Better Late than Never: December 2012

It all started on Monday, November 5th. I decided to go into labor and delivery after having tons of green and white mucus. I went in, they monitored me, checked my cervix, checked for infections, told me I was good to go and it was my "normal" and sent me on my way. I was not prepared for what would happen the next day.

November 6th, I woke up in the morning to go to work and I was a little crampy. The midwife at L&D told me that I would be a little crampy the day following the cervix check. I went to work and within the first 2 hours I started having these strange pains that would start in my stomach and move to my lower back, almost like a super bad period cramp. They came and went every now and then and I tried very hard to just ignore them, seeing as the midwife told me I'd probably be a bit crampy. I got through the day at work, which was a bit difficult seeing as I didn't feel well at all throughout the day. I just wanted to push through it and not be one of those annoying pregnant women who like to make excuses to leave work because they're not feeling well. Soon it was time to leave work and I decided to go to Walmart to pick up a few groceries for the house since my husband was coming home from a 2 week field project the next day. I decided to push through the pain, even though I so badly wanted to just sit down and relax, I knew I had to get a few things for the following day so that I could enjoy my husband being home rather than worrying about not having food in the house. Anyway, the whole time I was there I was having pain, thinking that it could possibly be contractions but it wasn't that tightening feeling I had heard about, or it wasn't every so often I'd feel the pain. It was a constant pain in my lower back and every now and then a pain in my lower abdomen. I got through it and after I checked out, I went to the restroom because I felt a huge amount of wetness in my underwear. When I went to check, there was bloody mucus. The midwife also told me I'd see some blood, too, so I wasn't too worried at this point. I just wanted to get home, put the groceries away, and relax for the rest of the night.

I finally got home and put the groceries away. It wasn't an easy task. I almost called my mom and asked her to come take them out of the car for me and put them away. I was hurting a good amount. I finally got them put away and laid down in bed to relax. By this time it was about 7pm and the presidential elections were going on. While I was laying there in bed, watching the votes fly in, I felt this strange pain that I had been feeling all day, getting worse. I now know that these pains were contractions. I timed them, they were 11 minutes apart. I didn't think anything of it, I didn't have the tightening like I thought I would. I decided to monitor these contractions over the course of the evening. I had 5 of them in about 2 hours. It made me wonder about going into labor and delivery. I toughed it out and fell asleep before finding out who won the presidential election. I woke up several times having contractions. At 4am, November 7th, something told me that it just want not right and it was too painful for it to just be from the cervix check. I decided to take a hot shower and get my clothes on and head to L&D to be checked out.

At 4:45am, November 7th, I was put on the monitors for contractions and baby's heartbeat. The contraction monitor was WAY too high on my stomach (I didn't know this during the time) to detect contractions and the nurse was baffled by the pain I had described to her. I decided to call my mom to let her know that I may not be going to work after all is said and done. She showed up around 5am. After about 30 minutes of monitoring, the nurse took me to the exam room to check my cervix and, again, check for infections. My mom stayed in the waiting room. I laid on the hard table bed, still having contractions. She checked to see if my water had broken, and it did not. She then checked for infections, there weren't any. Finally, she checked my cervix. She didn't say anything to me. She just said she was going to get the doctor and I was in there with another nurse who was doing something else, I just don't remember. The doctor came in, checked my cervix, talked to the nurse, and looked VERY sleepy like he had just woken up. I kind of questioned his professionalism due to how tired he looked. I'm not going to lie, I didn't like him too much. Anyway, the nurses left and he and the doctor and I were left in the room together. He sighed really deep and and looked at me straight in the face and said, "You're 4 cm dilated and your water is bulging." Cue the freaked out moment of silence from me, laying there all alone. After hearing him, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. The doctor then explained that he needed me to stay still, and that my water could break at any point and he didn't want that to happen. I then asked him to get my mom to come in the exam room. She came in and I had tears in my eyes and could barely explain to her what was going on. I told her to call my husband and to make him come to the hospital and out of the field as soon as he could. By this time, it was about 5:30 am. The doctor gave me an ultrasound to check on the baby's position. After looking at the ultrasound for several seconds, he announced that my baby boy was breech and that I would need a C-section, and probably very soon. Cue even more tears streaming down my face. My worst fears were coming true, a possibility of losing my baby, and having to get a c-section. I was terrified. I felt like it was a bad dream. I needed my husband. I sucked up the tears and just prayed to God for our little boy to be okay, and to come out breathing.

