I have been working on getting this just how I want it for awhile now, and while I have yet to think it is perfect I know that it is time to share it. This is part one of her birth story. It is quite long, and it goes from when labor started until her actual arrival. The craziness which ensued after her delivery will be in part two. I started this over a month ago so the date is different, and it is written to my daughter so it is written a bit differently than it would be if it was just a blog post.
My Dearest Sydney,
It’s so hard to believe that you will be three weeks old
tomorrow, June 7, 2013. I have spent the majority of the past three weeks just
staring in wonder at the miracle of you. I find myself wrapped up in your tiny
noises, engrossed by your facial expressions, and totally in love when you open
your eyes and look at me. In truth, the
past three weeks have been the best three weeks of my life. I realized, however, that I have spent no
time documenting your life thus far because I’ve been too caught up in staring
at you. What follows is a summary of your birth and the first three weeks of
your amazing life. I love you, Angel!
May 16, 2013 marked the arrival of week 36 in my pregnancy
with you. My body had been aching for a few weeks at this point because (mostly)
of the bed rest that I was on due to my risk of preeclampsia. I had an appointment with Dr. Ismail at 10:00
to have an NST and BPP (non-stress test and biophysical profile) and then see
the doctor. Your grandpa was driving me up to my appointments at University of
Chicago because I was told not to drive, and it was so nice to have the company
during the many months of visits up there.
I woke up that morning feeling exhausted. You were always
such a good night time sleeper in my tummy, but the previous night you were
awake almost the entire night through. You kept kicking, punching, rolling your
head, and doing whatever else you could think of in your cramped quarters. This
was so extremely unlike you, and I was kept awake by your strong movements for hours
on end. When the alarm went off in the morning, I struggled to keep my eyes
open and I dreaded the tiring length of the day ahead of me. I truly had no
idea how long the day would actually be.
My NST went great, and you passed the biophysical profile
with flying colors. They attempted to get a 3D picture of your face for us, but
the technician remarked that you were so far down in my pelvis that it was just
simply impossible to get a picture of your face. She was shocked at how low you
were. We had been hearing that you were low for weeks so I really didn’t think
much of this comment, and I proceeded to wait for Dr. Ismail’s appointment.
As I was called back to Dr. Ismail’s office, I was put into
an exam room, and my blood pressure was taken. My blood pressure was pretty
high as it had been a few days prior at my last appointment. They were very
concerned at this point that I was developing preeclampsia so on May 13 I had
many blood tests done, and a 24-hour urine collection as well. They were hoping
to have results for me during this appointment to make sure that everything was
safe for me and you.
As I was waiting for the doctor to come in, I started
feeling miserable suddenly. I was nauseous, crampy, and just overall feeling
terrible. Dr. Ismail arrived shortly after this feeling began, and after
talking to me for about ten minutes, he concluded that he believed I was in
active labor. He had his P.A. check me which showed that I was 100% effaced and
2 cm dilated. He immediately sent me over to labor and delivery to be
evaluated, but I figured we would be going home in a short while. I truly did
not think that I was in labor at this point.
I vaguely remember the walk over to labor and delivery as I
also called your daddy’s school to find out what time his lunch was (I didn’t
want to interrupt his classes to tell him I was in labor and delivery since I knew I was going home soon). I checked in at the L&D desk, and I was
given a gown to change into and hooked up to the monitors to see about
contractions. Sure enough, I was contracting
every 2-3 minutes, and they were looking like very promising contractions.
Since I had steroid shots with you at 33 weeks for our preterm labor scare,
there was no reason to stop labor from happening at this point so they moved me
into the labor and delivery room for admission.
At this point, I called your daddy to make sure he knew what
was happening. I explained that they were admitting me and this was the real
deal (we had had two previous hospitalizations prior to your delivery); you
would be making your arrival into this world within the next 24 hours! Your
daddy’s work immediately told him to go, and he, Grandma, and Auntie Ellie came
up as fast as they could to be with me.
