Cooper - Part 1

Friday January 6, 2012 - 12:00pm

I don’t think I should have to warn you that this will be a very personal, and at times, graphic entry. I will heed this warning anyway for those who don’t understand quite how detailed I tend to get, and how graphic the process of birth is. So stop reading now if you can’t handle this kind of thing :)

Jason and I started the day off with a shower. Already TMI, I know. This is something we used to do in Colorado. People thought we were weird and crazy I guess, saying their shower was the only alone time they got all day. For us, it was a way to bond, and talk about the day since we were both working long hours. Anyway, since his injury, we can rarely do this anymore. He requires a shower chair, and that usually takes up the whole shower. Here, in lovely Building 62, the showers are handicapped accessible, and so we have enough room to share this moment. On this day, we slept in, and finally got in the shower around 11:30. I sat down to shave my legs. I was preparing for the delivery. I mean my due date was the next day, and everyone knows, babies come right on schedule! I refused to go in to labor with hairy legs. Anyway, I sat down, and started shaving. I felt a warm gush, but not a huge or powerful gush. Remember, we’re in the shower, so I couldn’t tell if that’s what it was or not. Not to mention, I’ve never had water to be broken before, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. I felt a couple more small warm gushes, and decided I was pretty sure it was my water. Thankfully, it was clear. Now Jason is starting to get a little freaked out, though.

I wasn’t feeling any pain whatsoever, and so we decided to go upstairs for lunch. One of the regular cashiers was shocked I still hadn’t had this baby yet, and was convinced it was twins (thanks lady!). I didn’t feel like going in to details with her that I was probably in labor at that moment, so I just laughed and continued on. I ate pasta with alfredo sauce, all the while thinking, “man I really hope I don’t throw this up later.” We went back downstairs to our room, and Jason went out to buy a “surprise” for me for after the delivery. He debated on whether or not to even go, but I still wasn’t feeling anything, so of course I insisted. He came back not too much later, empty handed - I think he was afraid to be gone too long. I was gchatting with a friend, and googling, trying to figure out if my water really was broken. She of course told me to go to the hospital to be checked. I refused.

Finally around 2pm, I started feeling some cramping. More like menstrual cramps. I guess I was expecting to be feeling pain at the top of my uterus, and feel it contract. I never really felt that. The cramping would come and go, and we decided to start timing them. They were very sporadic, some were really close, and others weren’t. We watched Gattaca, and it brought me back to my high school days :) If I laid on my side, I felt better, and didn’t want to move for fear of making them feel worse. Walking helped too. The contractions never really got that bad, but finally around 9pm I knew I had to go in because I was ruptured. And by go in, I mean walk.

I had been in touch with Mom all day, and she and Dad came up by dinner time. Jason, Mom and Dad went upstairs to eat dinner, and I stayed in the room not feeling hungry. I decided later, that was a bad idea, because I was starving. Anyway, by 9pm, we packed up our stuff and walked over to the hospital. They tried to get me in a wheelchair, but I refused, knowing walking would be good for me. I have to say, arriving at the front desk and saying “I think I’m in labor.” felt very weird. Not words I ever thought I’d say. They put me in a triage room, and hooked me up to the monitor. I could tell my contractions weren’t picking up on the monitor because I wasn’t feeling them high in my uterus where they had the monitor placed. At that point I thought maybe they’d send be back home.

The doctor came in and did an internal exam to see whether or not my water had broken, and how dilated I was. (the previous day at my doctors appointment I was already at 3cm.) As he was checking me, it became clear to him and everyone else in the room that I was in fact, ruptured, if you get my drift. Their little paper test took no time changing color. And he decided I was 4-5cm dilated, 80% effaced, -1 station, and that I would have to be admitted. Crap.

