38.3 weeks pregnant, I'd been up all night with a searing headache that all the Tylenol in the world couldn't shake. I was working from home and thought it would be smart to check my BP since it had been creeping up, and with the swelling I had, a headache was worrisome as it's a sign of pre-eclampsia. I took my BP, and it was 140/95. I started to panic a bit, called my mom who told me to call the OB. I chatted with the nurse who decided it was best for me to come into the office to get checked out as a pre cautionary measure. I made an appointment for 10 that morning. Mark had been gone on a trip and was scheduled to arrive home that morning as well around the same time as my appointment. That week I had decided I was going to do whatever I could to make Luke come sooner rather then later! I resolved to walk, walk, walk him out... well, I never had to do that :)
I arrived at my appointment with my home BP cuff in hand (I wanted to ensure my cuff was accurate and not just giving false high readings). A check of both the office BP cuff and mine confirmed my BP was very elevated. I wasn't spilling any proteins yet, which was good though. My doctor wasn't working that day, but her PA Ashley was in. She came in to chat with me, look at my swelling and numbers and went off to call my OB to consult. I figured if anything they would monitor me closely the next few days before birth, and maybe schedule an induction for 39 weeks (which would have been Saturday). Ashley walked back in and said she spoke to Dr. Abi and, I was having a baby today. I literally started panicking! I wanted Luke to come soon but I NEVER expected it to be that soon. Ashley said Dr. Abi was pretty concerned at my increasing BP and the only way to ensure it would come down was to deliver the baby. Ashely checked my progress and was still only 1cm dilated. She originally wanted to send me straight over to the hospital from the office. I asked nicely if I could have a few hours to get our things together and re-group with Mark since he just got home, and she asked us to check in at 7pm that night. So we had 8 hours to do EVERYTHING we had planned to do that coming week!
I texted Mark from the table and said "Hi love, we're having a baby today"... he had JUST landed in Austin, and was pretty shocked himself! His first response on the phone was "Well, I need to get my hair cut!" hahah, I think we were both in denial. Since we got a few hours of clearance, I told Mark to get his hair cut, and I rushed home to shower, pack, clean, etc! I called my mom who immediately left work to get on the road to Austin. When Mark got home, we rushed out the door to Costco for toilet paper and.... a big screen TV!! ??? yeah, I have no idea what we were thinking. For months we have been wanting a new TV, the one we had was like 24 inches and drove Mark crazy. We had talked about getting one before Luke arrived and now it was now or never! I mean, what crazy people go out and buy a 50" TV the day they have a baby, we do! It's the important things in life :)
My mom arrived around 6, just in time for us to say hello, give her instructions on the cat, and rush out the door to the hospital! She planned to get settled and come up later that evening.
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| Last family picture without Luke! |
7pm- we checked into the hospital, I have to say it was kind of nice to walk up to the check in desk not in pain and get my paper work in order :) they walked me to my labor room which was down at the end, nice and spacious and introduced me to my nurse. She reviewed paper work with me, showed me all of the monitoring equipment, had me change into my gown and they started to hook me up. My BP actually was higher at this point then earlier in the day, I don't remember exactly what it was, but I know she talked about possibly giving me magnesium if it didn't come down. That freaked me out as I've heard horror stories about how awful magnesium makes people feel! Luckily it dropped back down to around 140/95 again and I was able to avoid it.
She explained how the induction would go, they would give me two doses of Cytotec, a small pill placed next to the cervix to help me dilate (I had asked what the Cytoec would do, and if it would send me into labor. The nurse assured me that would be very rare, and that it would just dilate my cervix and labor would start the next day when I got pitocin), and then in the morning they would start pitocin as soon as Dr. Abi checked on me, and break my water. That would get labor moving along at that point.
9pm- The gave me the first dose of Cytotec, Mark and I were just relaxing and my mom was there. I was hooked up to the contraction monitor and was having contractions although I couldn't feel them. Within the hour I started having an increase in contractions, both in duration and intensity. The nurse was pretty surprised as that was rare that it put me into labor like that. I was supposed to get another one around 1am, but that never happened. It seemed the one dose of Cytotec sent me into full blown labor on it's own (looking back Dr. Abi told me I probably would have gone into labor on my own the next day given how I reacted to the meds). I was feeling pressure and was uncomfortable during the contractions but they weren't terrible yet. My mom left to go sleep, Mark was napping as he had flown a red eye the night before, and I took an Ambien to get some rest.