Shortly after being admitted to a private room, they broke
the news to me that I did indeed have preeclampsia. This meant that I was to be
put on a magnesium sulfate drip to protect me from having seizures during
labor. The problem with magnesium sulfate, they explained, was that it was
known to stop labor so they planned on adding in Pitocin if needed to continue
my labor pattern. I had really not wanted to have Pitocin so I was quite sad to
hear this news, but I knew that it was safest for both of us if you made your
arrival vaginally so if Pitocin was needed I would be okay with it.
Your daddy arrived shortly after all of this was explained,
and it was nice to have my family there to support me. I called Grandma Murray
to let her know I was in labor as well, and she planned on coming to the
hospital as soon as she got off of work. Everyone was quite anxious and excited
for your arrival! Soon after Daddy’s arrival, they hooked me up to the
magnesium sulfate, and this is where things start to get a little blurry for
me. The magnesium sulfate created an almost anesthetic like effect where
everything seemed really foggy and blurry (literally). Unfortunately, it did
nothing to take away from the pain of contractions.
Within about an hour of starting the magnesium, the Pitocin
was started because my contractions stopped being regular. It was hard to
accept that I needed Pitocin, but the whole experience wasn’t as bad as I
anticipated it to be. In fact, the contractions got stronger, but they were
completely manageable as long as I had a hand to squeeze and a pillow to
breathe into. I actually remember having Braxton Hicks contractions which were
stronger than the ones during the Pitocin.
These contractions continued for hours upon hours as they
let me labor on my own. I wasn’t able to get out of bed which was the most
frustrating part to me, but it was required because of the magnesium. So I lay
in bed as the family took turns staying beside me so everyone could eat dinner.
Your Auntie Ellie bought a sweet headband and socks for your arrival, and your
Grandma Murray showed up at this point too. This period of time seemed to go by
so quickly and before I realized it, it was starting to get dark outside.
At some point, I decided I wanted to watch the season finale
of American Idol while going through the contractions, but I remember so little
of the actual show! I was too busy breathing through contractions every three
minutes or so that it was hard to focus on what was happening.
About 12 hours in (around midnight), Daddy convinced me to
get an epidural so I could get some rest. I felt that I had been handling the
contractions well, and I fought him on this decision. He managed to talk me
into it though as he worried I was too exhausted (remember I had very little
sleep from the previous night). Even
when anesthesia came in to talk to me, I told them I really wasn’t sure I
needed it but to put the order in for one anyway. So they did. At this point, they
also decided to check me to see how much I had progressed.
When the doctor came in to check me, I remember wondering
how far I had progressed and how many centimeters dilated I was. I never really expected her to tell me that I
hadn’t progressed at all except that you had moved further down in the birth
canal. I was truly heartbroken. I had been in active labor for twelve hours and
made no progress whatsoever! I felt defeated at this point, and I realized the
epidural would probably help move things along.
About twenty minutes after being checked, my water broke! I
remember asking the nurses a dozen times if the water was clear, and each time
they assured me that yes it was. I was so worried that something would be wrong
during your delivery that I kept questioning everything. Within minutes of my
water breaking, my contractions went from manageable to completely terrible.
They were so painful that I could hardly breathe through them, and I was so
grateful that anesthesia was on their way with the epidural. I had been so
against having an epidural, but these contractions were no joke anymore, and I
didn’t want to manage them without pain meds.
Receiving the epidural was scarier than I wanted it to be,
but at the same time not as bad as I had imagined. I always worried about the
needle going into my back, but honestly I didn’t feel that part at all. The
part that was scary was when my blood pressure plummeted, and I started
blacking out. Daddy was in the room holding me up during the procedure, and he
said there was a lot of blood everywhere. He also heard the doctors talking to
each other about how the medicine they were giving me just wasn’t working, and
he very quickly became quite frightened. It took several minutes to get things
back to where they were supposed to be, and I soon started feeling better.
They explained that I could hit a button for additional pain
medicine to be delivered when I needed it, and it was only minutes after the
doctor left that I was hitting the button because only one side of my body was
getting any relief from the contractions. After several contractions and still
being in excruciating pain, the nurse called the anesthesiologist back to give
me a bolus of pain meds to see if that would help. The bolus did help for a few
minutes, but then the pain was back on one side yet again. At this point, it
was pretty apparent that my epidural was “patchy” and would only cover part of
the pain.
