"First Bath"

Well, I'd be lying if I said that Jax got his first bath today...that was last week. But today he got his first bath when Mommy remembered to bring her camera...so let's just pretend and let this be his "first" bath, ok? OK!

Jax REALLY enjoys his bath. He does great "sitting" in his little tub-thingy and enjoys the actual bathing process. It's the getting out part that he doesn't really like - must take after his Mamam, huh? Lord knows I spent a good quarter of my pregnancy in the tub...LOL!

Since I didn't remember the camera until he was out of the tub, here's some shots of him "being a froggie"... I'm telling you, as long as he's all wrapped up, the world is good! And here he is all ready for bedtime...don't you just love these sleep sacks??? I do! Nightie night!

The Best Laid Plans - My Birth Story, Part II

Did you miss out on Part I? Read it here. Then come back!

After calming down a notch (or twenty) we headed off to the maternity ward of our hospital. We had finished making our phone calls, my parents were starting their long drives to get here in time, and Brent's parents were going to pick up and keep Tanner for us and collect our hospital bags for us. We had done all that we could do up to this point, and there really wasn't anything else to do except check in, settle in and have this baby!

We walked up to the nurses desk, and true to her word, my dr had already notified them of our pending arrival. They had a room all ready for us, and showed us where to go. I was instructed to disrobe, put on the hospital gown and get into bed - the nurse would be back in a few minutes to start the check-in procedures.

Check-in procedures. Yeah, read "start your IV." Which for me, was the second biggest thing that I was dreading. Yes, I know that you have to have an IV, as I've done this before. But I didn't like it then either. My biggest fear? Ending up in the OR for a c-section. That involved more than needles. There's scalpels, staples, breathing tubes, lines and incisions. Ugh. I'm getting the shivers just typing out the words.

Anyway, we explored our L&D room a bit - it was pretty large, and Brent was really taken with the baby's corner of the room where the warming tray and lights were already set up and all. He thought that was just the coolest thing ever! And he kept saying over and over "Babe - imagine, our baby boy is going to be here (gesturing with his hands to the baby bed) in a few hours!" There was a large bathroom with a double-size shower, and a closet full of laboring tools such as birthing balls, etc. Not to mention both a rocker and a couch that folded out to a full-size bed. Don't get all excited, Brent assured me that it wasn't nearly as comfortable as a real bed!

We settled in, me with my back naked for all the world to see, and waited for the nurse to come back. When she did, she settled in at her computer to input all sorts of information about both of us and the baby and our pregnancy thus far. She warned me ahead of time that she had 50 million questions, and she was right! It took almost an hour, but at the end of it the hospital knew everything about me, Brent and the baby that they could possibly need to know and more.
Then came the consent forms. Everything that I was being admitted for had risks associated with the procedure, from the aversion therapy to the induction process, and I had to sign my life away on three or four short forms. After signing the forms and consenting to the treatments, you're pretty much done. Signed, sealed and delivered. Or soon to be delivering?

The nurse had warned us before the game of twenty questions started that the aversion therapy session was going to run a bit later than they had originally thought. My dr wanted to have an anesthesiologist on standby in case I couldn't deal with the pain - just what I wanted to know right then, right? And the anesthesiologist on call that night had just gone into a surgery that would last about an hour. So, the dr wasn't planning on coming in until the good drug dr was ready, and that gave the nurses plenty of time to admit me and prep me.

By prep me, read "start IV line." I had pre-warned the nurse about my troubles with needles and sticks and she came prepared. I think that she brought not ONE extra nurse, but TWO! I guess she took me seriously, huh? One of the nurses, Becky, proclaimed to have an anti-fainting trick up her sleeve and wanted to try it. Her trick? To open up an alcohol wipe and hold it under my nose (kinda like smelling salts) to give me something else to focus on. I have to admit that it worked. I got a little weak-behind-the-knees at one point, but held on and pushed through it just like a big girl. I would say that I had my big-girl panties on, but I've already admitted to being nakey-nakey beneath my gown, so there goes that.

