Saturday, July 25, 2020

Surprise!

Thursday morning, I woke up shortly before 8 feeling like I had started bleeding again. I hurried to the bathroom, but instead of blood I just found some discharge, mostly clear and wet with little streaks of red and brown in it. After I got back to bed, I could still feel it trickling out. I called the nurse and she assured me it was just discharge that had pooled while I was sleeping. 


Not sure I believed her, I called her back an hour later when it had continued to trickle out. She said it was common for vaginal discharge to be heavier in the third trimester and it was really nothing to worry about. The resident doctor came in a short while later and said the same thing. My doctor came in shortly after the resident while on her rounds, and she seemed to appreciate that this could be something else. At the time, it seemed to have stopped, but she said to let them know if it got worse and they would check to see if my water had ruptured. 


About a half hour later, my pad was drenched. Thankfully, a different nurse came in just after this discovery to check on me. I explained it to her and showed her my pad. She told me that she heard my story earlier and thought from that that my water might have ruptured, and now she was almost certain. She went off to collect what she needed to check and I put my husband on standby. He was thankfully off work that day and was just waiting for laundry to dry before heading out to spend the day with us.


In the nurse’s initial check, the fluid was positive as amniotic. She said she had to send the other sample to the lab to verify, but yes, it appeared my water had broken. I told my husband to come out, but we didn’t want to tell anyone yet, because we weren’t sure what the game plan would be. I wasn’t having any contractions, and had heard plenty of stories of women whose water had broken and they didn’t deliver for another few days. We were just going to take it as it came, but we knew our little one would likely be here soon.


The nurse had told me I could go ahead and shower, and when I stood up, there was no doubt in my mind that my water had broken. I went ahead and took a shower mostly because I had been planning on washing my hair that day, and if I ended up delivering, there was no way my hair was going to get washed for a few days at least! So I took care of that one practical thing I could do, and by the time I was done, I heard the doctor and the nurse come in with a “holy shnikes” at the mess I had made when I stood up.


When I came out of the bathroom, the doctor and resident were there with an ultrasound machine. They checked and sure enough, all the fluid had leaked out. They explained that it was time for this baby to come out, but there was a slight problem—a woman at 35 weeks was already getting ready to go back for a C-section, and there was only one room available in the NICU. That meant there was a chance one of us would have to have our baby transferred to another hospital. Because I was only 34 weeks and 2 days,  my doctor said she would try her hardest to get me in first.


When they put the fetal monitor on me and she saw the baby’s heart rate, she said, “He’s okay but we need to get him out now. You’re going first.”


It was that moment that my husband walked in, and I laughed, “Who wants to tell him?”


Everything started happening very quickly after that. Thankfully, the OR was prepped and ready to go for a C-section, so it was a matter of getting me hooked up to an IV and moved down the hall. My husband and I looked at each other and were just like, “I guess this is it!” We were so ready to meet our little guy, and so taken off-guard by how things were going down, but we tried to just roll with it. I was obviously a little nervous about the surgery, but because everyone on our care team was so confident and reassuring, I was able to tamper my nervousness with excitement to meet our baby! And for this pregnancy to be over...


My husband had to wait in the room while I was taken down to the OR and prepped for the surgery. They gave me a spinal block, which was unpleasant for a moment, but my nurse and doctor held my hands and helped me breathe through it. I felt a little woozy during that time, but they quickly got me laying down on my back, and I focused on my breathing while everyone rushed around and the anesthesiologist gave me something to subtly boost my blood pressure.


I had to keep my arms out to the side (thankfully they weren’t strapped down), and I couldn’t help but think of Jesus on the cross—“This is my body, given up for you.” And I marveled at this way in which women have the opportunity to give up their bodies to bring new life into the world. I thanked God for everything, offered up all those I have promised to pray for, and then began repeating in my head and heart, “Jesus, I trust in you.”