The doctors told me to try and sleep as much as I could
because I would need my energy for pushing, but I simply couldn’t sleep with
the pain I was in. Thankfully, I had a wonderful support system around me to
help get me through each contraction. I squeezed the bed railing so hard while
your daddy put pressure on my back each time a new contraction would come on. I
was so exhausted at this point, and I truly had no idea how I could keep going
any longer.
An hour after my water broke, I started feeling a lot of
pressure between my legs but I didn’t think anything of it. With the epidural
being patchy, everything felt a little different anyway. When the pressure
continued to increase during the next hour, I told Grandma Brooks how as I
feeling, and she asked the nurse to have someone check me again. When the doctor came in, I truly expected her
to say that I hadn’t progressed much more. Instead, she told me that I was
“complete,” which meant that I had gone from two centimeters dilated to ten in
just two hours. She also told me that
you weren’t facing the “right way” for labor, and you were looking up toward
the ceiling instead. I asked what that meant, and she told me it would be a
harder labor than regular. Given how stubborn you were throughout the
pregnancy, this didn’t really surprise me! Instead of worrying about your
position, all I could think of at that point was It was officially time to
push.
The nurse put an oxygen mask on me to help with the strain
of pushing and given how exhausted I was, the oxygen was very beneficial for
me. As I began pushing, the doctor who was on staff had already called Dr.
Ismail to come in, but she would be taking care of me until he arrived.
The next hour seemed like an eternity as I struggled to push
with an epidural that had become very ineffective at this point. I could feel
everything in both legs which meant it had basically worn off, but I had to
keep pushing. I was so very frustrated with the doctors because they kept
telling me I was making progress, but I didn’t feel like I was getting
anywhere. With each contraction, the
pain was so strong that I thought I was going to rip off Daddy’s hand.
I kept pushing though, and eventually the doctor told me
that she could see your head and that you had a full head of hair! I was
thrilled to hear this, and it gave me an energy boost I desperately needed to
keep going. At this point, however, the
doctors were handling two deliveries, and I found out that they told Dr. Ismail
not to come in because he wasn’t going to make it in time for your birth.
The doctors kept going in and out of the room to deal with
both births happening at the same time, and I kept asking where they were as I
kept pushing and pushing with just our family and a nurse present. All of the
sudden, the nurse told me to stop pushing (this seemed like the most horrific
request and it was the hardest thing in the world to do), and I suddenly got
scared. I thought something was wrong, but she simply had to run and get the
doctors because it was officially time for you to make your entrance.
I remember pushing as hard as I possibly could again and
again at this point. Daddy said he was thinking I was going to pass out because
of how strained my face was and how hard it was for me to breathe at this
point. As soon as I felt burning, however, I felt such a relief because I knew
that meant your head was ready to come out! I gave it all I could on that push,
and I felt such a relief when your head popped out and at 4:25 AM on May 17,
2013, I watched you come into the world. You were so very beautiful, and I was
ecstatic to hear your faint little cry.
 |
| My first time holding her..completely exhausted and very out of it. |
Everything happened quickly then. I was allowed to see you
and give you a quick kiss before they whisked you off to the NICU to be
monitored for your blood sugars because of my diabetes. In the time I got to
see you though, you were crying and crying until they put you on my chest and
you heard my voice. It was such a magical experience to know that my voice,
which you obviously recognized, calmed you down so instantaneously. They also did
tell me that you weighed 5 pounds and 14 ounces which I thought was great for
only being 36 weeks! After you were taken to the NICU, I was so upset not to
have you near me, and I was so exhausted at the same time. I ended up with a
third degree tear from the birth, and it took them over an hour to stitch me up
as well.
I thought the stitches would be the worst part of the entire experience (after the actual labor), but I had no idea what was to come.
To be continued. . .
I thought the stitches would be the worst part of the entire experience (after the actual labor), but I had no idea what was to come.
To be continued. . .
