Bennett Darian was born on Tuesday, July 19th at 10:22am via an emergency induction. He was 18 inches long and weighed just over 5 1/2 pounds when we brought him home from the hospital.
I've written down his birth story below. I apologize that it ended up being so long, but I wanted to write down every detail I could so that I have the full record for later and don't end up forgetting anything.
For the last couple weeks before he was born, I was having problems with very low amniotic fluid and the baby measuring smaller than he should have been. When they first diagnosed it (at what was supposed to be a routine 5 minute appointment. . .) my levels were low enough that they considered inducing right then, but since I was so early they didn't want to induce unless they absolutely had to. They admitted me to labor and delivery immediately and got some monitors hooked up to me; thankfully the baby performed well on the stress test so they decided to continue monitoring me until birth but to try to squeeze in a few more days of gestation if possible. The hope was that the longer we could keep baby in, the lower my chances of having a c-section, which I really really wanted to avoid if at all possible. If we induced too soon we were afraid we'd have to resort to c-section if my body resisted the artificial labor.
The main fear with this condition (oligohydramnios) is that there's not enough fluid padding for the baby which increases the risk of the cord compressing and cutting off nutrients and oxygen to the baby. It also restricts fetal growth.
Under doctor's orders, I went to Labor and Delivery every couple days, early in the morning, to have repeat AFI ultrasounds (to check fluid levels) and stress tests (to check baby's heart and oxygen) with the understanding that they would induce if any results got worse. As long as the results at least stayed stable we could continue to hold our breaths and drag things out. Every time I went to the hospital my doctor would come visit me in my hospital room and we'd discuss how to proceed depending on that day's results. For a bit my levels were actually improving a little but then the day came that they started to drop again. My doctor decided at that point that the risk of leaving the baby in was greater than the risk of getting him out where they could monitor him better and we decided to induce. So they admitted me and got things started.
When they started my Pitocin drip they told me that a first time labor will usually dilate about 1cm every hour and a half, so to settle in and get comfortable. Instead, this is how the sequence of events went:
6:30am - Pitocin drip started to induce contractions, already at 3cm dilated/80% effaced
7:30am - Doctor breaks my water, I'm at 4cm dilated/80% effaced
8:25am - I call for the epidural, they check me right after and are shocked to find I'm at 7cm dilated/90% effaced
10:00am - 9cm dilated/100% effaced, Baby has been having problems for a little bit now, Hospital staff starts rushing like mad to get all the machines and instruments into the room
10:22am - 10cm dilated/100% effaced, Baby Bennett is born
Now for your background details:
I was already 3cm dilated and 80% effaced when I went into the hospital for my tests that morning so everyone was optimistic about my body responding well to the inducement. I had noticed that the baby had dropped a couple days earlier (I thank Michael Jackson Wii for that!) so I was expecting to be at least somewhat dilated but was really happy that we were starting off on such a good foot.
We knew first labors were typically long; we figured a Pitocin labor would be even longer since it would take a while for my body to react to the medicine. Michael suggested we try to sleep until 10 or 11 since we had to get up early and were tired, and conserve our energy for later in the day when things started moving. He settled down into the pull-out couch and went right to sleep. I was tired too but couldn't shut my brain down so I just texted people and started looking through some of the paperwork the hospital had given me. I figured I'd go to sleep in an hour.
So imagine my surprise when, an hour later, my doctor and 2 nurses walked in and checked me (4cm) and announced that they were going to break my water. Apparantly they had been watching the monitors and I had been having nice, regular (painless) contractions for a while so they decided to take the next step. I hardly had time to process, let alone wake up Michael who somehow was sleeping through the chaos. So the doctor broke my water (it felt like a lot, but they said it wasn't very much at all thanks to my low fluid levels) and the nurses told me I could have my epidural at any time. I told them I didn't need it yet since I wasn't really having any pain. It was then that I noticed a very confused and groggy Michael sitting up in bed in the corner looking around at all the people who were suddenly in our room. As soon as they left the conversation went something like this. . ."what just happened?" "they broke my water" "WHAT?? are you serious?" "yes" "why didn't you wake me up?" "it wasn't the most attractive position for you to see me in. . ." He got right out of bed and came over to be with me while he tried to mentally process what he had missed in his short nap.
