My very belated birth story

Rhys is here! I am just super late posting about it. Short version: Alexander Rhys was born Jan 19th at 12:25pm via emergency c-section after 16 hours of labor. He weight a whopping 9.3lbs (that's a 1/10th of my pre-pregnancy weight) and was 21" long.

Now the long version:

We arrived at the hospital on January 18th at around 5pm to start the induction process as I was 40 weeks, 5 days and having blood pressure issues. The original plan was to start Cervadil overnight then induce with Pitocin at 5am on Thursday, January 19th. After we got checked in and I got set up on the monitors, we discovered that I was already at 1cm dilated and contracting. We tossed out the idea of the Cervadil and decided to go with a foley catheter followed by a low dose of Pitocin.

Around 10pm the catheter was inserted and we were on our way to meet Rhys. The catheter was not pleasant and definitely helped kick start stronger contractions. I was doing my best to breathe through them, but they were not fun. After about an hour of the catheter, the nurse came back in to start the Pitocin. After an hour or so of the Pitocin, the doctor was not pleased with the way I was laboring. My contractions were very irregular, coming sometimes four at a time and lasting several minutes. This was stressing Rhys out and causing him to throw early decels. They upped my dose then had me move to my side as they also suspected the cord was compressed or wrapped around his neck.

At around 1am I reached 4cm and was allowed to have the epidural. The anesthesiologist showed up, but we had a problem. Rhys was still sitting so high that I could not effectively curve my back for her to get the spinal catheter in the way she wanted. She ended up going in blind and hoping that we had everything in. The epidural was started and I noted that I could not feel my left side but my right side had a tiny bit of feeling. We all wrote this off because I was feeling better and we figured it was because I had to lay on my left to keep Rhys? heart rate up.

The nurse and anesthesiologist insisted on monitoring me for 30 minutes after the epidural, to ensure my BP didn?t bottom out. I did fine during that time and so they felt comfortable enough to leave me to rest. They had no sooner left the room then I started to get nauseous and dizzy. I told DH and insisted he call the nurse back in. I knew what was happening and my suspicions were confirmed when the monitors beside me started alarming. The nurse rushed back in, took one look at me, and called for help. A team of nurses rushed in, shoving DH out of the way. Oxygen was thrown over my face, I was turned to my side, and the nurse was screaming for the anesthesiologist to get back in. As I was fading out, I heard the nurse comment that my BP was 54/27. The anesthesiologist rushed back in and administered Ephedrine. Luckily, my BP came back and I was okay as was Rhys, but that meant another hour of monitoring by the team, including the on-call OB who was woken up to come check me out.

While they monitored me, the OB decided to do a quick check and discovered I was at 6-7cm. She decided to break my water to help things along. It took a good 20 minutes to do so, as my membranes were very thick and my contractions were still coming irregularly.

The next few hours was spent with me laboring and occasionally being checked just to be told that I was still at 7cm. I had two more rounds of epidural during this time, because they kept wearing off on my right side. At around 6am the baby was still throwing decels and the OB team was getting more concerned about cord compression. They decided to try an amniotic infusion to see if we could get some relief. The infusion did begin to work and Rhys? heart rate did improve dramatically, but unfortunately my blood pressure continued to drop periodically.

At 7am, the day crew came on and I had to say goodbye to the amazing nurse who had been by my side the entire night. The new midwife checked me and was disappointed to see that I was still at 7cm and that now my cervix was half swollen shut. She informed me that it had been 4 hours with no change and that they do not let anyone go past 6 hours on Pitocin with no change, especially with the problems baby and I were having. I begged to be given two more hours for my body to try to dilate more. I desperately wanted to avoid a C-Section. She relented but said that in two hours, if there was no change, they were calling it.

Well two hours came and went and I prayed the entire time that we would have some change. Sadly, when the midwife came back to check me I was still at 7cm and my cervix was completely swollen shut. She looked me in the eye, grabbed my hand, and said, ?Sweetheart, there?s no way this baby is coming out on his own.? I tried to fight back the tears as the birth I had imagined in my head disappeared and I was forced to accept the fact that I had labored for hours just to end it with surgery.

At 12pm the team showed up to take me to the OR. I sobbed the entire way down the hall. As soon as they laid me on the OR table, I heard the one noise I was terrified of hearing- monitors buzzing. ?Heart rate down to 90?.80?50?someone call the Doc now!? I heard a nurse say as another raced to the phone. I sobbed harder. ?What?s wrong with my baby?? I asked the anesthesiologist and nurse who were stationed by my head. ?Nothing sweetie. Everything is fine.? The nurse replied.

?Baby is crashing!?.Tell the doc I am going to cut this baby out if she isn?t here in 5 minutes.? The nurse on the phone yelled.

?What is wrong with my baby?? I choked out in sobs again.

?Quiet! She can hear you.? She hissed at the nurse on the phone.

The anesthesiologist hovered over me. ?I?m going to push a full load of epidural now. You might feel a bit nauseous.?

I could feel the drugs enter my spine and then my upper left side go completely numb. Soon my stomach wrenched.

?I?m going to be sick.? I said just before tossing up the little cup of orange jello I had eaten about 4 hours earlier.

After clearing my stomach, I realized that though I couldn?t feel anything now on my left side I still had some residual feeling on my right.

?I can feel my right side.? I whispered to the nurse. She informed the anesthesiologist, who pushed more epidural. ?I can still feel my right side.? I repeated.

Concern showed in his face. He added more spinal meds to the mix and waited. I shook my head again, indicating I could still feel. The nurse ran down to my legs and did a quick feel test. I was able to feel where she was touching.

At this point the OB was in the room and the drape was going up across my chest. The anesthesiologist looked down at me. ?I am so sorry, Sweetheart.? I knew that meant something had happened to my spinal catheter and that the baby was in too much distress for anything to be done to reseat the catheter. I prepared myself as I realized I would be undergoing the c-section with at least partial feeling on my right side.

DH was quickly ushered into the room as the surgeon began cutting. Pain swept over me. ?It hurts.? I cried. The anesthesiologist kept apologizing and assuring me that as soon as the baby was out, he would hit me with as many pain meds as he could. It was too risky while the baby was in, though, especially with his heart rate plummeting.

It felt like forever as I waited and waited. All I wanted was to hear my baby and know that he was okay.Cries filled the room as a boy with very healthy lungs made us all aware that he was not happy about the situation.

?He?s here!? DH said, looking down at me.

?Woah!? The surgeon said suddenly.

?Big Baby!? The midwife agreed.

?He?s huge.? DH whispered to me before giving me a quick kiss and heading over to see the baby.

I craned my head around trying to glimpse Rhys. It was beginning to get harder to focus as the IV pain drugs entered my system. I listened to them state that he was 9lbs, 3oz and his APGAR score was 8/9 and I was relieved that whatever had been going on the night before with him was over now and he was safe.

DH was suddenly beside me again. He had Rhys and carefully helped balance him in my arms. I looked into the most beautiful deep blue eyes that stared inquisitively up at me. I told Rhys I loved him and that I was so glad he was with us. I kissed his little cheeks and cried tears of joy at the beautiful face that I was staring into. I couldn?t believe the instant rush of heart swelling love I felt for the little person in front of me. I had just met him but I knew I would do anything for him. I continued to kiss on him until they insisted they had to take him to the nursery and finish closing me up.

I spent an hour in recovery before being moved to a PP room where DH and baby were waiting for me. It was a tough labor and a very difficult delivery, but I would do it again just to have Rhys with us.