And it’s a BOY! Nathaniel Avery was born at 7:39 pm on January 4, 2008. He weighs 7lbs 4oz and is 19 3/4″ long. And do I have a birth story for you!
As most of you know, I was due Dec. 27, but that day came and went with no baby. So did the following week. However, I was having contractions, but they were not close enough, and at times stopped altogether, so they did not keep my when I showed up at the hospital. I went in on Tuesday morning, about 2:30 am, but by 11 am I was discharged. We then came back on Wednesday afternoon, but the contractions were not close enough together (6-8 minutes), so they sent me home. They did stop around 5 am and then resumed about noon (on Thursday). They began to be about 20-25 minutes apart, then around 4 pm they got to 10 minutes apart and stayed that way. There were a few hours that they got to 5 or so minutes apart, but they didn’t stay that way. Friday morning came and I was still having contractions and I was having to breathe hard through them. I called the clinic at 8:15 am to talk to the doctor about inducement. But I didn’t get to talk to anyone until around 11:30 am. By that time, I realized that I had not felt the baby move since around 7 am. I talked with a nurse and she told me that the doctor said that they would not induce me until Monday morning, but if I did not feel the baby move more than a few times in 1 hour, to call back.
I felt one little flutter in 1 1/2 hours, to I called back and they said to come in for a non-stress-test (where they hook you up to the monitor and check the baby’s heart tones). The heart rate was good, but still only had 2 little movements in 30 minutes. And that was even after multiple times trying to “wake” him up and make him move. Plus, the doctor saw how I was having to breathe through the contractions, so he checked me. I was 5cm dilated, 90% effaced and the baby was at -2 station. He looked at me and said,”I’m not sending you home this time.” When he left the room, I started to cry. :0) A nurse wheeled me over to the birthing center and things began to go. This was about 4 pm.
It took awhile to get the IV in because my veins were giving them trouble, so it was about 4:30-4:40 pm until they got that going (I was Group B Strep positive, so they wanted to get a full bag of antibiotics in my before breaking me water and before I could get an epidural). At this point I was 8cm dilated and the baby was at 0 station (meaning he was engaged in my pelvis). I decided that it was too late to get an epidural (I didn’t want to have the numb feelings that I had with Grace’s birth), so I got a shot of Nubian. It didn’t take the pain away like an epidural does, but it took enough of the edge off so I could finally relax. At 7:15 pm, the doctor broke my water and we saw that there was a lot of meconium in the “water”. Then the nurse checked me and said that I’m 8cm, with some “lip” of the cervix still there. She wanted me to try to lie on my side, switching every so often, to try and get things dilating faster. I tried, but the back labor was so intense, I was having none of it! At 7:36 pm, I finally consented to try it. I was on my right side for not even 5 seconds (no joke!) when I had the uncontrollable urge to push and push I did! I finally realized that Adam was not there and my mother went to find him. When Adam came in, the nurse was trying to get me on my back again. He literally pulled my leg over and rolled me onto my back, because I couldn’t seem to do it myself. Once I was there, I kept saying (everyone said I screamed) I have to push and the nurse kept saying “breath through it”. Not a chance! I pushed 2 more times (that would be 4 pushes TOTAL) and there he was at the foot of my bed. The doctor turned around from washing her hands and saw him there. Just then the pediatrician walked into the room and said, “I didn’t even put a gown on”. The doctor didn’t even put gloves on.
Nathaniel was gray and green from the amount of meconium in the waters. And he was not breathing. Even though I was still in shock from the quickness of it all, I remember hearing the pediatrician say, “unplug and we’re going”. He was taken to the nursery and worked on. He did begin breathing and soon was screaming up a storm. But not before they called for a “code blue” and not before I started weeping when I heard that, knowing it was for him. It was decided, that because of the amount of meconium, chest x-rays were taken and he would be transported to a hospital about 1 1/2 hours south of us by helicopter (the hospital here does not have an NICU unit). Before the flight came in, he had what the doctor said was a small seizure and he was given anti-seizure medication. I still had not held him, but I was able to touch him and kiss him. Before he left.
I talked with the doctor at the other hospital at 12:30 am and he said that Nathaniel looks better when he arrived then he did when he left us. From his observation, he didn’t think that is was a seizure, but Nathaniel would be carefully monitored anyway. The prognosis was good and the doctor was very optimistic. He had not looked at the chest x-rays yet to see if or how much meconium was in his lungs, but said by the way he was breathing he did think there was some in there.
Birth Story (part 2)