Once that was done we settled in to wait. Around 8pm my dr came in and told us that it was almost time to start. She offered me the epidrual from the get go, but I chose to try to make it through without anything. Don't ask me why, I honestly don't know. I mean, it's been my experience in the past that when you're in labor and someone offers you drugs, it's ok to say yes. I guess maybe since I technically wasn't in labor yet I didn't want to take them? Who knows.

Either way, she gathered the nurses, had me sign off on one last form and positioned the bed and Brent to where she wanted them to better assist me. Then she picked up that tube of gooey stuff that they squeeze on you during your sonograms and took the cap off. Yeah. The cap came off. And the ENTIRE contents of the bottle were then put onto my baby bump. I think that it was at this point that I started making jokes about the process being sort of like a "massage." The fact that the dr and both nurses started laughing should have clued me in. Not that I really thought that it would be like a massage for real, but I was trying to lighten the moment and it worked.

She rubbed the gooey stuff around on my belly and then positioned my bed all the way down so that she had a good position to start pushing Jax around and then she began. I would like to say that I completely remember all of the details about this process, but I don't. It hurt. A lot. But it wasn't unbearable. She pushed and pushed and then would pause and give me a rest while leaving pressure on my belly to prevent Jax from going right back. She gave me big breaks at each quarter turn that she completed, but I couldn't wait for the last quarter turn to be done and over with.

The great news is that the aversion therapy worked like a charm. Sure, it hurt a bit, but honestly it wasn't as bad as I had been expecting. I wouldn't recommend it over a picnic in a park, but it had to be done and it worked beautifully. Now that Jax was in the right position, head down, he needed to engage and not turn around. Which meant that my water had to be broken.

This is a small point that I missed during the previous talks with my dr. I knew that being induced meant having Pitocin to initiate contractions, that much I knew.

What I didn't know is that before they start the Pitocin, they break your water. Or maybe I should say with my unique situation that meant that they needed to break my water first. This would prevent Jax from turning back around into his favorite position (transverse) due to the lack of fluid allowing him to turn. You see, when she did my sono back in her office, she also measured my fluid levels. Apparently you have to have a good amount of amniotic fluid left in order for aversion therapy to have a better chance of succeedng. Normally the week before your delivery date, your fluid level measures around 10. I had 18. (I'm not entirely sure about what the water is measured in - Liters, Gallons, whatever - so I'll refrain from saying what it is. Either way, normal was 10 and I was at an 18.)

I'll be perfectly honest here and tell you that her breaking my waters hurt a HELL of a lot more than the aversion therapy. I meant a LOT more. Maybe that had something to do with the fact that while she was down there trying to speed things along, she also stripped my membranes. Then she used the big "crochet hook" to break my bag. Or maybe I should say tried to break my bag.

Some fluid came out, but not the big gush that she was expecting with my fluid levels. She didn't think that she got a good puncture out of the procedure, so she left me for an hour to see what would happen and then come back to check me in an hour. In the meantime they started the Pitocin on me to get my contractions going.

Right before all the excitement started, my friend T (MOH) got to the hospital so she was there for all the procedures and to help Brent take my mind off of things while the hour long wait passed. Brent's parents had also been by to visit for a minute before all the "fun" began so that we had our things. We were sending texts out to family and friends to give updates, and knew that we were just playing a waiting game at this point.

My dr returned to check me an hour later. As she had suspected earlier, she did not get a good break on my water, so we did the procedure again. It wasn't really any less painful the second time around, but it was slightly better since she didn't have to strip my membranes. This time, when she was done, there was the expected big rush of fluids out and the nurses proceeded to "pack me" with towels. I guess that I should mention that I was not allowed out of the hospital bed from this point forward as they were having troubles keeping the monitors where they needed to be.

Even though the nurses were good about moving me around from side to side and trying various positions to help me labor better/easier, I got stiff as the night wore on. I was having contractions regularly, like every three minutes, but I wasn't really feeling much pain. Of course, when the nurses checked me, I was only dilated to 2 cm. I was making progress, and Jax was staying where he was supposed to be, but it was slow going.

