| 2/17/2005 | |
| Life Begins | |
| All I heard was "So you want me to come in? OK". At about 12:00 AM Hannah had noticed a spot in her underwear. It was nothing much, about the size of a half-dollar, but it gave her concern. She was hesitant to call her doctor because it seemed so insignificant and her labor was going to be induced later that evening anyway. Needing some reassurance, she called her sister who insisted that she call her gyno immediately. Hannah did so and the doctor on call wanted her to come into the hospital. It was toward the end of this conversation that I awoke, having been asleep on the couch. Now the doctor wanted us to come in. This, of course, gave me some alarm since I had no idea that anything was going on. One might wonder why the sister in New York gets a call instead of the husband on the couch being awakened, but that's the way it happened. After hanging up Hannah filled me in on what was going on. Not knowing what would be the outcome we packed all of our delivery stuff into the auto and headed out to the hospital. We arrived at about 2:00 AM. We shuffled into the emergency room, spewed our information, and Hannah was promptly wheeled up to the maternity ward. We were taken to the room to which Jen (someone from our birthing class) was assigned just a day or so before. The nurse placed Hannah on the monitor and everything seemed OK. At one point the nurses suddenly crowded into the room. We were kinda confused as we did not notice anything unusual, but they said that the baby's heart-rate had dropped significantly. The nurse informed us that, although it was the doctor's decision, we would not be going home any time soon. The resident did an ultrasound to check out the baby "in person" and she appeared very confused. She brought in one of the nurses to look at it and it turns out that there was almost no water left in her amniotic sack. The decision was made that at 7:00 AM (it was about 4:00 AM at the time) Hannah would be re-evaluated with consideration to the possibility of being induced immediately (which they said was likely). Since Hannah's mother goes into work at about this time, Hannah decided to call her mother and let her know what was going on. To our surprise she said she and her husband would be down shortly. We told the nurse to expect visitors and she was alarmed. She wondered why they were coming when there would be no action until, in her words, "if we were lucky 1:00 - 3:00 PM". At any rate, the in-laws came. They didn't stay for long, just long enough to say "hi" and visit for a bit. Hannah was starting to get crampy. Little did we know, induction would no longer be necessary, as she was going into labor on her own. As time progressed the contractions got stronger (duh). At 7:00 AM the doctor arrived and evaluated Hannah. Yes, she was, in fact, in the early stages of labor. Doctor Faye was sooo excited. It was time to make some phone calls and start an IV. There was no real hurry so the nurse let us relax in the Hannah was able to nap for fairly long periods at this point. I took some pictures of the space, played some Civilization III, watched some pathetic TV (they have DirectTV and yet there were no decent channels available; go figure), and tried (with little success) to nap. Around noon Hannah was starting to get most uncomfortable. The doctors had changed watches and Doctor Smith (our preferred deliverer due to his laid-back attitude on a number of topics) had taken over. He wanted to wait a bit before administering the epidural so they gave Hannah some narcotic. You could almost instantly see the "I'm feeling much better now" look on Hannah's face. Once or twice the baby's heart rate dropped dramatically again. The doctors surmised that this was due to the low water level in the amniotic sack. Occasionally, as the baby moved around, the umbilical cord would be pinned thus impacting circulation through the cord. This would cause the baby's heart rate to drop. To combat this the nurses installed a pump to actually partially re-inflate the sack with normal saline. The side effect of this was a fair amount of leakage through the vagina (um, ew) when contractions occurred. This seemed to improve the situation. At one point the doctor said that we were lucky to have such a cool-headed doctor; anyone else would have taken her down to the OR for an emergency C. After a time the narcotic started to wear off and the pain returned. It was time for the epidural. The nurses urged me to leave. They were concerned that I would pass out. I'm not sure why they thought this; it's a glorified IV. I was very insistent that I be allowed to stay and thus was. The thing went in without a hitch and half of Hannah's body went almost immediately numb. The doctor said that the other half would soon follow. While all of this was going on my mother called me from the lobby. She left me a message stating that they had picked up my brother and arrived at the hospital, but the hospital had no record of us being there. She wanted me to come down and escort them to the maternity ward. After getting the message I went downstairs to meet them and they were nowhere to be found. I figured that the staff had found us in the system and had sent them up so I returned to the ward. Again they were nowhere