Connor’s Labor and Delivery Story

I will begin with a TMI (”too much information”) warning first. There may be details included in this story that some find TMI. You have been warned.

This is also really long. I cherish details and wrote this more for myself, Chris, and Connor. I won’t feel bad if you don’t read it all. Pictures will be added to illustrate (don’t worry, nothing gross!) sometime in the next few days.

On Thursday, October 18 Chris and I went in for our 38 week appointment. It was the first time we heard the word “induction.” I was dilated 1cm, 70% effaced, and baby was about -2. Dr. Carver was worried that baby was getting big (she estimated 8-8.5 pounds) and that I was too small in stature for baby to fit. We were given instructions to schedule an appointment early in the next week (October 22) to see if any changes had happened and labor progressed. If not, we should prepare for the possibility of an induction by mid-week.

With our appointment scheduled for Monday, we proceeded to do what we could to start labor, we walked, shopped, cleaned, and I even helped put drywall mud up in the basement (yup, there I was, almost 39 weeks pregnant and I was putting up drywall mud.)

We both decided to take Monday before the appointment off, and did more walking and shopping. At the appointment we found out that I was only dilated 1-2cm (stretchable to 2cm, talk about painful!) and between 70-80% effaced. Upon discovering this, we began talking induction. Dr. Carver was a little alarming, she pretty much said “It’s time” with a worried look on her face, and went to find out when we could come in. We were given instructions to call the next day (Tuesday, October 23) at 5pm to see if the birthing center was busy. If not, then we could go in at 7pm to start the induction.

That night was an emotional night. This was not the birth experience I wanted. I think also at that point we realized how real the possibility of a c-section was, and that was quite stressful.

Tuesday we spent cleaning and preparing for baby. We got a surprising amount of work done, the whole house was spotless. I took a nap around 4 and Chris woke me up at 5 on the dot and said “It’s 5 o’clock.” Nervous and excited I called the birthing center and told the woman who answered why I was calling. She gave us the go-ahead, saying it should be just fine to come in at 7pm. Now the nerves kicked in! We both got ready, showered, finished packing, and ate dinner (scrambled eggs). Just before heading out the door, we took some final belly shots, and a “leaving for the hospital” shot of Chris.

When we got to the hospital, we both decided not to bring anything in just yet, we didn’t feel like looking like we were moving into the ER (that was where we registered). Inside though, I had a bad feeling, things weren’t very organized, they were supposed to admit us in the ER but the woman just called up to the birthing center and told us we needed to go upstairs to be admitted. She then called someone to walk us up and up we went. As soon as we got off the elevator, an RN greeted us there and said something to the effect of “We are going to turn back around and get on the elevator again.” I had a feeling that was going to happen, but once she said that, my stomach sank. Turns out that is had gotten very busy in the birthing center, with three active labors coming in all within a short amount of time before we got there.

We left disappointed and exhausted, and without much info about when we should go back. On the way home I decided we should get Dairy Queen to drown our sorrows in. Even though we were nervous, we didn’t want to get sent home! We spent the evening watching TV (House) and wondering what the next step was. Chris couldn’t handle waiting anymore, so he actually called the birthing center to see if they had any more information for us, and they did. They told us to come in at 7am the next day. I was so happy I wouldn’t have to find something to do the next day. We had nothing left to do at the house!

We tried to get to bed early, but I don’t think either of us got much sleep. I woke up around 5:30 the next day and spent a little time online before getting Chris up and eating breakfast. We were both pretty tired that morning, I barely remember it. Chris decided to call the hospital right before we went in, and got the go-ahead. We got to the hospital and both decided not to bring anything in yet again, just in case, but it wasn’t necessary. Other than a little confusion by the person at the desk (who didn’t think we were supposed to register there, but at main admitting), it went smoothly and we headed up to the Birthing Center (6th floor).

A little background, the Innovis Birthing Center is the most secure birthing center in the state of ND. You have to ring to get in and out, you must know the first and last name of the person you are visiting, the RNs all wear light blue scrubs, the only floor that wears light blue scrubs, and other various security features.

So we rang to get in and Chris told them we are there for our induction. They let us in the door and we are greeted by two RNs who introduced themselves (Tara and Karen) and led us to our room. We got all settled in Suite 608 and began the lengthy project of admitting us. I changed into the hospital gown, they asked tons of questions, checked my cervix (no change), put an IV in, and Chris brought up all of our stuff up to the room.