3am- my water broke on it's own. I called the nurse before waking up Mark, and as he hears me telling them I think my water broke he popped up in bed! I felt a rubber band snapping feeling and noise! I knew something happened... sure enough my water broke on it's own, also pretty shocking for an induction! I called my mom, and immediately after my water broke, I started having pretty terrible contractions. The pain was awful! I truly never expected it to be that bad because I had anticipated having an epidural by that point! Unfortunately I was only dilated to a 2-2.5 at that point and they wouldn't give me an epidural until I was 4cm. It was torture, at this point Luke heart rate started dropping with each contraction. They weren't sure why, but were having me change positions to get it back up and put me on O2 for the rest of my labor. I was in SO much pain, I was begging for anything... I never expected to be one of those screaming labor ladies, but... I was. My nurse Sarah was incredible, she helped Mark and my mom manage my pain through counter pressure, and coached me herself. Finally at some point I got fentenyl followed by morphine... both of which only lasted temporarily...
7am- I was FINALLY at 4cm, enough for an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in and went over the paper work... I was willing to give him whatever he wanted for the drugs, ANYTHING! Then the kicker, he was ready to administer, but he needed a doctor on the floor to sign off due to pre-e and being high risk. OMG.... at that point I think I was yelling at everyone in the room to FIND A FRIKIN DOCTOR NOW! 5 people searched the floor for someone, and thank God, finally I got my drugs around 7:30am. The anesthesiologist gave me the good stuff, but oddly enough I could still move my legs, I could have walked if they would have let me. I didn't realize at the time this meant trouble for pushing....
The next few hours we're good, felt much better with the epidural in place. I was progressing faster at this point.
11am- My nurse checked me and I was at 9cm. Almost there. At this point I started to feel some pretty intense pressure down below, it wasn't painful yet, but I could definitely feed something happening. My nurse told me probably about an hour to get to 10cm, and then we would start pushing.
Literally 10 minutes after she walked out the door to eat her lunch, it was game over. I felt the worse pain/pressure every!! I knew something was about to happen. I called the nurse and the nurse covering for mine came in... she was AWFUL... she pretty much ignored me, refused to check me even though something was different then 10 minutes before.. FINALLY after screaming she checked me and guess what, I was at a TEN! I knew it... although I was shocked how much pain I was in suddenly as I had expected the epidural to mask a lot of the pain at this point. The nurse started walking around getting things ready but honestly wasn't in too much of a rush. Luke HR was still dropping at this point depending on my position. I was screaming in pain asking for more drugs, it turned into chaos quickly.
I kept begging for my nurse Sarah to return, and finally Irl, a student nurse who had been with me, went in search for her. My mom followed him into the hallway to ensure he knew he MUST find her and bring her back! This other nurse was AWFUL! Finally, Irl returned with Sarah, who was livid as the one covering for her never called my doctor!!!!! Sarah started preparing the room, getting me ready and told me we would start practice pushing... I pretty much said no, we're just going to do this because I was in so much pain, no way I had time for practice pushing, I needed him O U T.
My doctor bursts into the room in full gear, I believe she was prepping for a c-section when she was called for my delivery, thank goodness she was close! She got in position and I started pushing, almost instantly Luke HR dropped... more people flooded into the room and thats when details get a bit fuzzy for me. I know I pushed a few more times, and suddenly I hear Dr. Abi yell for the vacuum, and she got in my face and told me "you have 3 tries to get him out, then I'm taking you for a c-section". He was in distress and time was of the essence. I pushed for a total of 11 minutes, and he came out!
At this point I had no idea what was going on, all I knew was normally they put the baby on your chest after delivery, and they took Luke away across the room to a team of people. I was exhausted, in pain, and overwhelmed. I just laid there and watched. At some point someone filled me in, Luke's heart rate had dropped to 40 for over 2 minutes during pushing, thats when she gave me the ultimatim. When he came out he wasn't breathing... they were working on him in the room in an incubator. His initial APGAR was a 2. Thankfully, after some O2, he came around and his APGAR went up to an 8! I think they had him for over an hour ensuring he was stable before they FINALLY gave me my baby! Up to this point my mom and mark were showing me pictures of him from across the room.
He was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. I honestly was in shock from the chaos that was going on, and wouldn't fully understand what happened until days later.
Luke was born with a true knot in his cord, and it was wrapped around his neck. A true knot occurs in 1 in every 2,000 births, and of those, only 10% of those babies survive. The majority are still born. Luke is my little miracle baby :) If not for my pre-e and being monitored throughout my entire labor, we could have lost him. God knew what he was doing when he sent me to the hospital early. He knew I needed to be monitored the whole time in order to save my little guy.
Luke is the most amazing miracle I could every ask for, he is such a blessing to his daddy and me!!! We are SO in love with this little guy, and praise God for him daily!!! His entrance wasn't nothing like we planned, and was scary, but in the end we were so blessed with a perfect baby boy! ! ! Welcome to the world Luke William Segaloff! We're honored God chose us to be your parents!
Congratulations!!!
ReplyDeleteWhata birth story! He is your little miracle baby!