Cooper - Part 2

Saturday January 7, 2012

3:00am

7cm dilated, 90% effaced, +1 station. I had been changing on my own this whole time, without pitocin, and he came all the way down to +1 by himself. I couldn’t sleep because of the loud oxygen, stupid blood pressure cuff, and his even louder heart beat. My mom and Jason nodded off a few times, though.

4:00am

Jason is starving and exhausted. I am starving and exhausted. He finds a Hot Pocket in the vending machine that he is sure is at least five years old. He eats it anyway, and subsequently has to use the restroom multiple times after that ;) It was either the Hot Pocket, or the nerves. It's the weekend in a military hospital, so of course, the refrigerator on the floor was empty with no hopes of getting a refill any time soon. Jason takes a trip down to the 4th floor, his alma mater, and steals me a red popsicle. I've never eaten a popsicle so fast in my life.

5:00am

10cm dilated, 100% effaced, still +1 station. We did a couple practice pushes, but she recommended that we wait another 2 hours so that he has time to drop more.

Meanwhile, I’m numb from the waist down, it feels like my legs have been asleep, and when I try to move, I can’t. I have to concentrate to move my legs. Hate.That.Feeling. I’ve been catheterized. Ugh.

7:00am

I’m getting antsy. I really want to start pushing, I want to have this baby. I know it’s shift change, and I’m trying so hard to be patient. They check again, and he’s still +1 station. I’m wondering if I didn’t have the epidural if he would’ve come down on his own because I would be able to move better, and maybe let gravity do it’s part. But I can’t worry about that now.

My day nurse says I don't need the oxygen anymore, or the pulse ox, thank goodness. She's my new best friend.

8:00am

Finally, the doctor comes in to check me, and he’s still at +1 station, but she says we can start pushing to see if he’ll come down. So it begins. My nurse was wonderfully patient. She was literally in my room almost all day long. When I was working, I remember getting so upset because when patients would fill out the satisfaction surveys, they would always remember their L&D nurses, but not their post partum nurses. Now I know why. Thankfully I was her only patient that day, and she was able to stay with me the whole time. We pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. After about an hour, I was asking “How long does this take?? Why is there no baby?!” Apparently it takes a while. She said “Expect to be pushing for at least another hour.” Great. The things they don’t tell you...(and the things I should know already anyway)

10:00am

Two hours in to pushing. Still no baby. I can’t remember if he was still at +1 station or if I had pushed him down to +2 by then. Either way, there was still no baby. I was starving, and I really wanted to brush my teeth.

11:00am

The fun begins. The doctor comes in and gives me her speech about maybe requiring assistance to deliver this baby. I guess, by this point I knew this was coming. I had the mirror during pushing, and could tell I was using the right muscles to push, but I also knew that I wasn’t seeing a lot of his head either. She says, “We can give you another 30 minutes to try to get this baby down, but after that we’re going to have to talk about using another method.” At this point I know I’m going on 24 hours with ruptured membranes, and I was afraid of he and I getting an infection for that reason. I was trying to be practical - what could happen in the next 30 minutes that hadn’t happened in the past 3 hours? Probably not much. I asked everyones opinion, and we all agreed - assistance it was.

Shockingly, to me at least, they were going to use forceps. I was much more used to seeing vacuum assisted deliveries, and was certain that’s what they’d use. I had also seen some babies not fair very well at all due to vac assists, and I actually welcomed the forceps idea though many think it’s more out of date. I was actually a forceps delivery. She tells me about the risks, all of which I know about. My epidural starts wearing off..big time. I’m feeling everything, plus becoming more and more emotional about his need for forceps. I’m lying flat, and crying, which doesn’t help my breathing situation. Meanwhile, my mom is becoming more and more mommy like, and bossing my poor husband around. He takes it like a champ, and says nothing. I just want this baby out! I feel like I’m having a mini panic attack. I feel like a failure to this child, and just wanted to get him out all by myself like everyone else seems to be able to do. What was wrong with me that I couldn’t do it the natural way?

They explain to me that there will be a lot of people in the delivery room now, because of the forceps. They explain these things over and over and over again. I just wanted to scream “I KNOW - Just get on with it!”  (with a few expletives) Of course, right before they start another doctor says “If this doesn’t work, we will have to go back for a C-Section.” Duh. But I did NOT want to hear that at that moment. I start welling up again, but have to talk myself down because I know I won’t be able to get through the delivery while sobbing uncontrollably. The anesthesiologist loaded my epidural, and I couldn’t feel anything for a long, long time - which ended up being a very good thing.

The doctor who delivered him was a resident I believe, so her superiors were also there coaching her along. I felt like a pumpkin being gutted at halloween. They literally lined up and had their hands in places I wish hands never went. One after the other. All confirming his position. Apparently his head was angled just a little too much. That's the only explanation I ever got. Then they put one forcep in, and more hands in to confirm that position, another forcep, and more hands to confirm position. Thank goodness I couldn’t see (or feel) what was happening. Jason said “for something so natural, it did not look natural at all.” But he was wonderful, and by my side (speechless) the whole time.

When she snapped the forceps together, I thought for sure she had cracked his skull. I was so mad that I had to have those things, and still feel guilty to this day that I did that to him. (He still has a scar on one cheek that I'm convinced will be there forever.) It was hard to focus with the 15 people in there yelling at me to push or not to push. They said I’d have to push really hard in order to get him out, and I tried my hardest. Jason said her hands were shaking because she was pulling so hard (the doctor). I think the forceps came off as he was crowning, and I pushed him out all by myself after that.

My belly instantly felt like jelly, which was really weird. Our baby was out! He was pretty blue. She had his head in her hands, and his body over her arm. His limbs were hanging, and he looked completely limp. I should know that this is pretty normal, but like they all say, when it’s your own, it’s different. First of all, I couldn’t believe he was ours, that that human grew inside of me, and second of all he wasn’t crying. They took him to the warmer first (as they told me they would since he was now an assisted delivery), and Jason followed. I heard him cry, and then it hit me that this really was our child, and now it was real. A very surreal feeling.

They held him up from the warmer “Look Mom, he’s so cute!” Only I didn’t think so. His right eye was swollen shut, and already bruised. He had very distinct forceps marks and abrasions on both of his cheeks, and his left ear was really bruised. He had the typical little old man look that most little boys have at birth, and a nice little cone head. I felt terrible. His APGARs were 7/9 so it must not have been as long as I thought it was before he started crying. He weighed 7 pounds 11 ounces, which is just what his mommy weighed at birth.

Finally I got to hold him, our stunned little boy. It was all very surreal, and sometimes still is. He remained nameless until we had to fill out the birth certificate paper work. When I still couldn’t decide, Jason took the reigns and decided on Cooper Graham. Who didn’t see that coming?

Our first few days in the hospital, and as a family are now a blur. When we were discharged, we took him downstairs and showed him off briefly to his physical and occupational therapists, and then walked back home to glorious building 62. Where I've always wanted to bring a baby 'home' to! He didn't actually get his first car ride until he was about a week and a half old. But, Cooper Graham will certainly teach me a lot of things as he grows, and I can't wait to see how wonderful it will be!