Friday, December 5, 2008

Lincoln David's Birth Story

It's going to be long...prepare yourself...lol

On Sunday, November 30th, Madison and I went to church for the 9am service. As you can remember it was rainy and cold, all the good parking spots were taken, and we had a little trek from the car to the church. Throughout service there were times I could stand and times I couldn't, I felt very uncomfortable and heavy. By the time service was over, I could barely make it to the car due to unbelievable pressure and had to lean on my 8 year old for assistance. I called hubby to find out where he was as he had just worked a double and was on his way home. He was 15 minutes away when I told him how I felt. We agreed that I would call the doctor to see what to do. Of course, the on-call doctor said to go directly to Labor and Delivery, she felt it may be nothing but coupled with the fact that the previous night I lost some of my mucus plug and I had the cerclage, she didn't want to take any chances.

We got to the hospital around 11:30am and hubby wheeled me to L&D. They hooked me up to the fetal monitors and did a quick vaginal check to find out that I was barely a fingertip dilated and about 25% effaced. They took blood and urine, and put me on IV. For several hours they monitored my contractions which were still only at 4 an hour but progressively more intense, and the baby's heartrate. The whole time the nurses kept assuring us that they were going to send me home, that the on-call doctor was being sent my stats at home and she just wanted to see them "A little bit longer". My mother had to come get Maddy because she was starving and none of us had eaten since 8 am that morning. I wasn't allowed to eat b/c you never know if there could be a potential emergency, I WAS STARVING!!! David actually went to the hospital cafe around 6pm to get hot dogs and I found myself counting his bites (first hot dog was down in 3 bites, second hot dog was gone in 4 bites).

At 7pm the doctor finally showed up, she was actually the only doctor in OB1's practice I hadn't met before. She confirmed that she originally wanted to send me home but kept me on because there were some decelerations on the baby with some of my contractions, and it was because of this that she decided to admit me to L&D and take the stitch out asap. Within an hour and a half, we were set up in our delivery room (which by the way was gorgeous and spacious). By 9pm, the doctor was back with 2 other nurses and my delivery nurse to remove the cerclage. I can not explain to anyone how unbelievably painful that was (more than labor!!!!), I felt as if they were cutting my insides out especially on top of the contractions, speculum, and gauze that kept getting shoved inside to swab out the bleeding. OMIGOD IT HURT LIKE FIRE!!! I really thought I was going to break the nurse's or hubby's hands from squeezing them so tightly...not to mention the screaming, did I mention my screaming my head off: "OW OW OW OW OW OW OW!!!!!!!!!!!" Then I made the mistake of mentioning that I thought there were two stitches, so they spent an additional 10 minutes fishing around inside to find it. The doctor finally realized I had enough and ordered the nurses contact my MFM and my July records to find out for sure. When she did the vaginal check immediately after taking the stitch out, I went from barely a fingertip dilated to 2 centimeters. Minutes later she returned to confirm there was only one stitch but on the sonograms it does look like 2 which may have confused the various sonogram technicians.

By 9:30 I was watching the rest of Desperate Housewives and had my first conversation with the anesthesiologist (remember I wanted to keep this labor drug-free...read on). My delivery nurse came in and told me I should try to get some rest between the contractions...yeah, right. I managed to go in and out of sleep until 1am (David was knocked out on the full recliner). It was a 1am that I really started to feel some whopper contractions, and the nurse told me she could give me some Staidol (sp?) to help me get some sleep - OK!! That stuff was wonderful, when it hit my veins it burned at first and then she told me to let it take over and it did!

I was knocked out until 4am when I woke up moaning. The doctor came in to check me and told me I was 4 centimeters and she was going to break my water. Let me explain something to you...once she broke my water within 30 seconds I was screaming my head off, the contraction that followed rocked my eyes to the back of my skull. She uttered two words to me: "Phoebe, Epidural"...my gutteral response sounded something like: "Ung-humgs". Now I was still loopy from the Staidol, I remember blabbering when I heard the anastesiologist down the hall (like I memorized his voice), "Find out what number I am, I hear him, I know he's close, is it my turn yet?"

