Birth Story Part 2 - The Induction

So Seriously, I started this post almost 3 months ago!  I really need to get into a better blogging habit. If you need a refresher, here's Part 1.

OK so where we left off, A and I were headed to the hospital for our scheduled induction.  Something I would like to note, on the way there, A and I were discussion our predictions for what was going to happen.  A predicted that I would respond really well to the pitocin, and we'd have a baby by noon.  I figured that knowing my luck, we'd be lucky if we had a baby by 4, and that I guessed we wouldn't be done before dinner.

We arrived at the hospital 8pm and went through all the initial questions.  (A little sidebar, asking me if I feel safe at home while my husband is sitting right next to me seems a little counter productive doesn't it?  No I'm terrified of my husband and I'm going to tell you all about it while he's in the room monitoring my every word...Riiiiight)  About 8:30 our pastor arrived to spend a little time with us and pray with us before we got the pitocin going.  I have to tell you how touched I was by this.  The pastor and our church family have been just AMAZING through all of this.  He called me on Wednesday wondering if we would like him to come by and what time.  He wanted to be sure he was there before they started the meds so we could pray over the entire process.  It was nearly 10pm before he left.  I felt a little bad that he stayed so long, but I was really glad he did.  I have to confess I was more nervous about the whole process than I wanted to admit at the time.  Finally about 10:30 pm, the nurses got my Pitocin started, and our doula (we'll call her Mandy) arrived around 11pm.  Now it just so happened that Mandy also happened to be a overnight L&D nurse at the hospital where we delivered, and happened to be the instructor for our childbirth class (which is how we met her)  We got lucky that she was already scheduled to work Thursday night, so she was there with us for the entire induction, labor, and delivery.

Anyway, A slept pretty well most of the night on the oh-so-comfortable daddy chair (do you sense my sarcasm?  The poor guy, the chair laid out into a bed, but was about 6 inches too short for his 6'2" frame.  Now I on the other hand did not sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time.  I had to wear a blood pressure cuff that was going off every 15-30 minutes, plus Mandy was coming in every so often to up my pitocin a bit.  So I rested, but I won't say I slept.  Finally about 6:30 am, I gave up trying to sleep and got up to go to the bathroom.  Mandy was in the room when I got up, but had to go get things ready for shift change so she told me she'd be back shortly to hook me back up to the monitors.  We had been to the hospital enough times that I told her to take her time, I could get the fetal monitors plugged back in, just to turn off the blood pressure cuff so it didn't go nuts.  So after I went to the bathroom, I plugged everything back in, Sat down on the bed and raised the back so I could comfortably sit up.  I had sat back on the too far, and my butt was right on where the bed folds. As the top was raising I felt a sharp jab in my belly, and lowered the bed back down to scoot down a bit when all the sudden, my water broke!  I just started giggling uncontrollably and A was so confused!  But it TICKLED!  I called to the desk to let the Nurses know, and they must have been in shift change rounds, because it took another 15 minutes or so for them to come in and help me change. Luckily I had been sitting right on the big absorbent pad when it broke, so there wasn't much of a mess, but every time I moved I could feel more fluid so I just sat and waited (giggling the whole time).  The nurses thought I was crazy!  They said they have NEVER had someone say it tickled.  What can I say I'm an odd duck.  So they got everything cleaned up, changed the bed, and checked me and at 7am, I was 3cm dilated.  So far labor had been pretty easy, and I was feeling good about getting through this.  I mean after all my water had broken on its own!  How many inductions does that happen in?  Mandy told us that she had only seen it a handful of times, and as an overnight nurse, she's seen a lot of inductions!  (Our hospital starts inductions between 8pm and 12am preferably) My BP had been pretty stable all night, not great, but not scary high even during contractions, and my body was reacting really well to the Pitocin so we were feeling pretty good.

Next: Part 3 - Labor and Delivery

Save the Frosties Update

I am just blown away by the generosity of the virtual world.  We are well over half way to our goal of raising $500 to help Genevieve save her frozen embryos!  If you look to the right there is now a thermometer helping track our progress.  If you want o the whole back story please go check out this post.

If you've been waiting to look at stuff in the Etsy store, don't wait much longer!  Tomorrow (Tuesday), I will be posting about 20 NEW ITEMS in the store.  I'm also extending my Save the Frosties Sale, so for every item sold between now and Labor Day (September 5th) $10 will go to the Save the Frosties fund. 

Please consider donating to the fund.  On top of everything else, Genevieve and her husband were impacted, like so many others, by Hurricane Irene.  Thankfully they didn't have any major damage, mostly just a lot of rain and wind, but it was another hurdle to climb over.

Can you help?  Even $5 will get Genevieve's little Peanut closer to a brother or sister.  Click the PayPal button to donate!

Save the Frosties!!!

We're going to take a break from...OK from my break....for a very special message.  Someday soon I'll be back with the second half of Bryan's birth story and an update on my 4 month old! (Holy cow is he really that old already!)  For now, I'd like to put a plea out there about something that is very dear to my heart.

