Part 1 - Labor and Delivery
Part 2 - NICU and Recovery
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Part 1 - Labor and Delivery
It all really started to feel real come June 12, 2013. My parents drove across the country to get to Utah by June 12th, just in case Lt. Reid decided to make an early arrival. He was due June 16th, so we used the time from June 12-16 to go shopping, finish setting up the house, etc. It was really nice. Then June 16th came...it stopped being nice. From June 16th to June 25th (9 days!!) I tried to distract myself with cleaning, watching Netflix, reading, then started to get desperate with organizing my iTunes music, digitizing paper utility bills, and eventually alphabetizing my shoes. I tried suggestions for inducing labor that ranged from marathon daily walks to eating eggplant parmesan.
On Monday, June 24th I went in for my then weekly doctor's appointment, to disappointingly find out that I was dilated a whopping ONE centimeter! After much discussion, we decided to induce Wednesday, June 26th if he hadn't come by then. It was looking like that was going to be the big day. I went home excited at first, but then came what I didn't expect... fear. I wasn't scared of being a parent or the labor/delivery process, but suddenly I was terrified of being induced. I went to lay down, and found myself lost in my emotions. As I bawled my eyes out (in hindsight I think my loss of emotions was also tied to the fact that 12 hours from then I would be going into labor and I think my body was releasing a lot of hormones), I started begging that I would go into labor naturally and that everything would be okay.
Luckily, God listens to the prayers of overdue pregnant women and I awoke Tuesday, June 25th at 2am with a new feeling... contractions! I moved quickly through the initial labor process. I woke Dr. Reid up by 2:30am, and he started timing my contractions. I went from about 8 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart by 4am. Come about 9am they were jumping back and forth from 3 minutes apart to 5 minutes. We were convinced we would have the baby by noon. We called the midwives, and went down to the clinic to see if I was really progressing. I told the midwife not to tell me if I wasn't more than 4 centimeters, to my delight I was 6.5 centimeter. We were off to the hospital to have this baby.
By the time we got to the hospital at 12:00pm I was 8 centimeters! We were so excited. I had lost my ability to stay focused with hypnobabies, but was trying hard to deal with the pain. I found having Dr. Reid press on my shoulders and back, focusing on relaxing my stomach, and screaming $H*T! as loud as I could very helpful during this process. It was more intense than I could've imaged, but I was starting to feel confident I could handle it. Then something unfortunate happened... 5.5 hours passed by. By 5:30pm I was pretty sure I had gone insane. I felt I had lost my ability to control myself, stopped feeling any relief between contractions, and sadly I was still at 8 centimeters. Part of my cervix had appeared to attach itself to Lt. Reid's head, and I wasn't progressing. I was put on oxygen (which I hated, and became a battle between the nurse and I of ripping off the mask and her having to put it back on), and was told later Lt. Reid's heart rate was starting to decrease at this point and the nurses were working to get in contact with the on call doctor.
At this point I made the request for the second time to sweet Dr. Reid that I needed a break. I begged for an epidural. The fear in me worried he would look at me and say, "We talked about this...no." But to my surprise, he was actually tearing up. He later told me it was really hard to watch me go through that. They called in the anesthesiologist and I got an epidural and it was fantastic. I took a breathe when it kicked in and calmed myself back down to reality. After about 2 hours it was starting to wear off, just enough so I could feel the contractions again and be able to feel myself push. Lt. Reid's heart rate was continuing to fluctuate and the on call doctor was there now as well. They wanted to get Lt. Reid out. With a brief threat of forceps being used, I found the needed strength to push that baby out. It took about 20 minutes to push him out, and it was glorious.
When he was born I held him for a brief moment before he was brought over to the exam area. He was placed on oxygen and they started monitoring his breathing. I was an ecstatic mess and didn't realize at the time the somewhat serious-ness of the situation. I just wanted my baby back.
After a few minutes I got him back. All the nurses and doctors left, and we got about 10 minutes to ourselves as our new little family. After the much too short 10 minutes, a nurse came back to check on his breathing. He was still having some breathing problems. She wanted to take him to the nursery to get checked and put back on oxygen. Dr. Reid and I had already agreed that once Lt. Reid was born he would stay with him. So they all left, and suddenly I found myself left alone in a hospital room. The nurse was so calm when she left with Lt. Reid, I still wasn't too worried and figured within a few minutes I would be cuddled up with my new family once again. Sadly, that didn't happen quite as planned.
