I should have known better than to make an appointment for the Ides of March. (That's March 15th, a very dire day for Julius Caesar).
So I went to my appointment. I'd asked Jer Sunday night if he'd take me, even though it was a late morning appointment. He declined. I was subconciously onto something when I'd asked. My appointment wasn't with my usual doctor, but with her partner, Dr Allen. It was a typical appointment, go in, have high blood pressure (140s/90s), lay on side, have exam. But when they re-checked my BP after having sat up for a few minutes, it was still in the 140s/90s. So Dr Allen sent me across the street to the hospital, to have Labor and Delivery hook me up to the fetal monitor and run my blood through the usual toxemia test.
I gave Jer a call, telling him to get his butt over there. And next time I ask to be taken to my 38 week appointment, to do it.
L&D had trouble keeping track of the baby when I was on either side, so I didn't get the luxury of a lower BP reading from laying on my side. I got to lay on my back, and we had to keep a hand on the monitor, else we'd lose the baby's heartbeat reading. After about an hour and a half of laying there, my bloodwork came back fine, but my BP wouldn't go any lower than 130s/90s. So guess what? I was admitted. Sent to a L&D suite and my inducement began.
After getting the monitors hooked up, they gave me my IV. I asked if we could wait on the IV a bit, but the tech said that if she couldn't find a vein, she'd get a specialist in to do it, which might take awhile, but she was the best IV person they had. They also took more of my blood. Blah. She covered up my IV site really well and away we went.
A Cytotec pill was inserted first, around 3pm. Meanwhile, Jer scurried around making arrangements for Mikey and to pick up my bags at home. All I had was a book, so that's what I did. Read. We still had problems keeping a lock on the baby's heartbeat. She kept moving around on us. A good sign that she was so active, even though my BP was still so high. I didn't know it, but I was actually having regular contractions, about every 3-5 minutes. My next dose of Cytotec was supposed to be at 7pm, but Dr Allen came over at about 5pm and told them to delay the next dose until 10pm and to let me eat. yay! I got to have dinner. A good thing, since all I'd had was a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats at 10am. Considering how things went with Mike, I didn't eat for almost 48 hours. I was allowed to get up and use the bathroom, too. Yay! I was contracting too regularly to have another dose of Cytotec, so I was started on a low dose of Pitocin, which was then upped every 15 minutes until I was at a certain amount. I was then offered a dose of Ambien to help me sleep. So I took it, knowing full well that once the Pitocin started doing its work, sleep would be far away. So I took one.
An hour later a nurse came in and said "you're still awake?" and offered me a second dose, since the dosage is either 5mg or 10mg. I took that and I was still awake. Oh well. The effects of the pitocin weren't as bad as 5 years ago, so I was able to drift on and off. My main problem was the sleeping and snoring lump on the chair beside me. I could actually hear him through my headphones.
In the morning, I was still only a few cm dilated, so they broke my water (after I took one last trip to the bathroom), and inserted a contraction monitor. Which worked out better than the external one, as it had stopped reading my contractions. I was feeling cheated prior to that, 'cause I could feel them, but they weren't coming out on the monitor. I also got a shot of Stadol, since I didn't want an epidural yet. I was leery of the needle, and I wanted to retain the feeling in my legs for a while longer. It made me sleepy and took the edge off the contractions, which was exactly what I wanted. I slept for a little over an hour, and after about 3 hours from the shot of Stadol, I asked for another. I still wasn't in enough pain for the epidural. They thought I was nuts. :) But the doc authorized the 2nd dose of Stadol, and into blissful sleep I went...until I was awakened an hour later by the sound of someone snoring. And the edge was back to my contractions. Boy was I pissed.
So I took the epidural when they offered it next. I just made my usual request that they make sure I not see the needle or any implements of sharpness at all. And away went the feeling in my legs. So I took a nap.
And woke up sometime around 1 (I'd taken my watch off, so I had no idea what time it was). The epidural was wearing off. They'd upped my dose of Pitocin, and I still wasn't dilated very far. They were concerned about they baby for a reason I can't remember, so they scraped her head and took a blood sample for testing. It came back fine. I was given another epidural dose, and back to sleep I went.
