We went to the hospital at 4am on Monday September 28th to begin the eviction process of baby Jude. 10 days past my due date doctors were beginning to get concerned about Jude’s size and ability to safely venture into the world. Michael and I got settled in the hospital room and the nurses came in to give me an IV. Apparently, along with my inability to go into active labor, I also possess the inability to produce good veins. It took about 1.5-2 hours of poking for nurses to get my IV started and blood drawn. My arms currently look like those of a drug addict, but I digress.
I was started on Cyotech with hopes to soften the cervix. 4 hours later with only minor cramping we moved onto a 12 hour dose of Cervadil which only produced minor contractions and no progress. On a scale of 1 to 100 on the contraction monitors the highest I ever reached during “labor” was 59. It was much more painful to listen to the other women in labor having their babies for 30 hours straight while staring at my Ccervix thinking “DO SOMETHING!!!” I was given penicillin through my IV every few hours for the GBS infection. I can honestly say this was the worst pain I experienced during this whole process because for some reason the penicillin would “burn” in my veins. I’ve never experience something like that before, it hurt so bad I felt as though I was paralyzed and couldn’t move. Around 1am Tuesday the doctor decided to try an additional 12 hour dose of the Cervadil with hopes of effacement. During this time my IV started to have blood in it. The nurses were pissed because we all knew how hard it was to find one good vein the first time. So from about 2-3am was spent trying to find another vein. At this time I am told I said the “f word” to one of the nurses who was trying to rip the tape off my current IV while another was trying to put one in my other arm. I asked them to get the anesthesiologist. He came in tapped on the old IV a few times and got it working again. If you are ever in need of anesthesia or an IV at Mercy San Juan I highly recommend Dr. Wolf, whom I think I confessed my love to at some point in this journey.
Our OB ordered an ultra sound with hopes to confirm baby was head down and to find out his size. The ultrasound tech estimated him around 9lbs 6 oz. After several painful internals, my cervix was still not participating and with the news of a possibly “big baby” and being 30 hours into the induction process, we decided to weigh our options. My delivery Doctor, Dr. Polanski came in at about 7 or 8am to check on me, do one last horrifying internal and talked with us about all of our options. The thing he was nerves about was that Jude’s shoulders were measuring big and there was risk of permanent damage if certain nerves were to be stretched when pushing through the birth canal. So my options were start Pitocin (the devil) to see if I got anywhere or schedule a Cesarean for later that day. So the Cesarean was scheduled for 6pm.
We were ecstatic to have a plan, I even got to eat breakfast. I have never considered myself a very patient person to begin with but waiting over 10 months for your baby is made even more torturous sitting in a hospital bed for 8 hours waiting for surgery. I remember at some point I watched My Girl (my favorite movie as a child) with my Mom and we talked about how excited we were to see Jude’s face.
Around 4pm my nurse came in and started prepping us for surgery. Oh, and my IV started to leak. So a new anesthesiologist came in to see if he could find another vein. He gave me a local first. He asked me, “They have been giving you locals before attempting all these, right?” I just looked at him. He fixed the same old IV and talked with me about what was going to happen. We got dressed in some unflattering outfits and at a little after 6pm Michael and I walked down the hallway and stood outside the operating room. I remember looking at Michael a few times and saying, “I don’t know if I can do this” he kept reassuring me and reminding me we would be seeing our baby in no time.
Dr. Polanski came out and asked me to come into the room and for Michael to wait in the hallway until they were ready. Each step I took away from Michael and towards to operating room felt like unexplainable torture. I walked into the surgical room which was filled with people in scrubs, a terrifying work bench filled with silver tools and a large black and white clock. You would think they could throw a picture of a puppy or something up on the wall for good merit.
The anesthesiologist and nurse positioned me in the middle of the table leaning as far forward as possible with my chin to my chest as he searched for a spot to insert the needle for my spinal. First he gave me a local and then in no time I felt a twinge of nerve pain and he said, “Alrighty”. Instantly my left leg went numb and they were trying to position me on the table and get me to scoot down the table which was interesting with only feeling in one side of your body. I could feel the spinal kicking in, which felt so foreign because I couldn’t feel myself breathing because I was numb from the breasts down so I kept telling the nurse I wasn’t breathing. Then I felt the morphine start to kick in and felt a lot more relaxed. I had a terrible itching reaction to the morphine though which is unfortunate when your arms are strapped down to a table.
The nurse and anesthesiologist held my hands and tried to make small talk with me. A bunch more people in scrubs came in and then there was a curtain put up between my chest and the rest of my body so I couldn’t see anything or anyone. I heard the Doctors making small talk about golf and how busy the hospital had been this week. I started to feel pressure and I knew the Doctor had started cutting. I looked around and screamed, “Where is my husband! I want my husband!” The nurse said “Oh, ya” and went and got him right away.
Michael walked in and looked at me with the most serious face I had ever seen. He came to stand by my left side and held my hand and brushed hair out of my face. During this time I felt as though my entire body was being rocked back and forth. Jude’s umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice and he was not coming out. They had to use a vacuum to finally get him out (this was all told to me later). After a few more minutes Michael told me, “He’s almost out! He’s almost here” I asked, “Does he have hair!?” he told me he wasn’t sure. I heard the OB declare a time and the cutest baby cry in the world. Dr Polanski said, “It’s a beautiful healthy boy, you now have a son.” They brought Jude right away to a baby heater about 6 feet to my left where they did his APGAR testing (he scored 9 out of 10). Michael rushed over and was taking pictures and yelled over to me, “He’s perfect! He’s perfect!!” I was crying so hard and trying to squint to see at the same time. Michael walked over to me after a few moments. I told him, “It’s okay, you can go over there and look at him.” he told me “But I loved you first”.
After the testing was done I don’t really remember what happened. I kind of blacked out for a few moments. I know Michael brought the baby over to me and a nurse took a few pictures of us but I remember everything was blurry. I remember coming around in a recovery room and a nurse was taking my vitals. I could hear Michael and our family in the hallway looking at Jude and taking pictures. There was a mix up and someone told Michael he couldn’t go into the recovery room and he didn’t know where I was. I started bawling begging the nurse to make them bring the baby in the room because I hadn’t seen him yet. I remember having to ask her multiple times. Finally, after what felt like eternity Michael came in with Jude and I got to see him up close. It was the single best feeling I’ve ever felt. Any amount of stress or worry that was left in my body melted away and I felt at complete peace. I never believed in love at first sight until then. My heart felt like it grew 3 sizes watching the love of my life hold our child. It is truly one of those moments in life where you feel like you are floating. We are truly so blessed beyond words. Jude is amazing my love for him grows with every second.
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