A nurse came back to get me after about 20 minutes, and I was wheelchaired to the nursery. Once there I was updated on the situation. With thousands of thoughts racing through my mind, and my emotions frenetic from everything that had gone on, I could barely follow the nurses and doctors explain what was going on. They explained Lt. Reid had a lung infection (later to be diagnosed with congenital pneumonia). They needed to keep him on oxygen, were going to move him to an incubator to maintain his temperature, and start him on antibiotics. I then went with the nurses to my hospital room, while Dr. Reid stayed with Lt. Reid for some other tests and x-rays. I didn't get to see Dr. or Lt. Reid for a few hours, when they were moved to our temporary new home... the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
Luckily, God listens to the prayers of overdue pregnant women and I awoke Tuesday, June 25th at 2am with a new feeling... contractions! I moved quickly through the initial labor process. I woke Dr. Reid up by 2:30am, and he started timing my contractions. I went from about 8 minutes apart to 5 minutes apart by 4am. Come about 9am they were jumping back and forth from 3 minutes apart to 5 minutes. We were convinced we would have the baby by noon. We called the midwives, and went down to the clinic to see if I was really progressing. I told the midwife not to tell me if I wasn't more than 4 centimeters, to my delight I was 6.5 centimeter. We were off to the hospital to have this baby.
By the time we got to the hospital at 12:00pm I was 8 centimeters! We were so excited. I had lost my ability to stay focused with hypnobabies, but was trying hard to deal with the pain. I found having Dr. Reid press on my shoulders and back, focusing on relaxing my stomach, and screaming $H*T! as loud as I could very helpful during this process. It was more intense than I could've imaged, but I was starting to feel confident I could handle it. Then something unfortunate happened... 5.5 hours passed by. By 5:30pm I was pretty sure I had gone insane. I felt I had lost my ability to control myself, stopped feeling any relief between contractions, and sadly I was still at 8 centimeters. Part of my cervix had appeared to attach itself to Lt. Reid's head, and I wasn't progressing. I was put on oxygen (which I hated, and became a battle between the nurse and I of ripping off the mask and her having to put it back on), and was told later Lt. Reid's heart rate was starting to decrease at this point and the nurses were working to get in contact with the on call doctor.
At this point I made the request for the second time to sweet Dr. Reid that I needed a break. I begged for an epidural. The fear in me worried he would look at me and say, "We talked about this...no." But to my surprise, he was actually tearing up. He later told me it was really hard to watch me go through that. They called in the anesthesiologist and I got an epidural and it was fantastic. I took a breathe when it kicked in and calmed myself back down to reality. After about 2 hours it was starting to wear off, just enough so I could feel the contractions again and be able to feel myself push. Lt. Reid's heart rate was continuing to fluctuate and the on call doctor was there now as well. They wanted to get Lt. Reid out. With a brief threat of forceps being used, I found the needed strength to push that baby out. It took about 20 minutes to push him out, and it was glorious.
When he was born I held him for a brief moment before he was brought over to the exam area. He was placed on oxygen and they started monitoring his breathing. I was an ecstatic mess and didn't realize at the time the somewhat serious-ness of the situation. I just wanted my baby back.
After a few minutes I got him back. All the nurses and doctors left, and we got about 10 minutes to ourselves as our new little family. After the much too short 10 minutes, a nurse came back to check on his breathing. He was still having some breathing problems. She wanted to take him to the nursery to get checked and put back on oxygen. Dr. Reid and I had already agreed that once Lt. Reid was born he would stay with him. So they all left, and suddenly I found myself left alone in a hospital room. The nurse was so calm when she left with Lt. Reid, I still wasn't too worried and figured within a few minutes I would be cuddled up with my new family once again. Sadly, that didn't happen quite as planned.
A nurse came back to get me after about 20 minutes, and I was wheelchaired to the nursery. Once there I was updated on the situation. With thousands of thoughts racing through my mind, and my emotions frenetic from everything that had gone on, I could barely follow the nurses and doctors explain what was going on. They explained Lt. Reid had a lung infection (later to be diagnosed with congenital pneumonia). They needed to keep him on oxygen, were going to move him to an incubator to maintain his temperature, and start him on antibiotics. I then went with the nurses to my hospital room, while Dr. Reid stayed with Lt. Reid for some other tests and x-rays. I didn't get to see Dr. or Lt. Reid for a few hours, when they were moved to our temporary new home... the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.
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