Saturday
Thursday my wife had woken up and vomited, which we were worried might mean an infection … but after some investigation and talking with nurses and doctors, we figured it might be a side-effect of one or some of the many medications she was on. Sure enough, a nurse we liked looked it up and several medications said a common side effect was dizziness.
Friday night we went to bed and all I hoped was Saturday she would wake up feeling slightly more human.
I had begun to think, as great as it is for the little guy to continue to cook … at what cost? It felt like every day under this duress and discomfort was taking a few months off her life.
And whadya know, I got my wish … Sort of.
She did wake up feeling better. Score one point. She also woke up and informed me that she had started feeling pretty regular contractions starting at 2 am. Ah. Minus five points. When a nurse came by for the morning check-in, we showed her the log my wife had started when contractions were happening.
I was still hoping that these would subside, some contractions are no big deal. Regular contractions, especially those that gain strength, those are a different story. We wanted to make it to Friday! It’s only Saturday!
But my wife’s body knew better – it finally felt marginally normal, which meant it had the strength for the big show.
***
The contractions continued, and as my wife had told me during one of the childbirth classes, contractions equal DO NOT TOUCH. She wanted to try and go deep within her mind and find some inner calm while the body did its thing. Fair enough.
As they gained in strength, we again talked to the nurses and they decided to move us. Back to the birthing center we went.
My wife’s mom arrived and the three of us formed an odd party.
My wife, on the labor bed, going into her mind with a clear grimace painted on her face once every X times per hour. My wife’s mom, sitting on a chair, watching shows on her iPad, and talking to her husband to determine if he should go ahead and fly out. Myself, reading a book, glancing up to see my wife in growing pain and discomfort, then glancing back down to finish the paragraph. Sounds cold and whatever the antonym for reassuring is, doesn’t it? But hey, the wife wants what she wants.
***
I grabbed lunch.
My wife’s mom ran an errand for us.
My wife laid in bed, retreating into herself, then coming back and chit chatting with us.
All the while, a Law & Order marathon played on the TV.
BUM. BUM.
***
The doc working that day was busy, surgery after surgery. Finally, she found some time in early or mid-afternoon to stop by and check on the Mrs.
One complication with my wife having broken her water a week-plus prior is that the doc doing the good old ‘let me stick my hand up there to check out the sitch’ check was a little more cautiously viewed. Because the water had broken, one barrier to infection was down, which meant that anytime a foreign item was introduced (i.e. the doc’s aggressive hand) it could increase the risk of an infection. But, with the way the contractions were going, it was time to get a read on the cervix.
This chart is a common sight – the size scale. I don’t know how many bagels I ate while staying at the hospital during this time. I often missed the window where people were making good stuff, so I would settle for a bagel. Odd to look at that chart and think that’s what we were shooting for. By we I mean her.
The doc never-so-lovingly shoved her hand in and let us know, ‘who wants Oreos!?’ (Nah, she said you’re 4cm.)
My wife had been in pain during the contractions, but the pain during the cervix check was excruciating. This rattled her much more than anything else had, and it made her question her ability to do this without drugs.
***
The afternoon continued. Contractions. Reading. Watching. Bad guys hearing puns while detectives and lawyers accused one wrong person after another until finally finding the REAL bad guy.
Due to the pain of the cervical check, my wife decided to enlist some help – laughing gas.
This was the lowest level of drug support you could get. You would hold it up to your face and take breaths from the mask when you wanted (e.g. during contractions) and then lower it and breathe room air. After a few breaths of room air the laughing gas would no longer be in your system. Easy peasy.
My wife was in the bathroom when the doc came back, and I grimaced expectantly. My wife came out of the bathroom and quickly plugged into the gas. It had been doing its job wonderfully at ‘taking the edge off’ with the contractions, but would it pass this test?
Nope. Nope nope nope. The pain was still very present. And, unfortunately, she was only 4.5cm and a solid hour or two had passed. Not the progress we wanted.
***
The contractions were showing up on the monitor, but the doc began to wonder aloud to us about the idea of an internal monitor. Guh. This would be some sort of medical instrument that gets shoved up in there to more accurately measure the strength of the contractions.
(Dear son, be glad you’re not a lady.)
The doc did one more check, this time with my wife gulping down the laughing gas like a runner pausing at the top of a hill, and still bad results – not much more dilation, still incredible pain.
The doc made a call at this point – there is indeed a uterine infection. We are now on a timeline for this baby coming out, and if it doesn’t happen within that time frame, he’s coming out by c-section. The risk of him getting infected by the uterine infection made this an easy call for our doc. Pitocin was called for to speed things up.
My wife, with some frustration, called for more backup. An epidural. The cervical check pains were too much.
***
The anesthesiologist seemed nice, but when you’ve just shoved a needle into my wife’s back, and you’re controling a numbing agent going into her body, and then you’re at your little machine and you say, ‘oh crap!’ … you know … that just doesn’t do much for me.