to be found. I called. It turns out that they had gone to Abington hospital; we were at Suburban, D'OH! It was at about this time that the staff was wondering why Hannah's labor was not progressing. The Pitocin had been in and it was cranked way up and still there was nothing. What's the deal? Well, it turns out that the IV was infused (as I understand it it missed the vein and was placed in the muscle). So the hormone was gathering in a bubble under Hannah's skin instead of getting into her system, lovely. They replaced Hannah's IV. Within a few seconds Hannah started to wince under a massive contraction. I thought she was going to rip my hand off. That's when the nurse remembered that the pump was still set to 26 (apparently a very high setting), and now that the IV was properly placed the sudden massive dose caused a huge contraction. With the pump returned to a normal setting we tried to get on with our lives. An hour or so after the epidural was applied and the Pitocin fixed, it was painfully obvious (pun intended) that there was something wrong. Hannah's contractions were intensifying, as they should, but her pain was not subsiding. The anesthesiologist was summoned and remarked that the epidural had to be working a since half of Hannah was numb. Unfortunately it was not the half where the contractions were taking place. She upped the dosage and went about her business. Time went on and Hannah started screaming. Well, not really screaming, at least not on the outside. Eventually Doctor Smith came in and told us that this was not how it was supposed to be. He had a "discussion" with the anesthesiologist and resummoned her to our room to readminister the epidural. Doctor Smith said she would resist and to directly ask the anesthesiologist to apply a new one. When she came in she was again very insistent that it was working. She was very argumentative when we requested that she put in a new one (ironicaly after having just told us that she would do whatever we wanted her to), just as the doctor said she would be. The anesthesiologist said "how about we just up the dosage again and see what happens?" I was getting a little pissed off. The woman screwed up, she wouldn't admit it, and she obviously did not want to fix the problem. I hate that. Anyway, I looked around and no one else was going to say anything, so, with great restraint (don't piss off the drug lady) I retortd "how about we just put in a new one?" She finally capitulated and applied a new epidural (I was again allowed to stay and again I did not pass out). Almost instantly Hannah felt better. As time went on she got better and better. It got to the point where she was cracking jokes and not even noticing that contractions were taking place. It was about 7:00 when the doctor evaluated Hannah and said that she was fully dialated. We were ready to go but he wanted to let the baby drop some more on it's own so he inclined Hannah's bed and we waited some more. Much to my surprise Hannah was napping again. I knew that the epidural was effective, but not that effective. At about 7:30 or so the doctor returned and we were ready to push. Hannah was shaking like a leaf. Apparently this is a normal hormonal thing. She had been starving all day since she was not allowed to eat the whole time. She was also getting nauseous. The nurse plugged a lactated ringer with D5W (ooh the jargon). In a few minutes Hannah was feeling better and we were ready to go. Doctor Smith was covering for another doctor so he was still with us (happily). He asked Hannah to skootch up a bit. The attempt failed miserably. It turns out that, once again, when the plumbing for a drug inducement device was replaced the pump attached to it remained on high. The epidural had reduced Hannah's legs to dead meat on the bone. This made things a just a bit more interesting. She could not feel the contractions at all. We were flying on instruments. We (she) started to push. We had a whole cheering section in the room. Hannah's mother and sister and my mother were there. Everyone counted together. I would like to say teamwork, but who are we kidding? Hannah did everything. She was pushing to the best of her ability with no feeling at all. They had stopped her epidural but it would take time for it to start to wear off. The baby's heart rate dropped again. This was starting to worry the doctor and freak me out. I tried to retain my composure for Hannah's sake. There was a woman next door that was also in labor and at about the same point we were. At one point the doctor had to leave to help her. Next the nurse went out to get drinks for everyone. I know that sounds weird, but unbenounced to Hannah, but overheard by me, the doctor and nurse were lining up specialists to come in for the birth in case of emergency. The doctor and nurse actually both left the room for a while leaving me in charge of the birth. I had never done this before (obviously) but had asked an annoying number of questions at every step of the way. I felt prepared to do this so I took control. I watched the monitor and called the contractions. We all counted as Hannah pushed. She was regaining feeling in her lower extremeties so she was much better able to help. The nurse came back with our drink order. Doctor Smith came back and announced