Introducing: Kirstyn Leigh!
So, We have a baby girl...
Laurel started having contractions at 11:30PM on Monday night. She had an appointment to be induced on Tuesday morning at 7:30. She woke me up at 2:30am and we timed the contractions and they were progressing along. We figured the 7:30 appointment was working out perfect. At 6:00am the hospital called and cancelled the appointment saying the the hospital was full and that the inducement would have to be rescheduled. This was kind of like turning off the light at the end of the tunnel. The baby didn't much care about the appointment being cancelled and the contractions progressed to where they were pretty painful and frequent so we called her doctor's office and got the night service. They would page the on-call doctor. After calling, her contractions subsided somewhat. We hadn't heard from the doctor in 40 minutes so we called again. The service said, "He didn't call you back?" They said they would re-page him and to call back if we didn't hear from him in 15 minutes. Well, after 15 minutes we still didn't hear and the contractions were back stronger so we just went to the hospital. Of course this was at 7:30am so what was normally a 15 minute ride was 30 minutes. We went up to the Birthing center and they had our paper work all there. Our doctor walked by and said, "Good you're here". He had called back each time but we have our Caller ID set to refuse calls from people who intentionally block their number and from some stupid reason if you make a call from inside the hospital it intentionally blocks the number so he couldn't get through. I don't understand how the hospital called at 6:00 to cancel the appointment but it may be a different part of the phone system.
We lucked out in one way, the doctor whom we liked the most was on-call that day. So one thing was going right.
Anyway, All the birthing units were full so they put us in a triage room and hooked her up to a stress machine that shows the contractions and the baby's heart beat. They said the plan was to do the inducement but by the signs of the contractions it looked like she would not need much inducing.
After about two hours a birthing room freed up and we switched to that. We had two choices for rooms. A larger one that was very noisy or a smaller one that was quieter. The hospital is doing major renovations and the larger room was directly under where they were working. We took the smaller room but it was pretty noisy also but we were able to ignore it. All the rooms in the whole section would have been noisy. Since Laurel was dilated to 4cm she was able to get an epidural right away so she was pretty comfortable after that.
It was now a game of just waiting. Twice the baby's heartrate went way down. Everybody came running in but it restabilized. Our doctor said that 3 strikes your out... if it happened again they would do a C-section.
Laurel had exams every couple of hours and she was progressing slowly. They gave her pitocin to speed up the contractions. She lucked out in that she got the pitocin after the epidural so there was no excess pain. If she wasn't dilated at all when we came in she would have got that first, and that is more painful because you can't get the epidural until you are 4cm dilated.
There was some talk that the baby might be too big and she would have to have a C-section but the baby's heart rate was fine and they suggested we just wait and see.
Our doctor left at 5PM and the next doctor on-call was Dr. R., who was the only doctor we hadn't met. So we where a little nervous about that. She was great though, as soon as she came in the room you liked her.
The dilation was progressing slowly. At that point we where at about 6cm. So we waited some more and the doctor started talking about C-sections because it looked like it would be a tight fit. She suggested that if nothing progressed further by Midnight that we have a C-section. At the midnight exam, she changed her mind a bit as we were at 8cm and she thought that things looked better. We started to consider the C-section at that point because it mean't another 2-3 hours of waiting and then maybe that many pushing. The nurse said that the baby was doing fine and didn't appear tired and we agreed that we would wait and see.
Laurel was able to sleep through a lot of the contractions as the epidural was doing it job. Occasionally she would get more pressure and they gave her added medication that took the edge off. I however didn't get any sleep. So at midnight I had been up about 22 hours and had 2-3 hours of sleep in the last 42 hours.
At around three AM they did another exam and she was at around 9cm but the baby was not moving down at all. So the plan was to do the C-section. They gave me scrubs to put on and they prepped Laurel. They upped the epidural and she would be awake during the procedure.
I sat outside the operating room with my scrubs, hat and mask and my camera. I could take pictures after the baby was born.
Laurel was all set and they called me in. There were about 8 to ten people there. There was a screen coming up from around Laurel's shoulders. On on side was the sterile side and the other the non-sterile side. They gave me a chair on the non-sterile side by Laurel's head. Laurel was such a trooper and was doing great. They said I could watch if it wouldn't make me squemish and so I stood up and watched the whole thing while holding her hand.
During the operation different beepers were going off and one of the nurses was going around trying to find out whose it was.
After about 10 minutes the head was out and the rest of the baby quickly followed at 3:47am. They announced it was a girl, which I knew but Laurel didn't, and Laurel had this big smile on her face. She couldn't see mine as I had the mask on but it was there.
The doctor showed me the umbilical cord and there was a nice knot in it. At some point when the baby was small she had tied a knot in the cord with her movements. That is probably why the heartbeat dropped twice earler and we are probably fortunate that we had the C-Section as pushing might have tighened the knot and cut off the flow of oxygen to the baby. They cut the umbilical cord to around 6 inches and transfered the baby to a table and proceeded to check her out. They said I could now take pictures which I did. Laurel was being stiched up and they asked if I wanted to cut the cord closer which I did. They then wrapped the baby up and told me to sit down near Laurel again and they gave me Kirstyn Leigh. I held her for Laurel to see while they stiched up Laurel.
We then went to post op and stayed there for 3-4 hours as there were no rooms to transfer to yet. I made a few phone calls and Laurel got to hold the baby. I then went with the baby to the nursery and they weighed her, 9lb 1 oz; and measured her, 22 1/2 inches. Everybody was marvelling at how long she was. They asked me what her name was and I said Kirstyn but was so tired I couldn't remember how we decided to spell it! They put the little Lojack type device on Kirstyn and I got a matching number band for my wrist.
They transferred us to a double room but said they would switch us to a private if one became available. We kept reminding them and they were able to find one so they switched us to the private room.
The baby's temperature was a little low which they said was normal. When they brought the baby in later the temperature was normal.
Mother and daughter are doing great and Dad is holding in there. All in all it was a great if long time. We have our cute little baby girl and I'm sure you all can't wait to see her. I now don't have to worry when I talk about her and I can finally say HER! They'll be in the hospital until Saturday or Sunday.
I finally went home around 9:30PM on Weds night and went right to bed. I just thought I'd write this long but quick note to let you all know since I know how interested you were.
Take care,
Steve