Things after that progressed FAST. Almost immediately my contractions started to get stronger and I started having some pain with them. The nurses came and checked on me every 10 minutes (I didn't know this at the time but they were checking on me so often because they were watching the monitors outside and were surprised at how quickly my contractions were progressing). Every time they came they offered me the epidural but I kept saying no because I knew that once I had the epidural I was tied down to the bed, and if I was going to be in labor all day I wanted to walk around a little, right? Michael and I had come prepared - I had plans of laboring in the jacuzzi tub, we brought tennis balls for Michael to massage my back with, I wanted to take one last belly pic while wearing the hospital gown, we had books and movies to keep us occupied during the long day of labor. . .we just didn't realize that we would end up using none of those things because we didn't have enough time!
It only took about 20 minutes before the contractions got strong enough that I had to start using the breathing techniques to get through them. And of course I thought I'd have several hours to review the breathing techniques before needing them, but instead things were moving so fast that I started to panic and forgot everything we had learned so Michael pulled out the sheet and gave me a drive-by review in between my next contractions.
I broke down and had Michael call for the epidural only 55 minutes after my water broke. My contractions were really strong and coming almost on top of each other so I didn't have time to catch my breath in between anymore. I felt like a wuss for only lasting an hour but felt much less wussy when they checked me right after the epidural and found that I was at 7cm/90% effaced! I was really proud of myself for unknowingly laboring on my own to 7cm; had I known I was dilating that fast I probably would have gotten the epidural sooner!
Things settled down somewhat after the epidural but only for about 20 minutes. I was getting drowsy and was dozing comfortably when the nurses came in to discuss some concerns they had with the baby's heart rate levels on the monitors. They said the monitors were showing "variables". . .which meant that every time I had a contraction, the baby's heart rate would go down. It would recover once the contraction was over, so they weren't too worried yet but wanted to be cautious so they helped turn me so that I was laying on one side. They thought the variables were probably caused by the baby's cord being compressed so by turning me they were hoping to take pressure off the cord.
Well, that didn't help, so they had me flip to my other side. Which didn't help. So every few minutes they had me flipping sides. Which messed up the monitors since they had to be adjusted every time, so they decided to do away with the external monitors and do internal monitors instead (poor baby, he still has a scab on the top of his head from the wire they put into his scalp to read his heart rate!) Then they decided the best option was to put fluid back into my belly to give the baby his fluid padding back. So they started pumping a bag of saline into my uterus. It was helping slightly, but not as fast as they liked, so they put me in an oxygen mask.
We could tell something was happening because it seemed like all of a sudden there were people running in and out of the room like mad, bringing in blankets and machinery and instruments. In the midst of that the doctor came to check me and I was already at 9cm/100% effaced. I remember thinking that the doctor looked more serious than I had ever seen him before. (I didn't know this at the time, but Michael told me later that he had been watching the monitors and could see that the baby's heart rate was plummeting with contractions again, he could also see the notes that the nurses were putting into the computer and the most recent one said that they had sent the doctor a message saying "Come FAST") The doctor said we should probably try pushing in a few minutes and then quickly discussed with us how concerned he was about the baby's heart rate and the need to get him out quickly. He briefly went over the options between using a vacuum and doing a c-section and I told him I definitely wanted to try the vacuum first. He just nodded and said he'd be back in a few minutes with the nurses.
