pregnancy

Pregnancy, labor and delivery

Brandon's Grand Entrance

Pregnancy with Brandon

     It was mid-evening on October 3, 1999. I had been feeling strangely ill for about two weeks and seriously denying yet wishing I was pregnant; our only other child was a little over six years old and we weren't trying for another baby. I finally got the courage to go into the bathroom and do a home test that I had in the medicine cabinet.   I waited and waited afraid to see the results. Holding my breath, I looked at that stick and saw the positive pregnancy indication and yelled for my husband Rick to come into the bedroom. I showed him the stick and we both started crying. Suddenly I had to show all the neighbors in disbelief that I could actually be pregnant.

     The first thing I did the next morning was to call the doctor's office to make an appointment to have the doctor confirm the home results. When we got to her office, they asked me to do a urine test. By the color of the sample, I knew I was pregnant and they could skip actually performing the test. They did anyway and it was confirmed we were pregnant with our second child.

     My pregnancy was normal, at least what normal is for me. I immediately started with the morning sickness after the doctor made her confirmation. Only I don't get sick in the morning; I get sick at night - all night! The violent vomiting would start around 10:00 p.m. and go at least until 2:00 in the morning; sometimes later. Thank God for my sister-in-law who was nursing my youngest niece at the time. She quickly became my pregnancy coach and every two hours when I felt like I would never stop vomiting which triggered an anxiety attack, I would call her until I could calm down and get back to sleep. After about 4 1/2 months the vomiting finally stopped and all I needed to be concerned with was drinking enough fluids to prevent dehydration. I did that once and the saline IV is no fun. After that episode, everything seemed to go smoothly. All my pre-natal tests were coming back in levels they should be, the only bad one was that I tested positive for Group B Streptococcus. It would mean being pumped with lots of antibiotics for both me and the baby at delivery. Also no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't gain weight. I am very obese and the motivation of being pregnant was enough to get me to quit the junk food and caffeine and increase the water, fruits, vegetables and smaller portions. I lost 50 pounds throughout the course of my pregnancy but all the ultrasounds indicated the baby was fine and growing like a weed.

Labor and Delivery

     I had my labor with Brandon induced for many reasons. The fact that I was miserable wasn't budging the doctor in her decision; it was the fact that I had tested positive for Group B Strep, and the last ultrasound indicated that Brandon could possibly weigh in at well over 8 pounds. He also would not stay in the right position; he wanted to lay transverse (cross ways).

     Rick and I dropped Calvin (our oldest son) off at Grandma and Grandpa's and headed for the hospital around 3:30 p.m. on June 6, 2000. By 4:30 the process had begun with the doctor inserting a tiny pill in my uterus. This didn't trigger too much in the way of contractions. At 9:00 p.m., the doctor came and inserted another pill. By 9:30 contractions were quite regular though rather far apart. Needless to say, sleep that night was out of the question for me.

     At 6:00 the next morning, I hadn't progressed much and so the doctor had the nurses start the pitocin drip in my IV. By 7:30, I was vomiting my guts out and so they gave me medicine to help ease that. It made me a little drowsy but I continued on. At 10:00 a.m., the pain was getting unbearable and so when I was offered the last chance for painkillers, I took it and it took me. To say I slept through the rest of the labor wouldn't be exaggerating much. I couldn't keep my eyes open if I wanted to and the family said I was snoring.

     Around 11:30 a.m., the nurses said I could start pushing whenever I was ready.   Who is ever ready to push an 8 pound baby out of that small space??? We started anyway. About 12:30, the nurse had had enough (like she was doing anything laboring) and called the doctor to come and break my water thinking that would speed things up. Boy did they.......

     My doctor had arrived and did an internal check and agreed that breaking the water might help and so at 1:00 p.m. she manually broke my water and by 1:03 p.m., Brandon Lawrence Krause was born. He was exactly 8 pounds and was 21 1/2 inches long with blondish brown hair and blue eyes.