Pregnancy After Loss: Reaching My Rainbow, The Birth

I didn't sleep that evening. We were scheduled to be induced at midnight. I laid down for about an hour tossing and turning. I got up and paced around the house... Moving pillows, folding blankets, moving things from room to room. I made myself a snack... of course. Staring at the clock. 10pm, 10:30pm, 11:00pm, 11:30pm. Let's go!

We held hands almost the whole way to the hospital. I cried mid drive. I just couldn't believe it was really happening. It's like that "pinch me I'm dreaming" type feeling. We pulled up to the hospital, Brandon unpacked the car. We walked in and off we went. There was another girl in the elevator going to be induced. Why didn't she seem nervous? My teeth were chattering. "Boy or girl?" She said to me. "Girl," I replied. She was also having a girl and it was her first too. We filled out the paper work, and she went one way and I went the other. 

They started right away. I was checked, given cytotec (this is used to "ripen" the cervix) and told to sleep. Sleep??? Sleeeep!!!!????? Yeah, right! I stared at the monitor watching her heart rate. I dozed in and out... But more in than out. Upon the next time being checked, I was still only 1cm dilated and cervix was not at all cooperating. I was given more cytotec... It was kind of a waiting game. For hours and hours nothing changed. That baby wasn't budging. I was still 1cm all day the next day. Would you want to come out if you were being fed ice cream on the daily? I ordered some Portillo's and waited. You can't not get Portillo's cheese fries if you are right across the street. 

 

 

Once they had exhausted the doses of cytotec with zero improvement they decided to try a Foley balloon. This is to manually open the cervix. How pleasant. I slept with this thing in... Next day... small improvement. I was dilated to almost 3cm. Whoopee. I was given an epidural, they tried some weird catheter thingy, and Pitocin... Nothing. At around 10am, August 9th, they manually popped water bag. 

Brandon decided he would venture out to find coffee at the hospital. I just laid there shoveling ice chips down my throat. I didn't even really watch tv. I just watched the monitor. Upon staring at the monitor I saw the babies heart rate shoot up to 218. I watched in horror as it went from 218-215-213-215-213. Of course this would happen when my husband was gone and I was alone. I immediately reached for the buzzer, but they were already on their way to me! 

 

I was supposed to have my baby delivered by a different doctor whom I didn't know. Just as my numbers were spiking and things were not going as planned, my own doctor walked in and said we are taking you in for emergency C-section. We want to get this baby out of you. You have an infection. My heart dropped. I just wanted her to come out alive. I didn't even care about myself. I just wanted her to be ok. Having my own doctor there really helped. She had her office reschedule all of her appointments for me. She had been following my monitor numbers on her phone. She is the most wonderful woman. 

Brandon came back and my family arrived. They wheeled me in. It was terrifying. Bright lights, machines, tools... Like 6+ doctors and nurses. It was really happening. "Look, you are getting your C-section you wanted," my doctor joked. Just then I looked over and saw the doctor from the fertility clinic! She really was going to be part of my delivery like she joked she would all those months ago. I was extremely scared but at the same time, I was ok. I was ready. I knew I was in good hands.

Brandon sat next to me holding my hand. He was a total wreck apparently, but he never let me know it. I laid there watching the doctors talk to each other back and forth. I was totally awake. I could see blood. I could feel tugging and pulling. They would check in with me every so often. I remember asking "is she alive?" Brandon was holding my hand. I remember that last big tug. Out she came. Screaming her head off! They lifted her up so I could see her over the curtain. I was slightly out of it by this point but I heard it and I saw her. Both of us were crying... I remember Brandon's face was kind of a blur but he was crying. 

"Ok daddy, go see your girl!" They told him not to look at the table... But he did. He told me it was like a murder scene. The floor was covered in blood, the doctors were covered in blood, and my organs were out on the table. Lovely. He said he probably shouldn't have looked. He held her first. He came back to me in tears and said, "she is so beautiful! She has your moms mustache." (inside joke) I was totally loopy by now but I definitely laughed and told him to shut up. They finished sewing me up and at some point I remember they asked me if I wanted to hold her. I was so out of it. I couldn't. I'm still sad to this day that I couldn't hold her right away. Even my parents and sisters held her first.

I was wheeled to recovery where I passed out for about an hour and a half. When I came back from being dazed, I woke up and realized where I was. "Why isn't my baby here? Where is she?" I was frantic fearing the worst. Brandon immediately said how beautiful she was and that everything was ok. I was dying to see her. I was so weak but I was dying to hold her. At last, they wheeled her in, all bundled up, with a little hat on. They handed her to me as I lay there anxious to see my baby for the first time. She was totally awake, eyes open, alert, and then she looked at me... I lost it. She was here. She was ok. She was perfect. I was actually holding my baby. I sobbed. We sobbed together. My life was forever changed.