But, thankfully, it appeared that nothing was actually wrong, because the epidural was doing its thing. The numbness was taking over.
Contractions, pitocin, epidural, uterine infection, all the ingredients for a great party.
Our main nurse brought in a blanket for me and I laid down. At this point, it was maybe 10 pm.
***
I woke up to a lot of medical jargon being said (this was a recurring theme during the stay there). It’s very confusing. One of the doctors we talked to, who was great, said that whenever a doc comes and spews out a bunch of information, you’re likely to retain 30% of that. Therefore, it’s great to have two people in the room, and hopefully each retains a different 30%, and then you’ve got 60%, and that’s not bad. She said this with a hint of humor.
The doctor came in for another cervical check (still hurt), and then decided to insert the internal contraction monitoring device. But wait … it just … (dear God the look of pain on my wife’s face) won’t … (so much pain) … insert.
Oh, and look at all that blood on the doc’s gloved hands. Is that right? Should there be blood?
The doc made another announcement – abruption! Wait, the exclamation point is misleading. How do you denote ‘not good.’ Like, not good on top of the other not goods? Anyway, it was not good.
***
Once a doctor calls out for a c-section that needs to happen pronto, it REALLY HAPPENS PRONTO. I think it was 1:58 am or so that she called it, and we heard our little pal crying at 2:10 am.
Those 12 minutes included going from that room to the OR, putting me in a bunny suit, cutting my wife’s belly open, taking her guts out, taking a baby out, and saying, ‘hey dad, want a picture?’ (Woof. What a sight.)
***
From there things happened at a confusing pace.
I was asked if I wanted to come over to see the kiddo, so I said sure. I left my wife’s face (they had a curtain that started at her neck, which blocked our view of the gut-opening) and went to a corner of the OR where there was a team of 5-6 people surrounding my son. He was crying, which was glorious to hear and brought a few tears to my wife’s smiling face, but the presence of so many people was alarming.
He continued to cry out a few times, which always prompted one of the NICU people, the only male (Josh, who I later met under more normal circumstances) cracked jokes and would say, ‘oh! tell me! tell me!’ They sucked a bunch of fluid out of his lungs and then, at some point, I guess decided he was looking a little blue because they put a tiny oxygen mask over his mouth.
From there we wheeled out of the room, stopping briefly to let my wife glimpse her son from the operating table, and then we were walking to the NICU. The charge nurse was with us and saying … some stuff. God knows what. I think she told me a few times he was doing great, but if he was doing so great, why do we have so many people and we can’t hold him? Great for 33 weeks, I suppose.
Once in the NICU, they took him straight to his room, which we came to know well over the coming weeks. Josh continued to crack jokes, which was the only sign that everything was not awful. Someone who was apparently more in charge walked me out of the room and repeated that everything was great, and then she said that I would need to put on some surgical clothes if I wanted to stick around because they’d be doing ‘blah, blah, blah …’ (medical confusion). The charge nurse asked if I wanted a glass of ice water, which I assumed meant I looked pretty pale and shaky. The woman talking to me seemed to indicate it might make sense for me to check on my recovering wife instead of staring at people putting in a gavage tube and whatever else they did.
***
The Mrs. was sitting in a post-op room, looking much less pregnant, and wiped out. She was shivering, which they said is common and can be from the surgery and from the anesthesia.
She would need to stay in that room for an hour to make sure the i’s were dotted and t’s crossed. I excused myself to let my wife’s folks know how she was doing, and also to get a snack because I began to feel a bit woozy. I guess all of the excitement and nerves had gotten to me. I grabbed two cookies (got my cookies after all), a thing of milk, and I walked to find a chair with no one around, really hoping I wouldn’t pass out because I figured if I passed out in a hospital I’d wake up with an IV in me and that is a bit of a nightmare situation for me (I’m no good with needles). I ate a cookie, cried a bit, ate another cookie, and sat worrying about my wife and son.
***
My wife and I were told, when she left the post-op room, that we’d able to swing by the NICU to see the kiddo, but unfortunately he was still undergoing … whatever it was they were doing. Sure, he’s doing great, but why’s that taking so long?
Back in our room, my wife’s folks were waiting, and my wife and I tried to doze off. We would go see the kiddo when he was ready for us.
This plan was derailed by some violent shivering/shaking my wife was doing. She asked a nurse who responded, honestly, that it normally wears off by now. Huh. Helpful. Later we realized it was probably the infection that amplified the shakes. Speaking of later realizations – that’s also what made the cervical checks so agonizing.
What fun, eh?
With my wife looking like a wreck, and the kiddo’s whatever it was taking longer than expected, my wife’s folks decided to leave for a while … I think after I said they should leave. It’s a bit of a blur. The night/day was called. 24 hours after contractions started, and after many hours of labor, an emergency c-section and a lot of pain later, we needed rest, and all we could do was hope our son was ok.
DumbFunnery 