Now, I did have an idea of what I wanted during the labor process. All of which got quickly squashed. She came in with a bag of fluid and an IV to start. I was ok with the IV, but I just wanted it saline locked. No, she said, “because what if your baby starts doing something crazy”. Oh, ok, I’m not sure what that is, but ok, fine give me the fluids. I was trying so hard not to be that crazy patient with the birth plan, but I just think we have so many unnecessary interventions these days for something that was meant to be done naturally. The doctor came in to go over consent forms. I asked if it was possible that I could only be monitored intermittently, that I really liked to be able to walk around because of the contractions, and that I wasn’t planning to have an epidural. But because I was ruptured, “No, you can’t do intermittent monitoring, no you can’t walk, and if you don’t want an epidural, that’s fine.” I knew my contractions hadn’t been picking up on the monitor, so I asked if they were going to use Pitocin - “Yes, you’re not contracting enough, and if you don’t make any change on your own, we’ll have to use pitocin. Usually if you don’t change in 2 hours, we start pitocin, your water has already been broken for 9 hours. If you want, we can wait 2 hours and check you again to see if you make any change on your own.” I thought I had already done a damn good job being at 5cm and just going in to triage, but I guess I’m the niave patient now. “What scares you about using pitocin?” she asks. I said, “It doesn’t scare me, I just think it’s unnecessary.” It could’ve been me being entirely too sensitive which I’m known for, but her tone of voice really rubbed me the wrong way when she responded with “Well, normally we would have used it by now seeing as you’ve been ruptured for a prolonged period of time, the longer you’re ruptured, the more at risk your baby is for infection, and he could die.”

Really? I am not stupid. But she just had to throw that in there as a scare/guilt tactic. Like, if you don’t agree to this, I am going to question your morals and ability to be a sound mother for this child. Ok, maybe that was me being insanely sensitive, but that’s how I heard it.

She said, “By all means, you can go back home and continue to labor, but you have to sign out AMA” (against medical advice). Only from working where I do, I know that if I did that, and then went back to the hospital, Tricare (our insurance) wouldn’t cover anything. At this point, I was just so irritated I signed the paper and decided it was not the end of the world.

Before I even left the triage room, I was feeling defeated. Jason kept trying to reassure me that everything would work out. “In the end we’re going to walk out of here with the same result.” I know, but not the way I wanted it. Really, Stephanie? You should know by now not to want things a certain way!

10:30pm

We walked to the labor room, and again, I was hooked up to the monitors. I knew I would hate that. I always said I don’t know how women tolerate those things while in labor. It was so uncomfortable to have things tightly strapped to my belly as I was in pain. All I wanted to do was sit up, walk around, or even move around in bed. But every time I moved, the monitor would lose his heart rate tracing. The nurse was in and out readjusting it because I kept moving. I wasn’t even in there for 30 minutes when she came in and said “Ok, I think we’re going to have to do an internal monitor for his heart rate.” I knew what that meant, and I really didn’t want that. Now that I think back though, I wonder if it would’ve saved a lot of pain and heartache in the long run. There’s no way to know now.

11:30pm

After about 30 minutes of deliberation, I decided that if they were going to have to use Pitocin, I would not be able to sit still at all. I knew it would make my contractions longer and stronger. I also knew I did not want an internal monitor in his scalp even though I’ve seen babies that have had them, and you can barely tell. Something about those has just always freaked me out. So, I quickly turned in to a statistic. Something I was so worried about doing, and knew they were all talking about me at the nurses station, but what can you do I guess. I went in there not wanting an epidural, and within about 3 hours, got an epidural. The pain wasn’t unbearable at that point either, but I just knew I couldn’t sit still. For some reason, I had 3 contractions right on top of each other during the epidural, and about 15 minutes after getting the epidural, the nurse came in to move me from side to side, something I also know isn’t good. When she handed me the oxygen mask I really knew we were in some sort of trouble. They put me on my hands and knees and about 3 other people came in. Jason didn’t know what was going on, but I did. They all stood there for a while, and I’m just thinking “Ok, great, now they’re going to tell me I have to go back for an emergency c-section because his heart rate isn’t coming back up.” Apparently he had a low baseline anyway, and he was dropping in to the 90s, but his baseline had been in the 115s so they weren’t as concerned. They gave me terbutaline to relax my uterus, because the 3 contractions in a row didn’t leave enough time for him to get oxygenated blood, plus my blood pressure had dropped a little. So here I am on my hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably, with a stupid oxygen mask in my face blowing so loud I couldn’t hear anything else. After what seemed like forever, they decided he was ok. My uterus should start contracting on its own again after a little while, but I dared not move for fear of making his heart rate drop again.