The actual labor was a little scary although I didn't realize how much so until afterwards (which was a blessing. . .everything was happening so fast that I didn't have time to mentally process, if I had time to think things over I would have realized how serious the situation was. . .as it was, Michael told me later that he was scared but didn't want to tell me all the things he was seeing because he didn't want me to worry too) The doctor and nurses came back into the room and he checked me again, he emphasized that we needed to get the baby out immediately and offered to wheel me to c-section again, I told him I wanted to try the vacuum first. He checked me and I was at 10cm and he could feel the baby's ear right there so he agreed to give pushing a chance first. They adjusted the bed and the doctor instructed the nurse to have me push through the next contraction while he hurried to get his gown on. I pushed 3 times during the first contraction, once it was done the doctor said he was going to do an episiotomy to try to get the baby out faster. While he was quickly doing that he told the nurse to call for the respiratory team ASAP. The monitor wasn't picking up any heartbeats from the baby and I realized that if I couldn't get the baby out NOW we were going over to c-section. So even though I couldn't feel anything I was extra motivated to push as hard as I could. I pushed 3 times again through a second contraction and the doctor put the vacuum in place. I think I only pushed once on the third contraction when I noticed the doctor and nurse get extra animated in their encouragement, so I snuck a peek and was shocked to see the baby's head. They didn't even have me pause for them to suction the baby's mouth, instead they had me push again immediately to get the rest of Baby out and he kind of shot right out. So altogether I pushed for maybe a minute and a half. I remember being scared for a brief moment because the baby's face was blue. . .for a split second I thought we hadn't got him out in time. So I turned my head away because I didn't want to see him but immediately heard a weak little wail. Michael was like, "did you hear that??" and I did and was so relieved. I also noticed that the cord was wrapped around his ankle which they later explained was probably causing the variables on the monitor because it was compressed.
As soon as the baby came out and gave that little cry the doctor exclaimed, "why, it's just a LITTLE peanut!" and handed him to the nurse. He tried to hand the clamp to Michael and said "here you go dad!" which was when I looked over and noticed Michael starting to hyperventilate (he's REALLY squeamish about needles and umbilical cords and other gross medical things) so I told the doctor that Michael couldn't do it, the doctor asked if I wanted to do it and I said no (although looking back I kind of wish I had, but I just wanted them to hurry and cut it and attend to the baby). So they rushed the baby right over to the warmer to suction him and clean him up while everyone tried to guess how much the baby weighed. Everyone was certain he was under 6 pounds and they were right.
It was probably about 20 minutes or so before I held the baby. Because of all the problems he had right before birth the respiratory team and nurses had to take some extra measures to make sure he was doing okay, but we were very fortunate that he was doing well enough that they didn't have to take him out of the room. I had tore further than my episiotomy so Michael went over to start taking pictures of the baby while I was being sewn up. After about 10 minutes the medical team was confident that the baby was doing well enough to stay with us and wrapped him up and gave him to Michael to hold. He held the baby for about 10 minutes while they finished with me then handed him over for skin-to-skin. I couldn't believe how incredibly tiny and soft he was. The baby was already rooting on Michael's fingers while he was holding him so they had me try to feed him right away and he latched immediately and did great (I thank our breastfeeding class for how easy that was!)
Unfortunately we didn't get to keep him with us for quite as long as we would have liked at the beginning - after I fed him the nurse took him for a second and noticed that his body temperature was low, so they took him to the nursery. They tested his blood sugar there and found it was low too (apparantly low body temp and blood sugar are somewhat common for such tiny babies) so they spent a couple hours trying to warm him up and running additional blood draws for glucose; if his levels didn't pick up they would have had to have given him a bottle for instant sugar, but thankfully they improved just enough that they didn't have to. After a couple hours they were able to get his body temp high enough to bring him back and so he came back to me wearing 2 shirts and 2 blankets for warmth. Poor kid had to have his blood drawn every 6 hours though to keep an eye on his glucose, his heels were black and blue by the time we brought him home.
All in all, while things got scary at the end I would definitely say that I had a GREAT labor experience. It was also very heartwarming to see how quickly Michael bonded with the baby. I had always been afraid that I would bond immediately and that it would take a little longer for Michael, but instead it was almost the other way around. It was very cute for me to look over and see Michael stroking and cooing at the baby on the warmer minutes after birth. And then Michael just had the hugest grin on his face while holding the baby for the first time and kept telling me how gorgeous the baby was (no conehead, bruises, or swelling thanks to the lightning fast delivery!)
We are very blessed that the baby was able to be delivered safely and quickly and are so in love with this little guy! Having him home with us has felt very natural (although exhausting, no doubt) and we are so lucky to be his parents!
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