent conversation with anyone. My family, who had been patiently waiting in a labor waiting area for about an hour, had been given bits and pieces of information about the baby after she had been born and how she needed to be jumped started but that she was doing just fine. Unfortunately, they had not been given any information about my retained placenta situation. All of a sudden my best friend Brent was back and said that we will take good care of her in the OR and off he went to my room to check on me before surgery. All of my family in that waiting room had the same reaction to this news, WTF!!!!!!! At this point they were a little upset to find out haphazardly that I needed surgery and commotion ran a muck. One of the nurses who had been in the room while the doctor worked on the placenta saw this interaction and went over to talk to my family members, because Kris had been in with me and our baby the entire time. She gave them an overview and said the doctor would be out to talk to them in a bit. Dr. Morishita explained everything to them and what was going to happen. At this point Kate and Bre left to head back to Corvallis and my mom and dad were left in the waiting room. Kris was in our room with the baby when the nurses were getting ready to wheel me down to surgery.
2:00AM~Kris handed our little girl off to the nurses so that he could walk as far as the operating room door with me. I was so out of it at this point that all I remember was bright lights, kissing Kris bye and telling him I would be out in a little while. I do remember that he looked so worried but tried to keep a brave face. Then I was wheeled in to the operating room, asked to scooch again on to an even tinier table and then I was out.
4:30AM~The next thing I know I am in recovery as a nurse is placing these massage braces on my legs to keep the circulation going while I recovered. Kris was in our birth suit. My mom headed to the hotel after the doctor came and gave them a good report on the surgery and our baby was in with the nurses, so that Kris could get a bit of sleep. I had to be in recovery for about an hour and I remember one of the nurses coming back to check on me and having those damn massage braces alternate between legs but consistently massaging my legs, which after a while gets pretty annoying.
5:30AM~I was wheeled back into my birth suit, which had been cleaned top to bottom and I guess it was quite the blood bath because Kris told me that at one point there was a nurse hunting down bloody foot prints in the room after the doctor left the room. It was so good to see Kris and there was definitely relief on his face. I had no idea what had happened from scooch on a new bed to being wheeled down to surgery to when I came back from recovery but I would find out later that morning. With everything that had happened, I was overwhelmed and fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.
8:30AM~Kris is asleep on his pull out bed, our baby is asleep in her bassinet and I am just waking up, feeling like I just got off a 400 mile bike ride and really hung over. My best friend Brent came in and woke me up to give me a report. This is where I found out about how scary and tough of a situation I was in. Once I got down to surgery they gave me a general and I was completely put out. It took Dr. Morishita a while to get the placenta out, even though I was knocked out and not in any pain, that placenta didn't want to come out. I came very close to having a full hysterectomy. Then the placenta finally came out but then the issue became how to stop the bleeding. Brent said "at this point it was touch and go and I said a little prayer." After some time of profusely bleeding, Dr. Morishita was able to control the bleeding but not before Brent had called for a blood transfusion. Normally people have about 14 units of blood in them and I had lost about half of that between the birth, after birth work and once the placenta came out. Dr. Morishita didn't want to have a transfusion done because she didn't like the odds of something going wrong even though the odds are like one in a million. So no transfusion, which is why many of the pictures of me in the weeks following, I look like an extra from one of the Twilight movies. I thanked Brent for everything he did and decided to order some breakfast.
After all is said and done, I am so extremely glad and thankful that we ended up with a healthy baby, healthy mom. It was scary to think back about all I had been through especially finding out about what happened to me after the fact. But having that little girl healthy and happy was all that mattered to me. I would definitely learn over the next few days just how much my life was going to change and with Kris by my side and after going through what we went through over the last 24 hours, I knew we were ready for anything!