By 1 or 2am, I was feeling the contractions and breathing through them. My Mom and step-dad had arrived right after 11pm, and my Dad and step-mom had also gotten there. As my Dad has his own motorhome, and that's what they had traveled in, they left early on to get some rest. Around 1-2am, I had decided that I was ready for the epidural. I was measuring 3 cm at that point, and my dr had already signed off on me receiving the epidural. The anethesiologist came in and got to work. Now, I don't remember much about the process of receiving the epidural with my daughter's birth. Mainly because the anethesiologist had an assistant who had rather large breasts (very buxom) and all that I remember was that she grabbed my face and planted it into her cleavage. So I was a little distracted through the actual epidural process that time around.

There was no assistant this time, and I was very aware during the process. It didn't really hurt, but wasn't completely comfortable. At this point though, I wanted some relief and some sleep. And I really wanted some food. I had last eaten at lunch, and I was allowed all the ice chips, water and popsicles that I could eat. But let me tell you, those popsicles were a lifesaver! Just not really all that filling.

By 2am, everyone else had left except for Brent. My Mom and step-dad and T had left to go to our house to get some sleep. My step-sister was the only person left, and she came in for a bit to visit until I started to drift off. Brent and I both tried to get some sleep, but with nurses coming in every 30 minutes to check this or that, sleep is hard to come by.

Around 4am, things started to get really interesting. The baby's monitor had started going off every 5-10 minutes. Now, when it would go off, nurses would rush into the room and re-adjust the monitors on me to try to get a better reading on his vitals. Around 5am, the dr had been notified and she visited us to check out the situation for herself.

When she did a pelvic check on me, she noted that I was dilated to 4cm, but the baby had not engaged or descended very far into my pelvic canal. And even though the Pitocin had been administered all night, they kept having to shut it off when the baby's heart rate would drop. So I was having to start back at level 2 on the Pitocin every hour or so. In other words, we weren't making much progress.

She said that she would give me another hour to try to make better progress and she increased the Pitocin to 10 to try to help me out, but warned me that if in an hour I hadn't made progress that we would have to discuss other options. The baby was not responding well to either the positions, the Pitocin or whatever and his and my well-being had to be put first.

During the hour that passed, the nurses tried all sorts of positions for me. Although I'd been given an epidural, I still had control of my legs and could help them move me around. We tried my left side, my right side, on my hands and knees.

But no matter which position that they put me into, within a few minutes Jax's heart rate would fall again and they would all rush in to massage my belly. When I realized that the dr rubbing my belly and making me rock back and forth on the bed was sort of like CPR through my belly, I understood that the situation was maybe a little more serious than they were totally telling us.

Don't get me wrong. Our dr was honest with us from the get go. But I think that she was trying not to alarm me or cause me any distress that might also affect the baby at that point. But when I got what was happening and that unless she was rubbing/rocking my belly his heart rate was falling, I knew that we were in a little bit of trouble. I knew then that thiings were serious and we were going to have to make some serious decisions. Fast.

The Best Laid Plans - My Birth Story, Part I

You know by now that I'm the type of person who likes to know what's going on. I like to have a plan, even if it's just a loose one. It doesn't have to be intricate and detailed, but I like to have a general idea of what's happening. Call it controlling, call it Type A personality, call it what you will - that's just me. And I approached my upcoming birth no differently. I didn't do a lot of research, as I'd done this thing before, and my vision really was just that things would go a lot like last time. You know, I would have some contractions, feel the time getting closer, my water would break, then we'd go to the hospital and have a baby.
Simple. To the point.

My "birth plan" if you could call it that, had two main bullet points: I wanted drugs and Brent wanted to cut the cord. Beyond that, the rest was just details that I didn't have any need or desire to know about. Easy, peasy.

I'd like to tell you that I got exactly what I had envisioned or what I wanted. That would be a GREAT story to tell, even if it would be a bit on the boring side. Boring is ok with me, by the way. But I don't have a boring birth story. I got the exact opposite of my "birth plan." I had excitement, drama, high emotions. You name it. I had it.

So here goes. My birth story.

