Landon William's birth story

It's been a month for me to recovery mentally from the saga of his birth (how in the world is my baby boy a month old already?!), so I finally finished writing the story of his birth. Warning..it's a book!!!

His story started when we went to my weekly check-in for my gestational diabetes.  During these visits they either do a physiological or growth ultrasound. This week they did the longer growth scan to see how the Little Lion was doing.  When the doctor came in & looked at the scan, he felt that he was IUGR (Intrauterine growth restriction). The doctor did not like the lack of progress in his growth over the past three weeks so he recommended an induction between week 37 & 38 (that appointment day was the start of week 37).  I had an ob appointment the next day, so he sent us on our way and said he would pass the information on to my ob.

The next day at the ob?s office, the ob came in and said they would be following the specialist?s recommendation & went ahead and scheduled the induction for Sunday, May 27^th. 

The weekend was then spent with DH & I running around our house & doing errands to make sure we had everything we need for when the LL arrived. 

Then on Sunday, May 27^th, it was go time!  I called Labor & Delivery at 6:50am to make sure they had enough beds to accommodate me & they did, so I went in to the hospital at 8 am.  After paperwork, blood work, IVs, etc coming at me at rapid fire, I was just ready to get this show on the road.  My nurse gave me my first 4-hour dose of cytotec around 9/9:30 & the on-call ob checked in with me between the many deliveries she was doing (43 babies were born the 3 days prior!).  With the cytotec, I was stuck in the hospital bed hooked up to the baby & blood pressure monitors for 2 hours. I continued to take the cytotec every 4 hours throughout the day. Because I had been warned this could take a while, I brought some of the grading I never finished to work on. I continued the cytotec throughout the night, which made it hard to sleep since the nurse had to take my blood pressure every hour and needing to take the cytotec every 4 hours.

On Monday, May 28^th (Memorial Day), a new ob was on call and she checked for any progress.  I was at 1 cm and 50% effaced ? not a lot of progress, but something.  She decided that she would start me on pitocin since I had made a little progress. I was hooked up to the IV and baby/blood pressure monitors because of this for the entire day.  Luckily I could get up to go to the bathroom or go for a walk at some points.The new ob came on shift around 5 p.m., she checked my progress, which showed that the pitocin did nothing for me all day long.  To say I was disappointed would be putting it lightly.  After 2 days, I was beat and just wanted to meet my baby, but it seemed that was not going to happen anytime soon.  The ob said she wanted to insert a foley bulb, which would manually force my cervix to dilate to about 4 cm.  I was not comfortable with this idea because I had heard how painful it was and broke down about it.   I agreed to let them try to put it in.  However, because I was so tense and not dilated very much, it was difficult for them to get in and I was in a great deal of pain.  When they were not successful, I broke down again and would not let them try again.   So instead she agreed to more cytotec overnight as well as sweeping my membranes.   This actually felt like it was working to some degree during the first dose because I had progressed to 2 cm & 70% effaced during those 4 hours. I was happy to see progress, so she then continued with the cytotec orally for the rest of the evening into the morning.

