Elijah is here!!

First of all, I want to apologize to everyone that has felt out of the loop in this whole event... I assure you, you are not the only one. Some of you heard that we had to have an emergency C-section and, thus, many others may not have even been aware of the birth of our precious Son at all. I have had many requests for details of the birth so I am blogging it here. Disclaimer: If you are pregnant (Kara, Leslie, Kim...) or squeamish about womanly details of birth, I would advise you not to read this just now. It is the perfect story of why NOT to have a birth plan :)

OK, here we go.

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Dan and I went into Labor and Delivery upon suspicion that I may be leaking amniotic fluid. The Midwife told us that in fact I was not but that she saw a deceleration in the fetal heart rate when she was examining me and wanted to do an ultrasound to check the fluid levels. The ultrasound indicated that little Elijah was running very low on fluid and she informed us that we would be admitted and induced that day; shocker #1. I made sure throughout my whole pregnancy NOT to have a birth plan... I felt there was NO planning such an event and trying to do so would just lead to inevitable disappointment. However, there was one thing I was sure of- I was NOT getting induced. Unless it was a medical necessity of course. I was certain that I knew how most inductions wound up- in C-section due to lack of progression as a result of trying to force nature. Yet, here I found myself being induced. My placenta had already begun to show signs of deterioration and calcification and was not supplying the baby with the nourishment he needed to survive. This was it.

Around 4:00PM the midwife gave me Cervadil to further soften the cervix to encourage dilation. We gave it several hours to take effect before my Midwife inserted the "Foley Balloon" into my cervix to dilate it further. This acts much like a water balloon and is filled with water after it's inserted to manually dilate the cervix. This was supposed to get me to dilate to 3.5-4 cm before it would "fall out," at which point, the plan was to rupture my membranes and re-infuse the uterus with fluid to help Elijah tolerate the rest of our labor. Oh the PAIN. Not cool. Not natural. SO not what I had in mind. But whatever. That was about 10:30PM Tuesday Night.

Wednesday, April 7, 2010 (My Due Date!)

4:00Am- Bring on the Pitocin! I knew enough about Pitocin to know it is not a natural childbirth's best friend. I wasn't looking forward to it. The Pitocin was increased every 30 minutes there on. The contractions quickly got more intense and closer together. Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the Foley to "fall out" as promised, indicating that I was progressing and now in active labor. It never did.

10:00AM- I was exhausted and in so much pain... How could I not be progressing at all?! There was no way I was going to get an epidural when I was less than 4 cm dilated but I was nearing my limit. I had been laboring intensely for 12 hours with very little help in the pain department. I needed some help soon.

11:30AM- Limit reached. I was in agony and called for the Midwife to tell her I could not go one minute longer in this kind of pain. I needed the Epidural NOW. Foley still had not fallen out and I was SO discouraged... This was going exactly as I thought it would. GREAT. The midwife told me that with the pain I was in, that she was sure I was further along than I thought and that the Foley was probably just sitting in there waiting to come out. She wanted to examine me... I told her no. Epidural first.

The following events took a matter of minutes to unfold:

-Epidural administered
-Midwife exam proves indeed I was progressing- between 6 and 7 cm and Foley was just sitting there. Awesome.
-Baby's heart rate decels with every contraction (as it had been for much of the night)
-I hear a nurse tell the anesthesiologist "Um... Dr? Maternal heart rate is 48" I think to myself "Hm... That can't be good..."
-Nurse tells Midwife "Fetal HR has dropped to 70"
-Rush of about 50 people into the room
-OBGYN telling me "We are going to go ahead and prepare an OR..."
- Getting wheeled out of the room... Dan's eyes welling up with tears... Trying not to panic but can't help myself from thinking "I could die, my baby could die."
- Announcement over the PA as I am being rushed down the hall "CODE C! CODE C! LABOR AND DELIVERY!!" Hospital jargon for "Crash c-section." More rushing people...

I am alone in the OR (and by alone I mean without Dan) listening to the sounds of emergency surgical preparation and what the doctors and nurses are saying amongst themselves. It doesn't sound good. They are prepping my belly for surgery only, my epidural hasn't taken effect yet. I can feel everything they are doing. I ask if I am going to be able to feel this... The anesthesiologist tells me he will probably have to put me under general anesthesia and that Dan probably won't be able to be there. I am so scared. Then, by the grace of God, Elijah's heart rate momentarily picks back up, buying us a few precious minutes. In this amount of time they are able to up my dose of the Epi and get Dan in the room just in time for the birth of our Son.

11:53AM- Elijah is here! He is healthy and responsive and we couldn't be more grateful. We are wheeled to post-surgical recovery. The nurse there tells me that my baby is hungry and needs to eat. I am shaking SO bad from the surgery and the medications, I couldn't possibly hold my baby let alone try to feed him. I feel awful and I want my Mom. For those of you that do not know, my Mother is a Lactation Consultant. I have been looking forward to her being the one to teach me how to breastfeed my child for years. We are finally able to get her back there to help us and the first time I "hold"/feed my baby (she is really holding him for me), I am puking in a bag. Again, not what I had in mind.

We are finally allowed to go back to our room to let the real recovery begin. We are informed once we get there that Elijah is Coomb's positive, which means that, due to a blood incompatibility between he and I, he is more susceptible to Jaundice. So for the first 2 days of his life, he is in an incubator under the lights to reduce his bilirubin levels severely hindering our ability to bond. This sucks. Not to mention that I am bed-ridden... Attached to IV's, heart rate, monitors, my catheter, and some random leg-squeezey mechanism that is supposed to keep the blood circulating through my legs. I can't roll over, sit up, or pick up my baby without assistance. This sucks.

Friday April 9, 2010

We are discharged from the hospital. Probably sooner than we should have been but we were so glad to get home and put this whole experience behind us. Elijah is healthy... No jaundice... And we were free to go home and enjoy him.

My recovery over the next few days was very slow and emotional but I am doing much better now and Dan was able to go back to work 2 days ago. We are all happy and so thankful for all of your prayers, love, and well-wishes. Again, I am sorry I have been out of touch. I am slowly beginning to come out from under my rock and I will hopefully be able to touch base with all of you soon.

Love to you all!

The Turners