It all started innocently enough. I wrote here about some problems with increased swelling, which prompted an emergency visit to the drs office to be check for pre-eclampsia. If you read that post, you know that they checked me out and sent me home, with instructions to come back the next day for my regular weekly appointment. It was my 39 week appointment. I went home a bit disappointed, but relieved that nothing major was wrong with either the baby or myself.

The next morning, it was all that I could do to get out of bed. I was literally dragging as far as energy levels were concerned, but I could feel the need to go into work for as long as I could so that I could wrap some things up. Deep down inside, I just knew that things needed to be as wrapped up as I could get them today, just in case. I went to work, did my thing, and was relieved to get finished by 11am. I knew that staying until my normal time of 1pm was out of the question, as my legs were starting to swell right above my ankles already and all the "fun" stuff the day before happened between noon and 1pm. My goal was to be on my way home before noon, and I was able to leave around 11am.

I came home, settled into bed, and took a quick nap. My alarm went off at 1pm so that I could wake up with enough time to make myself some lunch before a 2pm conference call that I couldn't miss. I made a grilled cheese sandwhich and had some Pringles, and then dialed in for my call. It ended around 2:30pm, which worked out well for my 3pm drs appt.

Just as I got into my car to leave the house for my appt, Brent called to tell me that he was running late. He had been sent home earlier during the day due to lack of deliveries needed that day, and had gone to lunch with his Dad while I took my nap. While at lunch, his boss called him back in to work, and he had to go in to make two "quick" deliveries. Those deliveries ended up taking almost 2 hours, and he was calling to tell me that although he was done with his last delivery he was about 30-45 minutes away. He was rushing as fast as he safely could manage to make it to the drs office in time, but realized that being there at 3pm was out of the question.

I encouraged him to drive safely and take his time. I reminded him that the week before we had had to sit in the waiting room for an hour before being seen in the back, and that he probably had plenty of time.

Yeah, you know how this is going to go, right? When I walked into the drs office to check in, there was one other person in the waiting room. And I wasn't early. Yeah.

I spent ten minutes in the front before being called back. I texted Brent to let him know and proceeded to be weighed and measured. You know, the fun stuff. Turns out that it's not so much fun to get weighed during week 39. The scale was showing that I had gained 5 POUNDS in one week. Now, for some people maybe this isn't alarming. But for someone that had gained a total of 18 pounds through the WHOLE pregnancy, this was alarming. Then I looked down at my feet and knew the reason for the big gain. My friend, water. Once again, despite laying down for the past 4 hours, my legs were swollen all the way up to my knees.

Which meant that I had to pee in a cup again. I was slightly more talented at accomplishing this task than I had been the day before, and managed not to pee on my hand. Probably just luck, not skill. While they tested my protein levels again, my blood pressure was checked (normal) and I was all set to wait another 20 minutes to see the dr. Thus buying Brent a little more time.

And she walked in 5 minutes later. It was REALLY not my day!

We talked for a few minutes (as I hadn't seen her the day before) and discussed that although the swelling was uncomfortable and slightly alarming, all other signs of pre-eclampsia were missing - which was a relief. Then she took out her tape to measure me. And got quiet. When she started feeling around my belly in different spots and making "hmmm" sounds, I couldn't take it any longer and I asked what was wrong.

She said maybe nothing, but had I felt any large movements in the past few days. I answered honestly that the last day or so there had been a decrease in movement altogether, but had felt nothing that I would classify as "big." This apparently was the wrong answer. She told me that she wanted to hook me up to the fetal monitor to count movements, but that first she needed to take a sonogram to confirm her suspicions.

As I got settled into the sono room, she confided in me that she felt that Jax had "disengaged" and was free floating again. Further bad news revealed that he was no longer in the head down position favorable for birth, but that she thought that he was sideways. Now, if you've been following along for any length of time, you might recall that him being breech has been my biggest fear all throughout this pregnancy. I don't really know why, other than normally when babies are in the breech position, it leads to a C-section for delivery, which I would be trying to avoid at all costs. Me and needles are NOT friends. Ergo, me and major abdominal surgery would also NOT be friends.