The RNs needed to get instructions from Dr. Burell (the midwife on call) but at 8:30am we started the gel that was supposed to get things softened up and hopefully start some contractions. Chris and I both took a nap after that, while we waited for the full affect of the gel. At 12:30pm Dr. Carver (who was now the midwife on call) came in and checked to see how things were going. I had dilated to 3cms and effaced to 80%, with baby sitting at about -2. With that information we started the Pitocin to get labor started.

By this time my mom had come to the suite and was doing crocheting on the baby blanket that she gave us and making phone calls. She was our first visitor.

With the Pitocin, things didn’t happen immediately, but we got up and walked around and ate some food. Shortly, I began feeling contractions (like gassy, menstrual cramps) and got in the jacuzzi tub (which helped immensely!). At 1:30, we were dilated to almost 3-4cms (stretchable to 4cms) but no change in effacement or depth. Dr. Carver came in and broke my water, which I have to say was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever felt. I was actually surprised by the amount of liquid, even while laying down, that came out, and it didn’t stop! It continued to leak out for the rest of the delivery.

After having my water broken, the contractions got more intense, and Chris, the excellent coach and partner that he is, helped with the techniques we learned in class. Dr. Carver had Tara put in a device in my uterus to measure the contractions, because the external one wasn’t doing a very good job. Once that was in, it was easy to see the perfect little ups and downs. At one point, the contractions were coming 2-3 minutes apart and they’d last about a minute.

My mom went home to get dinner (which she brought back for Chris too) and by this time my dad had stopped in and was our second visitor. I didn’t know it, but he wanted to be there, which made me really happy.

At 5pm Dr. Carver came in and checked my cervix. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much of a change. I was dilated to 4cms (stretchable to 5cms, but ouch, this time hurt the worse out of all the cervix checks), but effacement and depth hadn’t changed since the last check. This was when Dr. Carver uttered those scary words: “C-section”. She was concerned that baby wasn’t moving down, and things were changing fast enough. She said that she’d come back at 7pm and 9pm and if things hadn’t changed much by then, we should start considering a c-section.

This news was devastating to us, for several reasons. One, I felt that it was simply too soon to be giving up, and of course, we didn’t want that, we wanted to push and all of that.

After that, I got in the tub again with the hopes that it would do what it did the first time (help things along), and while it definitely helped me feel better, it didn’t help much as far as progressing things along, but at 7pm we got good news, that I was definitely dilated to 5cms, so hopes were high as we greeted our next visitors, Sarah and Richard. At this point we had a new RN come in, Laura. I have to admit, I wasn’t impressed with her at all. Maybe Tara was just really awesome.

Sometime in there I did manage to eat some vegetable soup but I found out later that was a mistake. I also had some Italian ice on my dad’s recommendation. Someone at his work had a baby and she could only eat liquids, so she recommended them to him.

I was getting a little worried by this time. I was no longer on Pitocin because by that point my body had taken over and was contracting on it’s own (I only went to a “10″ amount of Pitocin, and the max is “20″) but the contractions started feeling less intense, and seemed to be getting farther apart.

9pm finally rolled around and Dr. Carver came in to check things. Everyone left the room except Chris and he held my hand through the pain of the cervix check (have I mentioned the pain?). Unfortunately, we now had bad news delivered to us. I was still only dilated to 5cms, effacement was the same, and baby seemed to be moving back up. I cried through the entire process of her telling us all of our options. The first was to go in for a c-section right then (non-emergency), and second was to try an epidural to see if that would help relax things up down there. We decided that since with a c-section we’d have to have some sort of epidural anyway, that we’d try it to see if maybe it would help. We thought that would be a good compromise because we both still felt it was too early (I mean, I hadn’t even been in labor for 9 hours! Though I thought about it later, and I wasn’t nearly even in active labor yet, which should have started earlier with the Pitocin).

We then began the process of getting the epidural, which the actual epidural went smoothly, but once it was in and working, the Anesthesiologist (Ron) decided that he didn’t like the way my IV was running, so he proceeded to poke and prod my right arm trying to find a good vein. It was too much for my body and I began to shake violently and I was getting nauseous. Finally I couldn’t take it anymore and vomited (hello vegetable soup) quite a bit into a convenient bag they had there for me. Baby wasn’t reacting well to me getting poked and prodded either, as, for the first, time, the heart rate dipped into the 80s and didn’t immediately bounce back. Poor Chris was in agony watching that while I’m throwing everything up.