I woke up around 4 with the contracting pressure feeling on my catheter. It's what told me I was ready when it was time to have Mike. I waited a bit to tell the nurse since I was still groggy from my nap and wasn't sure. Once I told them I was feeling a lot of pressure, they checked me, and I was fully dilated. Woo hoo! And they called Dr Allen to come right away. The person who checked me and a nurse stayed and had me start to do the whole pushing thing. She crowned without too much effort and since Dr Allen wasn't there, had me stop. But during one of my pushing sessions I'd inhaled some spit and started to cough. I -almost- had the baby right then and there, but I managed to supress the coughs...for the most part. Dr Allen still wasn't there, so they paged her again, and had me push again. Dr Allen arrived in the nick of time, and out popped the head. They checked to make sure the cord wasn't wrapped around her neck and had me push again, and out she popped! Jer declined to cut the umbilical cord, he felt it was just too gross to do. I had a small tear and wound up with 2 stitches. Dr Allen doesn't have them break down the bed for delivery (imagine having the doc and people there sitting on the side of the bed while you deliver, rather than having your feet in stirrups and your butt hanging off the edge of the bed!), so while Audrey was being checked out, I got to watch people as they moved around and actually saw my placenta.
So Audrey Rebekah was born at 16:26 on 3/16/04. Weighing in at 6lbs 10.4oz and 19.5 inches long. Her Apgar's were 8 and 9.
And she had the same breathing problem that Mike had. Joy. So they had me try the skin to skin thing, and put her on my chest, to see if that would help her to regulate her breathing. It didn't do well, so off to transition she went.
And I got to sit there and get all the stuff in me taken out. Out with the epidural! They also drew more blood, to verify that I was ok, since my BP was still high. Ok, so it didn't magically go back to normal as soon as I popped out the kid. But I had to wait for the feeling to come back in my legs before they'd take the IV out. I had to pee first. I stood up with the help of the nurse and Jer, took a step, but my legs were too wobbly, so I sat back down. And tapped my feet, etc, to try to get more feeling back into them. By this time, it was almost an hour after delivery, so I got to eat some crackers and drink some juice. Yum. I finally got steady enough on my feet to go to the bathroom and then they took my IV out. We got to stay in the L&D room longer than I expected before they sent me off to my recovery room.
Which, I must say, was very nice. They'd obviously done some renovations in the past 5 years, and the recovery area had the wood paneling that the L&D suites had. There was also a bench couch against the wall for hubby to sleep on. And the bathroom was bigger than a closet. The shower had a seat in it, and was much bigger than the single person standing room only size that it used to be.
Anyway, Audrey's lungs were drying out slowly, but she wasn't in any distress. They ran the blood tests to rule out any infection and did a lung x-ray, which just showed that she had extra fluid in them. Because she hadn't come out of transition in the allotted time, she was admitted into intermediate NICU until her breathing stabilized at an acceptable rate (under 60 respirations per minute).
The oddity in Audrey is a mark on her back. At the base of her spine is a white inverted triangle. In the triangle is a "punch-out", a round hole where it looks like someone took a hole punch and punched out some of her skin and flesh. The docs had no idea what it was. She did have an ultrasound and a couple of MRIs by the time she was released on Thursday to rule out spinal abnormalities. Our next step is to see a Johns Hopkins dermatologist.
So we visited her a few times in NICU. And I tried to sleep Tuesday night, but Jer was snoring and my 4am vitals check didn't come until 5am. And then at 7am someone came in to draw more blood. The night before Jer had discovered that we didn't have any water at home, so he called the day care at about 715 and they'd closed as water wasn't back yet. So when they took my BP, it was -really- high. Nothing like a bit of stress to bump the pressure up. She waited a minute and took it again, and it was fine. We made another visit to the NICU to visit Audrey, and then Jer left to get Mike after taking me back to my room.
And I tried to rest. Needed sleep. Jer showed up at noon to take Mike to visit Audrey. Dr Allen had come in earlier and I'd asked to go home. Since I was "built for popping out babies", and my vitals were stable, there was no reason for them to keep me. So she wrote up the discharge papers. Even though we didn't have water, I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. So I took a shower, and we visited Audrey, and we went home. I got to sleep in my own bed, and was able to kick Jer when he snored. I couldn't reach him from my hospital beds. We were going to get up earlyish to go back to the hospital after rush hour. Jer managed to get Mikey over to the daycare (they were going to the circus), but I was dead to the world and didn't get up until noon. Which was when the discharge person at the hospital called to tell us that Audrey was able to be discharged. Yay!
We got her stuff together and went back to the hospital. But the pediatrician wanted to have a 2nd MRI done on the base of her spine to rule out something that I can't remember. We agreed to the MRI, but that meant that we couldn't take her home right then. They did get her an MRI slot for 2pm, so we stayed with her until the nurse took her away before 2. We ran some errands (had to get a hat, we'd forgotten to bring one), and returned after 4. She had to come out of the sedative they gave her before they'd release her. So we waited, she woke up, we fed and dressed her, and took her home! :)
And that's it.