The nurses told me to stay put on the hard exam bed/table. They went and got a gurney and put it right by the door so I didn't have to walk far to get into the bed. The nurses practically picked me up and put me into the bed, and told me not to use ANY of my abdominal muscles. The road me down the hallway and into a L&D room. They put me pretty much upside-down, to take the pressure off my uterus/bag of water. They hooked me up to some IV medication to try to stop my contractions (at this point they KNEW they had done something wrong while they monitored me by not putting the monitor low enough on my belly to). My contractions were coming 2-3 minutes apart. I remember the magnesium made my chest feel really hot. The contractions were getting worse. My husband finally showed up at around 6:20am. He was dirty from being in the field. He looked like he had not slept in about a month, and he was just baffled by the situation. He leaned in to kiss me and told me everything was going to be okay. He then went to the bathroom to wash his face and at least some of his body. My contractions kept getting worse. Really horrible lower back contractions. Then, all of a sudden I felt this major pain in my groin ligaments. It hurt SO BAD. I wanted to scream. I kept saying "It hurts, I'm so scared, It hurts!" My mom and my husband started rubbing my groin area and it was the best feeling I had ever felt!!! LOL... I will never forget that pain. The doctor came in at around 7:45am and checked my cervix. I had continued to dilate and I was going pretty fast. He gave me the option of giving birth hear and medi-flighting the baby to the NICU in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma OR to just medi-fllight me, while in labor, to the city. But if it were going to be just me, and my water would have broke while on the flight, the baby would possibly not make it. So we decided to just do the c-section there at the hospital and medi-flight Henry to OKC. We headed into the delivery room at around 8:15am and the doctors moved me from the bed to the operating table. Remember, I wasn't allowed to use my abdomen? They did the spinal while I was laying on my side because they didn't want me to be sitting up and to risk me breaking my water. It was the strangest thing ever! Then they flipped my body back onto my back and put the curtain below my neck so I couldn't see anything. I laid there listening to the surroundings. My husband finally got to come in. I tried to move my legs and couldn't. It almost made me feel like I was going to freak out. I stayed calm and made my own little noises to calm me down. I almost felt like I was meditating. I also remember every now and again saying, "God is good!! My baby is going to be okay, please let him be okay!" I repeated that several times, and continuing to moan to remember to breathe, plus it calmed me down. I then heard, "incision made, water's clear." I praised the lord for that. Then, after a few moments, the doctor said "time 9:17am" and I heard my sweet baby boy cry his first little cry. Then a few seconds later he cried again. They wheeled him by and took him away. They fixed me back up and rolled me back to my L&D room. I was so scared that something was going to happen to him. I begged God to keep him here on earth with us and to help him be healthy. I still kept saying, "I am so scared." After all we had been through to get him, we finally had our son, but why were we put in this situation? God knows the reason and we will find out sooner or later. After they rolled me back to my room, my husband left shortly after so they he could go home and change clothes, get some things together, and head up to OKC so that he could be there when Henry got there on the medi-flight. My mom went with him. My sister stayed at the hospital with me. The whole day I wondered how in the world could something like this happen? This was not the way it was supposed to go. But I thanked the Lord so many times and was so happy that my son came out alive and breathing. I saw him for the first time on his Birthday at around 2:30pm, right before they put him on the medi-flight to OKC. I touched his little hands and foot. I prayed that he would make it on the flight, and he did. A couple of days later I was discharged from the hospital to be with my two special boys. And that's the begining of our family story. I pray that there are many, many years to come. We will celebrate the milestones, each day/hour at a time!