When I said something about him being breech, the dr was "nice" enough to correct me and explain that Jax was not breech - breech is feet down. Jax was apparently nice and happy in a transverse position - totally sideways across my abdomen. And Jax wasn't JUST transverse, he was also backwards, with his butt to my cervix. The most completely unfavorable position for birth possible. Any type of birth, by the way, even a C-section from this postion was almost impossible to safely deliver as there would be nothing for the dr to grab onto to pull him out once she had me opened up. At least, not without "feeling around in there to find something" and possibly doing some damage to me.

At this point, I asked her to stop talking. I was FREAKING OUT!

She concentrated on the sonogram pictures that were coming up, and was happy to report that she was right and Jax was transverse. And backwards. I'm not sure, but I think that she was expecting me to be happier for her being right. That didn't really happen.

By now she could see that I was freaking out, not that I was trying to hide it or anything, and she suggested that we call Brent. I had mentioned when she first came in that he was on his way but running late. As he's only missed one appt throughout the whole pregnancy, she understood my need to have him there, and wanted him with me before we started discussing options. Since she wanted me to spend half an hour or so on the fetal monitors anyway, I could call him and tell him to hurry and then we could do the monitoring while we waited on him to arrive.

Naturally, getting a phone call that he needed to hurry because the dr wanted to discuss "our options" was enough to send his speedometer up another level. It was already running pretty high. He arrived in less than 5 minutes, much to my relief. I tried to explain what I knew at that point, but as it was very limited information he wasn't satisfied and we were both anxious to see the dr.

Luckily, she came in right away to talk to us. She explained to Brent again what was going on with Jax's position and why delivery of any type would be difficult.

Then she started in on our options. Since I was at 38 weeks, 6 days I could technically be induced the next day or midnight that night since that's when I would hit the important 39 week mark. (It's a hospital rule or something.) But that option wouldn't be recommended as he wasn't in the right position. She strongly encouraged one of two other options.

Option 1 was to allow her to attempt to turn Jax around into the right position. It's called manual aversion therapy or something like that. She explained that the process to us, she would admit us into the hospital right away then come down once I was all checked in and attempt to turn Jax into the right postion from the outside. This mainly involved pushing him around through my stomach with the use of sonogram gel to make it slick and "easier" on me. She explained the risks of this option being that he could turn back around before I went into labor, or that Jax might not respond favorably to being pushed around and she would have to go in and do an emergency C-section.

Oh, and turning him around meant turning him in a 3/4 circle since he was backwards. You see, his head was on my right side, so she would have to turn him head up, then head to the left, and then finally head down towards the pelvic region. Just so you get the full picture.

The pros to this option would be that the aversion would work and Jax would get into the right position. That I would stay admitted to the hospital and she would induce me immediately in order to hopefully keep him from turning back around. I might be able to deliver normally (vaginally) and stay far away from the OR.

Option 2 was to schedule my C-section for early the next morning. I could go home and relax for the night (as if!) and come back at like 4am to be admitted and readied for surgery that might be a little more difficult due to his position.

To sum it all up for you, all roads seemed to be leading to C-section. Because my dr was VERY honest about the slim chance that I had of the vaginal delivery that I was wanting. She was willing to let me attempt it, but also honest enough to tell me that it might not be doable. We both knew that the options were really broken down into two steps, with the first step being doing the aversion therapy to turn him. Either way, letting her attempt that first would give Jax and I a better chance, no matter if the birth was vaginal or C-section. After only a moment of eye contact between the two of us, with no words spoken, we agreed to let her do the turning and increase our chances at a safer delivery.

She released us from the office and told us to move our cars around to the front of the hospital and go straight to the Maternity Services desk and check in.

Wait. What? You mean NOW? As in, right now, do not pass Go, do not collect $200 or your bags from the house NOW? Oh. And that's when the tears started.

As I left the drs office, I was trying really hard not to cry, but totally not succeeding at it. The tears were streaming down my face and Brent was trying unsuccessfully to console me. We made a few phone calls - parents, work, friends and such - and I cried through it all. As I talked with my Mom, I totally lost it and wailed out "I know that it's going to be OK, but this is NOT how I pictured this happening?!?! This isn't what I wanted!"

Because you know, it matters what I want at this point...yeah, not so much.