So I went to my appointment. I'd asked Jer Sunday night if he'd take me, even though it was a late morning appointment. He declined. I was subconciously onto something when I'd asked. My appointment wasn't with my usual doctor, but with her partner, Dr Allen. It was a typical appointment, go in, have high blood pressure (140s/90s), lay on side, have exam. But when they re-checked my BP after having sat up for a few minutes, it was still in the 140s/90s. So Dr Allen sent me across the street to the hospital, to have Labor and Delivery hook me up to the fetal monitor and run my blood through the usual toxemia test.
I gave Jer a call, telling him to get his butt over there. And next time I ask to be taken to my 38 week appointment, to do it.
L&D had trouble keeping track of the baby when I was on either side, so I didn't get the luxury of a lower BP reading from laying on my side. I got to lay on my back, and we had to keep a hand on the monitor, else we'd lose the baby's heartbeat reading. After about an hour and a half of laying there, my bloodwork came back fine, but my BP wouldn't go any lower than 130s/90s. So guess what? I was admitted. Sent to a L&D suite and my inducement began.
After getting the monitors hooked up, they gave me my IV. I asked if we could wait on the IV a bit, but the tech said that if she couldn't find a vein, she'd get a specialist in to do it, which might take awhile, but she was the best IV person they had. They also took more of my blood. Blah. She covered up my IV site really well and away we went.
A Cytotec pill was inserted first, around 3pm. Meanwhile, Jer scurried around making arrangements for Mikey and to pick up my bags at home. All I had was a book, so that's what I did. Read. We still had problems keeping a lock on the baby's heartbeat. She kept moving around on us. A good sign that she was so active, even though my BP was still so high. I didn't know it, but I was actually having regular contractions, about every 3-5 minutes. My next dose of Cytotec was supposed to be at 7pm, but Dr Allen came over at about 5pm and told them to delay the next dose until 10pm and to let me eat. yay! I got to have dinner. A good thing, since all I'd had was a bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats at 10am. Considering how things went with Mike, I didn't eat for almost 48 hours. I was allowed to get up and use the bathroom, too. Yay! I was contracting too regularly to have another dose of Cytotec, so I was started on a low dose of Pitocin, which was then upped every 15 minutes until I was at a certain amount. I was then offered a dose of Ambien to help me sleep. So I took it, knowing full well that once the Pitocin started doing its work, sleep would be far away. So I took one.
An hour later a nurse came in and said "you're still awake?" and offered me a second dose, since the dosage is either 5mg or 10mg. I took that and I was still awake. Oh well. The effects of the pitocin weren't as bad as 5 years ago, so I was able to drift on and off. My main problem was the sleeping and snoring lump on the chair beside me. I could actually hear him through my headphones.
In the morning, I was still only a few cm dilated, so they broke my water (after I took one last trip to the bathroom), and inserted a contraction monitor. Which worked out better than the external one, as it had stopped reading my contractions. I was feeling cheated prior to that, 'cause I could feel them, but they weren't coming out on the monitor. I also got a shot of Stadol, since I didn't want an epidural yet. I was leery of the needle, and I wanted to retain the feeling in my legs for a while longer. It made me sleepy and took the edge off the contractions, which was exactly what I wanted. I slept for a little over an hour, and after about 3 hours from the shot of Stadol, I asked for another. I still wasn't in enough pain for the epidural. They thought I was nuts. :) But the doc authorized the 2nd dose of Stadol, and into blissful sleep I went...until I was awakened an hour later by the sound of someone snoring. And the edge was back to my contractions. Boy was I pissed.
So I took the epidural when they offered it next. I just made my usual request that they make sure I not see the needle or any implements of sharpness at all. And away went the feeling in my legs. So I took a nap.
And woke up sometime around 1 (I'd taken my watch off, so I had no idea what time it was). The epidural was wearing off. They'd upped my dose of Pitocin, and I still wasn't dilated very far. They were concerned about they baby for a reason I can't remember, so they scraped her head and took a blood sample for testing. It came back fine. I was given another epidural dose, and back to sleep I went.