that the woman next door had given birth to a bouncing baby boy. We were next though I hoped our baby wouldn't be bouncing off of anything. The baby seemed to be stalled. The contractions were strong and regular but progress seemed to be minimal. The heart rate dropped again. Doctor Smith informed us that if that were to happen again we would have to have an operable delivery. This freaked us out. A C after all this? He said that he didn't want to, but it would be necessary to use the vaccu-suck device to assist the delivery because the stress of prolonged labor may hurt the baby. The nurses immediately argued his use of the word "operable". That implies surgery, i.e. a C-section. He meant "assisted" delivery. *whew* And there was much rejoicing. The labor continued. Two doctors and a few nurses trickled in. The baby's heartbeat dropped again. I internalized my freaking out and kinda looked over toward the doctor. He didn't panic, and he didn't go for the pump. He seemed to have faith. We had a few more big pushes and the baby started to crown. It was very sci-fi. Doctor Smith was kinda petting the baby on it's head. It was mushy and he was playing with it. Of course I had to call him on that. It turns out that the top of the head is covered with a layer of very fleshy, very mushy tissue. He wasn't doing any damage; I think he did it for shock value. Anyway, the doctor had Hannah slow down her pushes, calling for smaller more rapid pushes to inch the baby out. He was trying to minimize tearing. Everyone (three doctors, three nurses, two mothers, one sister, and one father-to-be) in the room waited with baited breath as the baby inched out of the womb. Suddenly the head popped out. The baby was bluish-purple, but adorable. It was very Alienesque seeing Hannah with a head sticking out of her vagina. The doctor kinda wrangled the baby into position for the final push. One, two, three and the shoulder cleared. Almost instantly the rest of the body followed, at 9:44 PM (despite that fact that their clock said 9:47 and that's what is on the document). We had a baby! With all of the excitement I never checked for gender. No else seemed to either. We were so certain that it was going to be a girl that we never really thought to look until she was laid upon Hannah's chest. Hannah looked over and noticed that she was a girl and muttered "Wow, it's a girl". And with that our abstract baby became a very concrete daughter. I cut the cord and the nurses whisked the baby over to the warming table to check her out. The two NICU nurses that had come in kept us well blocked while they worked her over. Despite the efforts of me, Rachel, and our mothers it was almost impossible to get a decent picture. We finally heard a cry albeit a bit subdued. We could see the baby and see that she was definitely breathing, but she didn't cry more than one or two whimpers. I was a bit concerned (again, this was a very stressful day). It was utter chaos and I think that that drove the nurses nuts. I think that Doctor Smith was loving it. We got pictures and video of all kinds of disgusting things (our party was much like the paparazzi). Doctor Smith harvested the cord blood to be sent off to a nitrogen freezer someplace, then delivered the placenta. There was a lot of joy and concern (at least from me anyway) in the room. I was relieved when I found out that little Juliet's one minute Apgar was a mostly healthy seven and her five minute was a very strong nine out of ten. The red alert was canceled. Doctor Smith gave us a quick lesson on the structure of the placenta. He even ruptured the amniotic sack for the camera. A good time was had by all. I was finally allowed to hold my daughter and take her over to Mom. Julie looked so cute, and of all things, confused. She had this very alert, very perplexed look on her face. Doctor Smith was sewing and cleaning up the aftermath (two stitches; not bad eh?). Once that was done the famlilial men were brought in. My father and brother looked very moved. It was adorable. After some time they left and Hannah went to breast feed little Julie. To our surprise she latched on and immediately nursed. Who said that breast feeding was a challenge? After the baby's quick snack we decided it was time to move to our new abode, recovery. Now that the feeling had returned to Hannah's legs she felt confident that she could walk the twenty feet to our room. I took the baby, she hopped out of bed, and ooze went splat on the floor. Well, this was something we weren't expecting (although we should have, duh). She quickly tried to get back into bed while I quickly tried to clean up the bloody Exxon Valdez incident on the floor. The nurse returned, saw our predicament, and was very apologetic. She was begging our fogiveness for what I'm not sure (leaving us alone she said). We were the ones trying to do something that defies common sense. At any rate she was very nice and helped us clean up and get to our room. By this time it was about midnight. I hadn't eaten since 1:30 that afternoon. Hannah hadn't eaten since the day before. I ran to Wendy's to take advantage of their "Eat Great Even Late" policy. When I returned to the ward our little family had it's first meal together. |
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