Nikolai's birth story! Sorry it's so late an so long.

mhooks23 · July 2014

Wow I can't believe it has been almost 3 weeks since he came into our lives. Time certainly does fly when you're having fun.

Nikolai's birth story started on Thursday June 19th. We were set to go in for induction on Friday, but before that happened we had one more Biophysical Profile (BPP). I was super excited and definitely nervous about the impending induction scheduled for that next day. I had finally made it and even though we were at 38 weeks and 2 days all signs pointed to a healthy birth and baby.

I arrived at the doctors office ready for my last appointment and a last look at my lil monster through u/s before meeting him in real life. Once the u/s tech whom I had gotten to know over the last 6 weeks started my scan we talked about my induction and how excited she was. As she looked at the image her face automatically changed from excitement to quizzical. She quickly assessed his position and noted that he was doing alright. "Honey, your little guy looks fine and I hate to tell you this but he is no longer head down." This lil monster had turned transverse he was more breach than vertex so they sent me to talk to my MW who asked me to come back the next day to check his position again before making the trip to the hospital. She also gave me an inversion exercise to do to try to get him to turn back around.

Friday he was still transverse and in a completely different position than Thursday. So my induction was canceled and a C-section was scheduled for Tuesday incase he did not cooperate. They scheduled me for another u/s Monday to check placement. I was so discouraged that I didn't even do my inversion exercises over the weekend. I was sure he would continue to be stubborn and I would end up with a C-section no matter what I did.

On Monday I arrived at the doctors office to find that Nikolai had decided to cooperate! I was so excited! They scheduled my induction for 7:30 that night. We arrived at the hospital only to find his stubborn streak back with full force. He once again was transverse. Un fortunately had already put in my IV so they decided to keep me overnight with a plan to check his position in the morning. I sent SO home to get a good nights sleep because he had a class and test the next day.

Tuesday morning the doctor who would perform my C-section once again they used the u/s to check his position and finally we had caught him head down. The doctor broke my water at 1.5 cm and applied a scalp monitor to keep him from moving around anymore. They started me on Pitocin right away to get things moving and also to prevent him moving around. My contraction started at 5 min apart and lasted about 2 hours. by 12:30 my contractions were at 3 minutes apart and I was only dilated to 3 cm.

By 5 o'clock that night the contractions were still at 3 minutes apart and gaining strength quickly. I decided to take a shot for pain management and was considering an epidural when my lil monsters heart rate started dipping below an acceptable level. The nurse and doctor had me changing positions every 5 minutes or so to help keep his heart rate up which didn't work so they cut off my Pitocin and gave me medicine to stop my contractions. It slowed my contractions down significantly though did not stop them and with each contraction his heart rate would continue to drop below a safe level.

They decided to take me in for a C-section and in no time I was in the operating room getting the epidural that I still wasn't sure I wanted but now had no choice of getting. Nikolai Christopher was born a 6:43 pm on Tuesday June 24, 2014. He weighed 6 pounds 9.2 ounces and was 20 inches long. The doctors tied my tubes as was the plan if I had a C-section, as the lil monster and my SO left to take care of him. It felt like I laid on that table for days waiting to get to see my lil man again.

Then finally they rolled my into recovery and SO came in with my lil monster all wrapped up and I finally after what felt like forever I was able to hold him and feed him. I felt at that moment like my life was complete and I could see the love shining in SO's eyes for our lil monster. Our kid came in and held him and I saw the same love light shining in their eyes. He was perfect and it no longer mattered that I had not been able to have a vaginal birth nor did it matter that I had an epidural though I had wanted to avoid it.

Our family is complete and we would not change it for anything.