This had all taken quite a while, so Dr. Carver, who had given the epidural until 11, then checked my cervix once again, and we were given even worse news. My cervix had not changed at all, and the worse news was that baby was actually moving back UP into the birth canal. Even though we didn’t want it, we were both ready to do the c-section. Chris said the turning point was baby’s heart rate dipping, I barely remember that part, but hearing that baby was moving back up into the birth canal made me realize that I was way too small to fit him out.

Once we had finally decided on the c-section (at 11:30pm) things went very quickly. It helped that we had a new RN who was wonderful, her name was Natalie and she just made everything light. Our friends and family, who had been waiting in the family area for about two hours (since the start of the epidural at 9pm,) came in to find out the news, Chris got all dressed up in his scrubs, and my mom also got some scrubs on, because she would be able to watch from an observation window. I said good bye to my visitors, making sure to give my dad a hug (he was very emotional, and that made me worse, every time I thought about him while I was in the OR, I began to cry) and was wheeled into the OR.

Since I already had an epidural, things went really fast in the OR. They moved me to the surgery bed, I had stronger stuff put into my IV (by Ron, who felt really bad about the needle sticks and was super nice in the OR, explaining everything) to make sure I didn’t feel a thing, was strapped down, had all the tubes and stuff put on, along with the sheet, and Chris got comfortable. Surgery began shortly and all I could feel was tugging and pressure, just like they said. It was quite a strange feeling actually. I’m not sure of the exact time frame, but I’m pretty sure we weren’t in there for more than 25 minutes.

They said I’d feel some intense pressure and I heard them call out a birth time of 12:28am (I had joked earlier that it was okay to have the c-section now because then baby will be born early on the 25th, and not late on the 24th, because I used to give my brother crap that he couldn’t celebrate his birthday until 4:30 in the afternoon because that is when he was born, so I got an AM birthday like I wanted!) and we heard a loud, simple cry, followed by a smaller one, but no one told us if it was a boy or girl! I was looking around, I could hear my baby, but didn’t know what baby was! Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, but in reality was probably only seconds after we heard baby cry, Ron (anesthesiologist) announced “It’s a boy!” I wasn’t sure I heard correctly, as I was already crying by that time, so I looked at Chris, tears in my eyes “A boy?” and he gives me a big smile (through his own tears) and says yes!

I could see them cleaning him up and I just wanted them to bring him to me so I could see him and decide on his name. Ron asked and I said “We can’t name him, I have to meet him first!” They finally brought him over and I was able to get a good look at him and he was beautiful. I noticed the dark hair and round face and just fell in love. It wasn’t enough to name him though, I asked Chris what he thought, and he said “I think you need to see him first.”

After getting the ID bracelets put on all three of us, they took our little boy to the nursery, and though Chris and I had talked about having Chris stay in the OR with me while I was stitched up, I changed my mind and insisted he “Go and be a daddy!”

Stitching me up didn’t take long, while they were doing so, Dr. Carver told me how it went. She said that the baby had tried to go down the birth canal (as evidenced by the shape of his head) but couldn’t make it partly because I was so narrow, and because he had a big head that was actually moving down at an angle. She said I could have gone through 40 hours of labor and this baby never would have come. Before she even told me this, I didn’t regret our decision, but that definitely helped.

Soon I was wheeled into the recovery room where Natalie got me situated and I sat up and waited for my little boy to get brought in for “Prime Time” (the hour after birth, in our case, two hours, where mom, dad, and baby meet each other, try breastfeeding, and bond).

Baby was brought in and Chris followed, and I finally got to hold my little man. I looked at Chris and said “I think he is a Connor.” and Chris said “That was what I thought when I first saw him.” Truth was, baby was a younger version of the baby I had a dream about at the beginning of October, when the name Connor came to me. He was beautiful, with chubby cheeks, blue newborn eyes, and a little dark hair.

That is how Connor arrived in this world.

Born: Thursday, October 25th, 2007 at 12:28 AM
Weight: 8 pounds 5.6 ounces
Height: 23 inches
Head Circumference: 13.25 centimeters

After Prime Time, our visitors came in and saw Connor, and by 3am everyone had left and they took Connor to the nursery. Though we were “Rooming In” we took the advice of RN Natalie and had him brought to the nursery for the rest of the night. He was brought to us the next morning.

Not Pictured: Richard and Joe (my little brother) were both there after the birth. Richard took many of these pics (his are the slightly taller horizontals and slightly wider verticals)

Since Connor was born after midnight, that first night didn’t count, and due to the c-section, they add an extra day onto the stay, we actually were in the hospital for five days and four nights. While the conveniences of the hospital were nice, we were definitely ready to go home by Sunday. We brought our little man home on Sunday, October 28th.