The newest Dewing

I did it! I had a baby! Yeah!!! But, it certainly wasn’t how we thought it would be. It was actually much better.

When I saw my doctor on Thursday, I was dilated to 2 1/2 cm and she swept the membranes. Not the most pleasant experience, but it was worth a shot. She told us we were on the schedule to be induced Friday morning. We were instructed to present ourselves at the ER entrance at 6 am to start things. We went to our friends house, where the children were during out appointment, and had a wonderful meal. After we left their house, we took the children to another friends house where the children were to spend the night and stay until we come home from the hospital. Seeing that we needed to leave out house around 5 am, we thought it would be easier to have to not wake the children to take them somewhere or have someone come to out house that early. The children were excited (well, Malachi and Nathaniel weren’t that keen on it, but that’s because of the dogs.) and we left for home.

It was out intention to get up early enough to have breakfast before we left in the morning. But that wasn’t to be. I woke around 1 am to use the bathroom and I was feeling VERY crampy. Around 3 am I began to notice that they weren’t cramps anymore, they were regular contractions. But I didn’t look at the clock, for I had done this many time before and figured they would stop just like the other ones. I laid in bed for about 30 minutes, then decided to get up and walk around, for they were getting to uncomfortable to be in bed. I was sitting in my rocking chair in the boys room when I realized that they were getting heavy enough for me to have to breathe through them and they were relatively close together. I sat there through about 5 of them. Right after the 5th one stopped, I went into our room to look at the clock. Just about 1 minute after coming into the room, the alarm went off. 2 minutes after that, I had another contraction. I waited through one more contraction, then I let Adam know that they were 3 minutes apart and were quite heavy. I never did get that breakfast.

Soon enough, we were in the van and let me tell you, laboring in the car is horrible! We got to the ER just before 5 am and told them that I was in labor. We were admitted to the labor and delivery floor and I got strapped down with the monitors. The contractions were still coming 2 -3 minutes apart and soon after we got there, I told the nurse I needed something for the pain. I could feel my body tense up and I just couldn’t control it enough to relax. She said okay to that, but I first needed to get the IV in to get the anti-biotic going (I am Group B Strep positive). Getting the IV in wasn’t an easy task and I think it took about 45 min. to finally get it going. The plan was for them to give me a shot of Nubain once the IV was going and that would take enough of the edge off while the epidural guy got his stuff ready for me.

Well, since it took so long just to get the IV in, I was on the monitors long enough that they could see the baby’s heart rate wasn’t all that great. The doctor didn’t want to give me the Nubain just yet, for the medicine could cause the baby to be sleepy and decrease the heart rate even more. I was still 2 1/2 cm at 6 o’clock and Adam decided to call his mother. The doctor checked me again at 6:40 am and I was at 5 cm. Adam’s mother got there just before 6:50 am. The nurse wanted me to get some oxygen, thinking it might help the baby’s heart rate. She told me it might make me a bit nauseous and about 10 seconds after she put the mask on me, I was throwing up. At the same time, I felt my water break. It took me a minutes to tell her, for I was a bit busy emptying my stomach. At this point, the doctor came in and the nurse told her that the oxygen probably made me throw up. I new better, and so did Adam and his mother. I had done this before with Grace. I was dilating very quickly.

About 7:10 am, the doctor put an internal monitor on the baby’s head and said I had just a lip of the cervix left to go. That’s 5 cm in 30 minutes. I was lying on my right side and I said I need to push and I begged the doctor to let me. She said I still have a bit of a cervix left and that pushing at that moment wasn’t a good idea. My body didn’t listen. The nurses began to scramble to get things in order, for they didn’t think it would be that quick. Nobody did, including the mother! I pushed during the next contraction on my side. Someone (I think it was Adam), pushed/pulled my onto my back. As the nurse was trying to break apart the bed, she said I needed to pull myself up. I’m not sure how that got accomplished, but it was. With the next contraction, I was pushing again. Oh my word, did that hurt! The burning sensation was like nothing I have experienced before. After that, my body wasn’t waiting anymore and just took over. I kept pushing and little Damaris McKay Dewing was born at 7:18 am, October 30, 2009. It took 4 hours and 18 minutes with 3 pushes. 4 hours! That’s amazing when you consider my history! And no drugs!

Adam, for the 6th time in a row, was right: we have another girl. There was meconium in the bag of waters and it turns out that she aspirated some of it. I got to hold her for about 30 seconds and they took her to the nursery. Her oxygen levels were not that good, so the doctor was keeping a close eye on her. In the meantime, it took about 6 hours for my heavy bleeding to stop. There were blood clots that couldn’t come out of the uterus and was causing my uterus to keep contracting. The doctor had to get them out by hand. Once they were out, the bleeding slowed way down and I felt much better.

Later in the afternoon, we were told that Damaris’ vitals weren’t keeping steady and that she was being transferred to the Marshfeild NICU. Having gone through stuff when Nathaniel was born, that was not what I wanted to hear. She left in the helicopter around 5:30 pm, with Adam and I arriving around 10 pm. Since I had lost more blood than was normal (a normal birth looses about 400 cc. I lost 1000 cc), it was against her judgment as a doctor to discharge me. But as a mother herself, she said she’d want to go with her baby too.

We went home quickly, to get clothes and other things. We talked to the doctor here at the NICU and he said at that time, she looked good and her stats were stable. When we got here, we learned that around 8:30 pm, it was decided to intibate her. She is now on the ventilator and is getting Nitric Oxide to make the capillaries open and absorb oxygen. The meconium in her lungs are causing her to not absorb the oxygen very well.

So, here we are. Once again, in Marshfield with our newborn in the NICU. I know God has a reason for all this. Perhaps one of them is to testify that Nathaniel is doing so well and it’s all to the glory of God. My doctor made a comment that sweeping the membranes obviously helped. But that’s not true. I believe labor started on it’s own when God knew we wouldn’t try for a home birth. Between her breathing problems, my bleeding issues, being 40 minutes away from the hospital, and having to wait for at least 15 minutes for an ambulance if it was needed, He knew that it wouldn’t be good. It’s not all that great now, but it sure could be so much worse. And that prayer of mine that He would break my water? Yeah, that wouldn’t have been good either, for it broke 28 minutes before she was born.

We were planning to bring our children here with us, for we are staying at the Ronald McDonald House. But we were informed that as of yesterday, the hospital is not permitting anyone, under the age of 18 and is not a patient, to even enter the hospital. I’m still not strong enough to walk much, so it would have been impossible for me to go see her while Adam stays with the children. Adam could go over while I stay with the children, but I need to pump for her food. So it was decided that it would be best, for the time being, for the children to stay where they are. We will probably still be here by Monday, and at that point we will decided what to do with them then.

Obviously, this story is not over yet. It’s only just begun. I will update as much as I can and some day, hopefully very soon, we will take out precious baby girl home.