If you have followed my blog, you know that I had a IVF cycle buddy, Genevieve.  Gen and her husband went through their IVF less than a week after A and I did, and their little boy Phelan was born about 3 weeks before Bryan, after giving his mommy pure hell for 35 weeks.  She was such a trooper, but had every bad pregnancy symptom in the book, except preeclampsia which I took care of.  Amazingly Phelan didn't have to spend a single minute in the NICU, even at 5 weeks early.

Unfortunately for Gen, the issues didn't stop there.  Because she was on bed rest for the majority of her 3rd trimester, she had used up nearly all her leave and only got 6 weeks of maternity leave.  That on top of a preemie baby made it difficult for her to establish a good milk supply, and although she hasn't given up (you go girl!) she has had to supplement with formula from the beginning.  Then you throw in bum renters who don't pay their rent and trash your house (not to mention your good name when you throw them out), and DH losing his job (that he can't get unemployment benefits from because he was an independent contractor) it's been a rough couple of months for them.

Now Genvieve and her husband were lucky enough to have some extra embryos from their IVF that they were able to freeze.  When DH lost his job, they did some research into their baby daddy (they used donor sperm) and discovered that there is no baby daddy juice left.  They got the last of it for their IVF.  What this boils down to is that in order for Phelan to have a full blood sibling, they have to use the embryos they have frozen.  This means paying storage fees now that a year of free storage has passed.  This is NOT CHEAP, and with only one income really hard to do. 

I am a firm believer that no one should be forced to make a massive decision like what to do with remaining embryos because of money.  Most of us who are lucky enough to be part of the ALI community already have, to some extent, had do base whether or not to have kids in the first place on money.  Letting it tell you when you can and can't keep your embryos just isn't fair. 

Genevieve and her DH want 2 kids.  They want a brother or sister for Phelan that will have the same DNA.  But they know they're not ready for that second baby now, even if they could afford the frozen cycle.  The only way to make their dream come true is to keep those embryos on ice for a while longer, and that's going to cost $500.

I'll tell you.  If I had a spare $500 lying around, I'd sent it to Genevieve in a heartbeat.  If anyone deserves a second chance at pregnancy and being a mom its her.  Unfortunately I don't have that kind of extra cash right now.  But I do have $50.  And I'd bet that you have $5 or $10.  And I have an etsy store.  And for everything in my store that sells before September 1st, I'll add another $10 to the "Save the Frosties" fund.

Can you help?  Even $5 will get Genevieve's little Peanut closer to a brother or sister.  Click the PayPal button to donate!

Update 1

Birth Story Part 1 - The week before

So My little man is already 8 weeks old.  It's probably about time I shared his birth story isn't it?  I'm going to put it up in parts.

First, the week leading up:
Monday: I've been on bed rest for 10 days due to Preeclampsia.  I've been monitoring my blood pressure with an at home monitor with strict instructions to call the doc immediately if it EVER goes above 150/100.  I'm home by myself, and have been having what we now know were gallbladder attacks pretty frequently.  Around 11am, another one starts, and I take the gas-x hoping it won't get too severe this time.  Within about 5 minutes the pain escalates to more severe than it's ever been, and I'm freaking out.  As a precaution I take my BP and its over the not good threshold. (I don't remember what it was now, but it was HIGH).  I call the OB's office and the nurse tells me that Dr. O is at the hospital in surgery, and with it that high I should just go there to be monitored so he can come see me.  OK.  I tell her I'm home by myself but will call my husband to come get me.  She says you need to be there within 30 minutes.  If you don't get him, call an ambulance.  She's calling Labor & Delivery to tell them I'm on my way.  I hang up with her and call A at work. No answer.  I try his cell.  No Answer.  I try our friend J, no answer.  I try her cell, no answer.  I try her husband, D. No answer.  Just as I'm about to call 911, J calls me back.  Sure she can come get me, she just has to load up her 2 toddlers.  I'm working on getting the dogs locked up D calls me back.  I explain to him whats happening, and before I can tell him J is coming, he says he's on the way and hangs up.  Since D's office is less that 5 minutes from my house, and J didn't even have the kids in the car yet, D came instead.  While I'm waiting for him, I try A's coworker's desk.  No answer.  They must be in a meeting so I try the coworkers cell.  He actually answers.  I asked him if A is with him, he says yes, I ask him to have A meet me and D at the hospital.  The co-worker looks at A and says "You, hospital, Now!" and that's it!  A meets D and me at the front door with a wheelchair and up to L&D we go.  I get all hooked up, to the monitors, baby is doing fine, but my BP goes haywire each time the pain flares up (surprise surprise).  After about 3 hours the attack subsides and my BP stabilizes.  The OB has some blood work drawn and checks my protein levels again, and says as long as my BP stays good I can go home at 7.  I have my 38 wk appointment and an Ultrasound scheduled at the office for the next day, so he'll see me then.  We have no other surprises, and I go home at 7.  My SIL, K, and her 2 kids also arrive that evening.

