Joseph's Birth Story

I wanted to bring Joseph's birth story from LiveJournal to blogger because, well, I want to keep it here with Elizabeth's.  A little cross-posting action, if you will...

Originally written on April 26, 2006.

Joseph Henry was born on April 20th at 5:30 p.m. He weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz and is 20.5 inches long. He's absolutely adorable and I promise to post pictures as soon as I get them. So now on to the gory details...


We went to the hospital bright and early on Wednesday morning. The nurse came in to insert the IV into my hand. She got her kit out and inserted the needle. I started feeling sick to my stomach almost immediately.

"I think I'm going to throw up." I broke out into a sweat and the room seemed to narrow drastically. I didn't know if I was going to throw up or pass out. The nurse grabbed a cold wash cloth and had Chad pat my face and neck while she finished up. My doctor walked in right about then.

"What's going on? We haven't even started yet!"

At 10:00 the Cervicil was inserted. All I can say is, OUCH! I spent the rest of the morning and early afternoon talking with Chad. Jeri stopped by for a little while to chit chat and was there when, at 12:45, I felt my first contraction. Chad and I were so excited watching the monitor. We turned the contractions into a game. "Oh! That was a good one! What number did I get up to?"

"36! A record! Let's see if you can top a 36." All well and good until those suckers started topping out at 90.

As soon as we checked in, the nurse had asked me to, on a scale between 1 and 10, rate the pain that I wanted to feel before an epidural. I initially said a 1, but got a lot of eye rolls in response. I settled on a 5. I figured I'd get the epidural when I was half way there and that way the actual insertion of the needle necessary for said epidural wouldn't seem so bad. Throughout the day, the nurse would come in and ask me to "rate my pain".

By 6:00 that evening, I was up to a 4.5. I had only dilated to 3 cm and it looked like we had a long road ahead of us. The contractions were regular and steady. I walked the halls with Chad, which really helped.

At 10:00, my doctor came back in to check on me. I was still at 3 cm, but the contractions were coming closer together. When asked to "rate the pain" I said it was a 5 and asked for the epidural. About an hour later the anesthesiologist came in. She had me sit on the edge of the bed and arch my back, hugging Chad who was sitting in front of me. My doctor had warned her that I had a low pain tolerance. I felt little needles pierce my back, numbing it. When the big needle was inserted it still hurt. She numbed a larger area and it was finally over. The epidural felt wonderful...for the first few hours. The night nurse woke me up around 12:30 and started me on oxygen. I asked what was wrong and she replied that the baby wasn't happy. I put on the mask and nodded off to sleep.

At 1:45, my doctor showed up to break my water. She said that the baby wasn't behaving. That he wasn't doing anything that said emergency c-section, he was just keeping the nurses on their toes. She broke my water. There was so much fluid! I'm glad it hadn't broken at the grocery store! The contractions started coming faster and faster. I started to feel pain and called the nurse. She told me that I was on a drip and shouldn't be feeling anything. I looked at her as a contraction wracked my body and said that I was rating the pain at a 7. I then lifted my legs up and said, "Should I be able to do this with an epidural?" She called the anesthesiologist who came in and did the "ice test". Sure enough...I was feeling everything. She gave me a boost which gave me some relief until the next day.

Thursday was a foggy blur. I was on oxygen for most of the day. I ended up with three more boosts and going through five bags of epidural before 4:30. By noon, back labor had started. I was steadily dilating and effacing all the way up to 11:00. Then I just stopped. The contractions came further and further apart. I was at 7 cm when I started running a temperature of 102.3. They gave me antibiotics and called my doctor. She did the world's fastest exam and said, "We're doing a c section." At this point, the back labor was so intense that, combined with the fever, I was passing out between contractions.

Through everything, Chad was amazing. He held my hand. He fed me ice chips. He held my hair back when I started throwing up. He nagged the nurses. He insisted on more pain medication. He kept track of everything they'd given me. He monitored the contractions and would rub my back as soon as they started, talking me through them. I have never loved him more.

The as soon as the doctor said c section, things picked up to warp speed. Chad had time to call our parents to let them know what was going on and that was about it. I was wheeled in to the operating room, too tired to be scared, but Chad stood there in the hall holding my hand, tears streaming down his face. He must have been so scared. It had been a hellish, long day. I can't imagine what it must have been like to watch someone you love be in that much pain.

Of course the anesthesiologist for the surgery was cute. I was out of my mind with the fever and sprawled naked on a table. Figures.

He started to administer drugs. I started humming "Witch Doctor". The words changing to "drug doctor". He was giving me boost after boost but could never really get me completely numb for long. I kept feeling everything. He starting mixing in morphine and then finally hit me with Ketamine. I remember them telling me that they were pulling out the baby. I remember Chad holding my hand and I remember the nurses yelling "Happy Birthday" and "look at your baby". After that I took a little trip to existentialism land. The next thing I remember, the drug doctor was telling me to focus on him and I was explaining to him that I couldn't because to focus he needed to exist and since he didn't exist, I couldn't focus on him. After all, there was no him and there was no me. There was no baby. I was never pregnant, because I never was. We were all one big white space and there was nothing in it.

And they say people take this drug at raves. Why?

I was wheeled to recovery and Chad came down with an "It's a Boy" sucker. He was grinning like a fool and told me that the baby was beautiful and that he loved him. Joseph had been taken to NICU because he'd decided to hold his breath right after birth. They did some tests and he had the same infection that I have and would be staying in NICU. I was still under the impression that I had never had a baby. Drugs, man.

They took me to my room and told me that I wouldn't be able to see little Joe until the next day, but the NICU nurses had sent down polaroids. I wish I could say that I looked at the pictures and fell in love, but instead I said, "he looks a little weird, doesn't he?" I was assured that he was cuter in real life. I fell asleep and the next day was told that in order for me to go see him, I had to be able to get out of bed and into a wheelchair. What a carrot to dangle in front of my nose! I was finally wheeled in at 2:45 and burst in to tears at the sight of the little stinker. I held him and kissed him and then I fell in love.

The doctor was off by about a pound with his size. Which I knew was an possibility the whole time. She was not off with him not fitting. I have android hips (sounds like Star Trek) and could not have delivered him vaginally. I could only deliver a 6 pounder vaginally, so if we ever, not likely, decide to do this again, it will be a mandatory c section. The drug doctor told me that my right side pain receptors just wouldn't numb and suggest that next time, not likely, I'd need a spinal block or general. He said it was unusual, but not unheard of, that someone would process drugs so quickly that their body never really got a chance to stay numb. Combined with my low pain threshold, it was a bad combo.
I was released from the hospital on Monday and Little Joe will be released tomorrow. There has been so much going on in the last few days, I'll have to post on it all some other time. Suffice to say that I can't wait to get him home, because a little part of me is still saying, "We have a baby?"