My doctor, who was only there for moral support as the actual surgical OB would be performing the surgery with the resident surgeon, held my hand until my husband got there. I couldn’t feel anything or see over the blue curtain they had placed in front of me, but I felt like they had started before my husband arrived. I asked if he was coming, and a minute later he was there.


The anesthesiologist talked me through what I would be feeling throughout the procedure—some weird tugging here and there, some pressure, etc. My husband and I looked at each other excitedly, though he kept peeking to watch the progress of surgery, totally fascinated.


It was barely a couple minutes before I heard people saying, “There he is!” And then I heard him—his tiny little cry that even now makes me tear up with happy tears. It was the most beautiful, relieving sound in the world. They held my baby boy up and I have literally never been that happy before in my entire life. We grinned and laughed at his grumpy little face and marveled at how big he seemed for being born almost 6 weeks early. 


Apparently my husband was able to cut the cord and go see our baby as they got his vitals and cleaned him up. I was oblivious in my happy tears as I listened to him crying and the anesthesiologist talking me through what was going on.


Suddenly my husband and my son were next to me, and even though what I was experiencing physically was extremely uncomfortable and weird, I was overwhelmed with joy.


He weighed 4 pounds 15 ounces and was 18.5 inches long—a decent size for his age! The nurses were amazed that he was so big, and they were impressed with his lung function. His vitals were all good, and though we’d been told the chances were high he’d have breathing difficulties, he was just fine.


When the procedure was over, they placed him on my chest for skin to skin bonding, and rolled us back to the room that we’d lived in together for two weeks. The difference was that now we could see him and snuggle with him. We preferred it that way.


Honestly, I was amazed at how smoothly and quickly everything had happened. Whenever I had thought about having an emergency C-section, I imagined the absolute worst case scenario—waking up in the middle of the night bleeding profusely, my husband not being able to get there in time, the placenta being completely detached leading to horrible complications, etc.


But this happened in the light of day. Even as I was leaking fluid, I was incredibly grateful the whole time that it wasn’t blood! The OR was already prepped for a C-section, and everyone was ready to go, so there was no time wasted there. Though I do feel bad about hijacking that other woman’s surgery. . .I’m thankful that she was able to wait and they were able to keep her and her baby together too!


Though our sweet boy is in the special care unit, he is amazing everyone with how well he’s doing! They call him a rockstar and applaud him for acting like a big boy even though he’s a little guy. He hasn’t had any real trouble at feedings, and he’s hardly fussy at all. He had slightly elevated bilirubin levels today so they are keeping him under the special lights to take care of that. He has super cool teeny tiny sunglasses on and now looks the part of a real rockstar!


It’s hard not staying in the same room as him, but I’m trying to focus on letting myself heal knowing he is receiving better care than I am able to give him right now. They moved our room closer to his, so I try to see him as much as I can. Shortly after our first skin to skin time after his delivery, he was taken to the special care unit, and then I got sick from the anesthesia. They gave me some anti-nausea meds that let me sleep through most of the night, and my husband went to be with the baby. So between that, the pain and discomfort that follow abdominal surgery, and trying to pump every 2-3 hours (with no real visible results yet—just trying to stimulate my body to get my supply going, something than can take 3-4 days for moms of premature babies), it’s hard. Especially since all I want to do is snuggle with him!


Still, my husband has been amazing caring for both me and our son. He is absolutely in his element and so incredibly happy. We are both so relieved and overjoyed knowing that after everything we’ve been through, we finally made it.


The struggles aren’t completely over: we have the usual postpartum issues of my physical recovery and the challenge of breastfeeding, but also, our sweet boy won’t be able to come home right away.  As my husband keeps reminding me, “It’s a turtle race.” We’re making progress, and we’ll get there. They originally said it would be about 2 weeks before we can bring him home, but if he continues to rock at life the way he has from the very beginning, it could be less time.


And honestly, I was already planning on being here another 3 weeks or so anyway. I think it will be easier to tackle that hospital time now that we can see his sweet, perfect little face and hold his perfect little hands, and feel his little heartbeat—our flicker of hope—beat next to ours. 


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