I cried, of course, when he finally did come in to set me up because I was disappointed in going that route, but the pain was nothing like I had ever felt before in my life (not true, the cerclage removal!!)...I gave the nurse the bear hug, and cried the entire procedure because I kept jumping everytime he stuck me and I thought by the time he's done I won't be able to walk.

Never-the-less, within minutes of it being put in, I was feeling pretty good and took a good nap until about 8am when I started to feel a ton of pressure and we called for the nurse. The doctor came in, and guess what it was the doctor that did the cerclage with MFM in July - Yay to a familiar face! She checked me and I was fully dilated and ready to go! I remember turning to David and mumbling, "We're cooking with gasoline now," which he didn't hear or get, and I had to repeat myself a few times before he got it. Time went incredibly fast and slow at the same time because a weird thing happened on the way to birth, the contractions got further apart. I would push a good 4 times for a contraction and then we played this funny little waiting game between contractions. To the point where I was cracking jokes, singing the jeapordy tune, and repeatedly asking David if he was okay. (Drugs are terrible thing!) I think on the 2nd contractiont the doctor asked David if he wanted to see the baby's head and all his hair. His response,"Ok, I'll look this once, because I'd like to enjoy my wife after this (he's funny, right?) By the 4th contraction, I felt a pop, and they told me his head was out. Before I could even catch my breathe the rest of him slithered out. Even covered in vernix and blood, I couldn't believe how beautiful he was! They wisked him over to the warming table and David followed to cut the cord and take pictures. Lincoln David was officially born on December 1st at 8:52am (exactly one month to the day early) weighing in at 4lbs 12oz and 18inches long. Although tiny, my little sweetie never had to go to the NICU, he was blessedly healthy. They brought him over to me for a few minutes, we took some pictures and off he went to be fully evaluated. Hubby gave me a kiss and followed his son upstairs while the doctor finished up with me. I had no tearing and didn't need an episotome (Thank Heavens!!) Afterwards, the nurse came in, hooked me up to pitocin to get my uterus to contract for at least an hour (I was on for 40 minutes when she came back in to help clean me up. Her name was Linda and it was as if I had my mom in the room with me. She wiped me down, walked me to the bathroom, further cleaned me up. Helped me into the hospital undies and then into a fresh gown. Shortly after that David was back to tell me that Lincoln was getting his bath and we were going to up to my room.

Once in my room, it was another 30 minutes before Lincoln was brought to me and I fell in love! The hospital has volunteers from a local church that knit for the babies, so on his head he had a festive red & green hat, and he was covered in a green and white blanket. Can you say: "AAAWWWWWW"? Again, the staff at the hospital were wonderful, and we'll be sending them a thank you of some sort in the next day or two. By Tuesday, the pediatrician and OB1 cleared us both to go home the next day. I KNOW!!! The tiniest baby in the nursery that everyone fell in love with was going home before bigger babies in the NICU, God has truly blessed us!!!

Today is day 5 and we're all home and healthy...Lincoln already had his first check up this morning and he's doing great. He came home at 4lbs 10oz, and already he's gained one once back.


Well, he let me type this much and is now awake and ready to eat...TTFN!


6 comments:

Jen said...

Oh my gooooodness!!! I'm shocked! I wasn't expecting to hear the GREAT news so soon! He's beautiful! I LOVE the name Lincoln!!! How did you decide on it? Hope you are feeling well! :)

Staci said...

Congrats you did great! What a way to spend the holidays.

Radha said...

So I guess I answered my own question: no red hair. I remember you joking about that in one of our CW classes a while back. Ahhh, I'm so happy for you! God bless you and Lincoln.

I also remember reading that you had a little story behind Lincoln's (previously Slinky lol) name. What is it???

Bonnie said...

God bless you and Lincoln, Pheebs. He's GORGEOUS. Now I can relax. I've been on pins and needles for eight months. By the way, I LOVE LOVE LOVE his name. And, of course, I LOVE LOVE LOVE you, too.

Unknown said...

so wonderful to be able to read Lincoln's birth story! he really is a beautiful baby... enjoy him phoebe! stay healthy (both of you)! :)

Anonymous said...

How wonderful. Congrats. Loved the story

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