On Tuesday, May 29^th, the ob wanted to try the foley bulb again and I was still nervous about the pain so my nurse talked to her outside of the room and convinced her to get me an epidural if she was going to get the foley bulb inserted. The ob & I finally agreed that the epidural was the best option because I felt I owed it to my baby to try to get him/her out without the surgery first.  She said that she would leave it in for 4 hours and see how it went.  She said if it didn?t work then, she would do the c-section.   The anesthesiologist finally came in & attempted to put the epidural in.  Because this is how everything had been going with this labor/induction process, it took him 4 attempts to get the epidural into place. The problem was that my vertebrae were too close together and he could not get the line between the vertebrae like he needed to.  Thank goodness the 4^th attempt higher up on my back worked because I didn?t know what they would be able to do otherwise.  Once I was numb,  the foley bulb was in place.  With the foley bulb in place, I also had to be cauterized since I could not get out of bed for both the bulb and the epidural.   I would stay in bed until Landon was born. The foley bulb was in for 4 hours and hour 5 rolled around & it was still in there!  The ob on call changed once again. When I asked what the game plan was, the new ob said they were continuing with the foley bulb until it fell out.  This was frustrating since it was not what the last ob had said, but the foley bulb stayed in all day. Our parents continued to visit throughout the day and went home around 9 or 10 pm, with Laura?s dad saying ?we will be expected a phone call around 2 am?little did he know, he would have a grandchild by that time!  Around this time, the ob informed us that they were going to be keeping an eye on the baby?s heart rate because it had not been fluxuating much.  Without the baby being more active, it would be difficult to deliver naturally because they needed the baby to be active to assist with delivery.  At the same time, we noticed that my blood pressure kept getting lower and lower, but the nurses insured Ian that they were not concerned about my blood pressure yet because I did not seem to be reacting negatively to it being lower.  As we were watching Bridesmaids, I thought I felt some fluid leaking but I didn?t know if it was just tingling from the epidural.  Around 11 or ten after 11, I felt an actual gush and promptly said to Ian, ?Uh, I think my water just broke or the catheter failed.? We called the nurse & she tested the fluid, which was definitely amniotic fluid.  The clock was officially ticking on the birth of our baby. This sent my nerves into full speed!  

The ob came in around 11:40 after the nurse had called her to let her know my water had broken.  She checked my cervix and realized that I was 4 to 5 centimeters, but the foley bulb had not fallen out like it was supposed so she removed it and broke the rest of my water to help labor.  She did mention that they were still monitoring the baby?s heart rate because it still wasn?t fluxuating like they would want to see. Around 11:30/12, I had to get an antacid equivilent because my heartburn was so bad.  Around 12:30/12:45 (I never looked at the clock at this point), the ob came in and said the baby?s heart rate was not doing what they need and she felt a c-section was the only option at this point.  Within minutes, people were in and out getting myself and everything ready for the procedure. Once everything was ready, they rolled me out of the room and to the OR.  It was a strange feeling. I was thrilled to be leaving that room and was beyond excited to meet my Little Lion, but it was scary and nerve wracking at the same time. Ian couldn?t come into the OR until they were ready, so he was left in the hallway for a bit, which felt like forever to both of us. Once I was on the table & prepped (transferring me to the operating table, making sure the epidural was working, etc), they were ready to begin. They forgot to go get Ian, so by the time he came in, they had started to cut.  Oops.  All I could feel was a bunch of pushing, pulling and pressure.  It felt like forever until they said they had reached the baby, but once they did, they told Ian to take a look because I wanted him to tell me the gender. After what seemed like forever, he bent down and told me I had a BOY!  I was right all along!!  Landon William Donaldson was finally here. Those 65 hours that led up to this point were erased in that moment.   He was screaming from the get go and it was the best sound in the world. They cleaned him up and Ian was snapping pictures at my request while they started to put me back together. Ian brought him to me so I could get a quick peak before they took him to the nursery to get cleaned up. 

As Ian was about to leave, I turned to him and said that I was starting to feel pain. He quickly told the anesthesiologist who acted fast in getting morphine into my IV as well as something else to make me sleep for a little bit, but not before I was almost yelling in pain. I don?t know what happened with the epidural but that was a terrible and scary feeling.  Once they had finished stitching me up, they rolled me to recovery where they worked on my pain management. I was in a lot of pain so they continued to give me pain medicine every 15 minutes until it was manageable. The nursery called and said that Landon?s sugar was a little low and they needed to feed him. I had said I wanted to breastfeed as soon as I could, but since that was not possible, I okay?d him getting a bottle so he had some nutrients in him.   After at least an hour if not 2, they wheeled me to my mom and baby room, where both sets of parents were waiting for us to get there.  Then I anxiously awaited our baby being placed in my arms. When the nurses finally brought him in, it was love at first sight.  The rest of our hospital stay was typical for post-delivery and we finally busted out on Saturday!