My Little Man

Well, its has been just over 2 weeks since my little dude arrived. The time has gone by in a whirlwind and it has been a total roller coaster ride with nothing and I mean nothing going as expected. From labour to birthing to coming home and getting settled, not a single moment has gone as planned or anticipated.

I have been struggling to write my birth story, as it is a long and complicated event that to be honest I have not been to eager to relive. I have requested my hospital records in order to piece together the time line, as things happened in what feels like a vacuum of time and I am not sure of how things actually went down, but there are some things that I am sure of:

May 28, 2012

• Induction started at 8am
• Contractions started at 11am
• Active labour began at 2pm
• Arrived at the hospital at 230pm and laboured in the assessment area for hours as they did not have a room for me. Finally about 2 hrs later I was moved to a private labour & delivery suite
• I tried every position imaginable to manage the pain. I walked, kneeled, swayed, used my birth ball, had P and L (our doula) massage my back, was in and out of the tub ... nothing worked to ease the pain. But I managed and continued to push through
• My membranes were ruptured sometime around 9pm after I had made it to 6cm. The hope was that with the water broken, baby would descend more and turn, as they had ended up sunny side up.
• Contractions intensified immensely once my water broke and the desire to push became overwhelming. The strength to fight against it was hard to find, but was necessary
• Sometime around midnight I asked for the epi, something I never in my dreams thought I would do, but with the contractions coming one on top of the other and the pain never subsiding even for a moment it was more than I could bear. 

May 29, 2012

• I was told around 6am, that while I was at 8cm, the baby was still sunny side up and had not descended far enough into the birth canal. I was told I needed the dreaded oxytocin to amp up my contractions to hopefully turn baby around and get them to drop. I consented, with sadness in my heart.
• I continued to labour until 9am, making no progress past 8cm
• Then I as told that I had developed a fever and infection and baby's heart rate began to climb. The Dr advised that we now had about 2hrs to make a move, we could wait and try to deliver the baby vaginally w forceps/vacuum or go with a section.  A section would be necessary regardless if I could not get past 8cm, of which I had not been able to do in the last 5 hrs. In either instance, baby would have to spend time in the NICU for 48 hrs for observation and antibiotics as a precaution. So while neither option to me was a good one, and I had always envisioned a beautiful natural delivery, I did not want to risk my or my childs health. The fear of the fever and possible infection being transferred to baby was enough to break my heart. 
• Sometime around 10am I consented to an emergency c-section. I cried for what felt like an eternity. P and L held my hand an assured me that this was the right thing to do. They were my rocks as I felt that my world was coming apart.
• Then more bad news: The anaesthesiologist came in to prep me and advised that since I had such a high fever I would not be able to have a spinal for the c-section and therefore would have to be put under a full general. Cue more tears and further emotional breakdown. 
• Just after 10am, I was wheeled into the OR and by 1039, my beautiful baby boy was born. 
• Little E was taken straight to the NICU with Daddy, while I was being stitched up and moved to recovery.
• I came to about an hr later but was not able to meet my baby for another few hrs. When I did finally get to see him, I was wheeled into the NICU on my stretcher only to see my boy in an incubator, with tubes and cords all hooked up to him. I was still so out of it nothing really connected or made sense at the time. 
• Back in the L&D area I was again left in the assessment area for a couple hours before a room was free in the maternity ward.
• Once in our room I rested for a while longer before starting off back downstairs to the NICU to really visit with and meet my son. 
• For the next 4 days, P and I would spend all our time in hospital, P sleeping on a shitty cot and me in a horrid hospital bed, as both myself and E recovered. Every 3 hrs we would make the trek downstairs to attempt nursing and bonding with our boy. 

Overall, there is nothing in this story that was expected or envisioned. Not a single moment of my birthing went as "planned". It was one of the hardest times in my life and was so emotionally taxing that there were times that I was not sure I would make it through.

But we are home now, all of us happy, healthy and finding our footings as a new family of 3. It has been almost 3 weeks since little E arrived, and regardless of anything that happened that week, I would never change a thing if it meant anything other than having him in our lives.