Tuesday: I have my US scheduled for 10 and the Doctors appointment right after that.  We go into the US and got to see great pictures.  The baby was measuring about 7 1/2 lbs at that point (give or take a pound she said) and everything looked great.  He was head down and facing back and settled into about a +1 or 0 station.  We get into the room with Dr. O and he pulls out my lab work results from Monday.  My protein levels look good, and most of the blood work looks ok, but my bile salts are on the rise.  This is the one level that has been rising over the course of the last 10 days, and now it's to the point of being too high.  I asked him and what does this mean?  It means we're having a baby by the end of the week.  At 38 weeks, the risks of what's happening with me are far higher than the risks to the baby being delivered.  So we schedule the induction for Thursday night at 8pm with the plan to start a low dose of pitocin overnight in the hopes we can jump start my body into labor and not have to crank it up too high in the morning.  Now keep in mind, my MIL is scheduled to have an angioplasty on Thursday morning.  This is why my SIL was at our house.  She came to bring her kids to D&J who were graciously going to watch them while A and K were in St. Louis for her procedure.  K was going down Tuesday evening so she was there for all the pre-op stuff on Wednesday and A was going to go down Thursday morning for the procedure and come back Friday.  Not so much anymore.  But at least this way we would have the news from her procedure before we went to the hospital.

Wednesday - Thursday 8pm.: We have a mad dash finishing all the things that have to get done to head to the hospital.  Packing bags, installing the car seat, making arrangements for the dogs.  We did go to bible study on Wednesday, and my BP is the lowest it's been in ages while we're there.  A goes to work both days to prepare for being home for 2 weeks with us.  I spend most of the day finishing reading a book on Hypno-birthing, hoping to still have a natural childbirth, even through the pitocin.  A gets home Thursday at 5, we pack up the car, take the dogs to the kennel, hit McDonalds (I know such a healthy last meal before giving birth, but we ran out of time), and head to the hospital.

Up Next: Birth Story Part 2 - The induction

6 Weeks? Really???

Oh Wow has it really been over a month since I posted last?  Holy cow how the time has flown.  My little man is now 6 1/2 weeks old and just absolutely amazing.  Things have been going really well around here, especially since all the family cleared out and we got on our own routine.  Don't get me wrong, I love my family, and was so glad they all came to visit, but A and I realized that in the first 4 weeks after we came home from the hospital we had a total of 5 days just the 3 of us.  5 out of 28.  It was a little chaotic around here for a while.

So anyway, things are going really well. The Boy is sleeping and eating and pooping like a champ.  He's a pretty content baby most of the time.  We're finally starting to get a schedule going, including a solid afternoon nap time and being awake when daddy comes home for lunch and in the evening.  Now we just have to work on a realistic morning routine, but that would require me getting up at 5am, and I really don't want to do that yet.

While the Boy is doing great, Momma is having some issues.  Let me back up to about 2 weeks before he was born, right after I went on bed rest.  I started having these really weird pains in my upper abdomen.  They would build slowly and then *BANG* it was like someone had tightened a belt around my ribcage and wasn't letting it go.  I would have trouble taking a breath, it hurt so bad to breathe deep.  It would last anywhere from 20 minutes to 3 hours at the worst and then SUDDENLY disappear.  Both A and my SIL (who has 2 kids) were convinced it was gas brought on by a sensitivity to dairy since it only seemed to pop up after I had a glass of milk or some ice cream.  It was so BAD the Monday before I delivered that it caused my BP to skyrocket and an emergency trip to Labor and Delivery.  Anyway, I delivered, and the pains didn't change!  I was still getting this crazy painful pressure under my ribcage on the right side, although it still appeared to be brought on by dairy.  Finally after 3 weeks of this not going away (silly me was thinking ti was just because all my insides hadn't gotten back to normal and it could still be gas) I finally called the OB and said we had to do something.  He scheduled me a sonogram, and sure enough, I have 5 small to medium sized stones in my gallbladder!  They called that day and scheduled me an appointment with a general surgeon to consult about having it out.  That surgery is scheduled for this Thursday.

The good news is that this extends my Maternity leave by 2 weeks, the bad news is I will be spending it recovering, and if I didn't have a 6 week old at home I would probably recover much faster.  The will be doing it outpatient and laproscopic, so assuming no complications I should be home Thursday afternoon.  If it's anything like my LAP, I will be OK by Sunday, so fingers crossed.

Ok I've got to go wake up the boy so we can pick up Daddy from work.  I'll leave you with a couple pictures of course :-)

Easter Sunday

BATMAN!

Milk Coma

1st Bath

Pirate Baby! (for his cousin's 3rd Birthday Party)

Super Baby!

Tummy Time (just taken Yesterday)