I woke up around 4 with the contracting pressure feeling on my catheter. It's what told me I was ready when it was time to have Mike. I waited a bit to tell the nurse since I was still groggy from my nap and wasn't sure. Once I told them I was feeling a lot of pressure, they checked me, and I was fully dilated. Woo hoo! And they called Dr Allen to come right away. The person who checked me and a nurse stayed and had me start to do the whole pushing thing. She crowned without too much effort and since Dr Allen wasn't there, had me stop. But during one of my pushing sessions I'd inhaled some spit and started to cough. I -almost- had the baby right then and there, but I managed to supress the coughs...for the most part. Dr Allen still wasn't there, so they paged her again, and had me push again. Dr Allen arrived in the nick of time, and out popped the head. They checked to make sure the cord wasn't wrapped around her neck and had me push again, and out she popped! Jer declined to cut the umbilical cord, he felt it was just too gross to do. I had a small tear and wound up with 2 stitches. Dr Allen doesn't have them break down the bed for delivery (imagine having the doc and people there sitting on the side of the bed while you deliver, rather than having your feet in stirrups and your butt hanging off the edge of the bed!), so while Audrey was being checked out, I got to watch people as they moved around and actually saw my placenta.
So Audrey Rebekah was born at 16:26 on 3/16/04. Weighing in at 6lbs 10.4oz and 19.5 inches long. Her Apgar's were 8 and 9.
And she had the same breathing problem that Mike had. Joy. So they had me try the skin to skin thing, and put her on my chest, to see if that would help her to regulate her breathing. It didn't do well, so off to transition she went.
And I got to sit there and get all the stuff in me taken out. Out with the epidural! They also drew more blood, to verify that I was ok, since my BP was still high. Ok, so it didn't magically go back to normal as soon as I popped out the kid. But I had to wait for the feeling to come back in my legs before they'd take the IV out. I had to pee first. I stood up with the help of the nurse and Jer, took a step, but my legs were too wobbly, so I sat back down. And tapped my feet, etc, to try to get more feeling back into them. By this time, it was almost an hour after delivery, so I got to eat some crackers and drink some juice. Yum. I finally got steady enough on my feet to go to the bathroom and then they took my IV out. We got to stay in the L&D room longer than I expected before they sent me off to my recovery room.
Which, I must say, was very nice. They'd obviously done some renovations in the past 5 years, and the recovery area had the wood paneling that the L&D suites had. There was also a bench couch against the wall for hubby to sleep on. And the bathroom was bigger than a closet. The shower had a seat in it, and was much bigger than the single person standing room only size that it used to be.
Anyway, Audrey's lungs were drying out slowly, but she wasn't in any distress. They ran the blood tests to rule out any infection and did a lung x-ray, which just showed that she had extra fluid in them. Because she hadn't come out of transition in the allotted time, she was admitted into intermediate NICU until her breathing stabilized at an acceptable rate (under 60 respirations per minute).
The oddity in Audrey is a mark on her back. At the base of her spine is a white inverted triangle. In the triangle is a "punch-out", a round hole where it looks like someone took a hole punch and punched out some of her skin and flesh. The docs had no idea what it was. She did have an ultrasound and a couple of MRIs by the time she was released on Thursday to rule out spinal abnormalities. Our next step is to see a Johns Hopkins dermatologist.
So we visited her a few times in NICU. And I tried to sleep Tuesday night, but Jer was snoring and my 4am vitals check didn't come until 5am. And then at 7am someone came in to draw more blood. The night before Jer had discovered that we didn't have any water at home, so he called the day care at about 715 and they'd closed as water wasn't back yet. So when they took my BP, it was -really- high. Nothing like a bit of stress to bump the pressure up. She waited a minute and took it again, and it was fine. We made another visit to the NICU to visit Audrey, and then Jer left to get Mike after taking me back to my room.
And I tried to rest. Needed sleep. Jer showed up at noon to take Mike to visit Audrey. Dr Allen had come in earlier and I'd asked to go home. Since I was "built for popping out babies", and my vitals were stable, there was no reason for them to keep me. So she wrote up the discharge papers. Even though we didn't have water, I wanted to go home and sleep in my own bed. So I took a shower, and we visited Audrey, and we went home. I got to sleep in my own bed, and was able to kick Jer when he snored. I couldn't reach him from my hospital beds. We were going to get up earlyish to go back to the hospital after rush hour. Jer managed to get Mikey over to the daycare (they were going to the circus), but I was dead to the world and didn't get up until noon. Which was when the discharge person at the hospital called to tell us that Audrey was able to be discharged. Yay!
We got her stuff together and went back to the hospital. But the pediatrician wanted to have a 2nd MRI done on the base of her spine to rule out something that I can't remember. We agreed to the MRI, but that meant that we couldn't take her home right then. They did get her an MRI slot for 2pm, so we stayed with her until the nurse took her away before 2. We ran some errands (had to get a hat, we'd forgotten to bring one), and returned after 4. She had to come out of the sedative they gave her before they'd release her. So we waited, she woke up, we fed and dressed her, and took her home! :)
And that's it.
posted by chelle @ 01:43
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