Caleb: Pregnancy and Delivery

(This was taken the night before Caleb was born.)

This isn't the fun blog post with cute pictures and funny stories of having a new baby.  That will come later.  This is the one where I record, for my own sake, what happened this past nine months. So be warned.

The first trimester with Caleb was awesome.  I was nauseated, but really not that badly.  Compared to Sabrina, this pregnancy was a piece of cake.  At 20 weeks, we had the usual ultrasound.  Everything looked good.  He was 50th percentile and healthy.  The doctor I met with after the ultrasound was pretty blunt, kind of scary, and ironically, retired two days after my appointment.  So, I went into the room and he came in and said "Have you had blood?"  I was confused by this question, but told him no, I had not bled at all.  He then proceeded to draw my uterus on a paper towel followed by my placenta and a large pool of blood they found between the end of the placenta and the uterine wall.  I mentioned I had been having a sharp pain in one particular spot.  He said that pain was the placenta threatening to tear from the wall (not sure if this actually ended up being the case).  He put me on strict pelvic rest (no lifting, no exercising, only leisurely walking as he said).  I was set to go on vacation (East Coast trip) just two weeks later.  He said I could still go on the trip if I knew where all the hospitals were on my trip (he was kinda scary).  We went on the trip and all the walking was quite aggravating.  I really thought I might just have that baby in the middle of the Smithsonian one day.  But all was well and when I returned, they did another ultrasound.  The blood had gone down a bit and the placenta had not ripped off the wall any more than it had.  That was good news and they took me off pelvic rest and put me on a "Take it easy."  Then Caleb had an arrhythmia.  It lasted one day, but caused quite a stir and I got put on a weekly non-stress test and a monthly ultrasound schedule.  Then it was mid-December, and I started going into labor.  It stopped by itself but added another reason I was on the "high-risk pregnancy" list.  They predicted my placentas didn't last 40 weeks and that the problem was getting worse (Celia born at 39 weeks, Sabrina was born at 37 weeks 5 days) and they said "if we can get him to hang on to 35 weeks, that would be great."  No drastic measures were taken to stop me from labor and from mid-December on, I was contracting constantly.  I went in for weekly non-stress tests and monthly ultrasounds.  At one point, the placenta ripped off a bit more, the blood got bigger, and they said I had a "minor abruption."  But Caleb kept growing.  In the monthly ultrasounds, he went from 50% to 50% to 83% and then in my final ultrasound on January 29, he was 90% and already weighed eight pounds.  (As an interesting note, his head was 50%, his femur was 73% and his abdomen was 97.7%.  They said he was quite a fatty.)  On top of all of this, I was in so much pain in this pregnancy.  My abs never came back together after Sabrina, so they moved so far out of the way with Caleb that they weren't functional.  My pelvic muscles then had to carry the weight of what all the ab muscles would help do.  So my pelvis was in constant pain.  And he was so big, there was nerve damage at the top of my uterus that felt like I was laying on a hot stove.  It was just constant burning in one specific spot.  I couldn't do anything to move the pain or relieve it in any way.  It felt like torture.  So when 35 weeks came and went, I felt overdue after all that "you could go into labor at anytime" talk.

On February 5, I had a regular appointment and non-stress test.  I was pretty sure I had a UTI because I had very localized pain in my lower left abdomen (which happened when I had a UTI when I was pregnant with Celia).  They confirmed it and gave me an antibiotic.  I had been contracting all morning (again, not uncommon) and had two pretty major contractions during the non-stress test.  The doctor told me to take the two doses remaining that day of the new antibiotic (supposed to take it 4 times a day) and the contractions would stop.  I went to bed without hope of ever going into labor.  Every hour, exactly an hour apart, all night, I had really severe contractions that lasted about 4 minutes each.  By the time I got up in the morning, they were much less severe (back to my usual daily contractions to which I had built up an immunity) but they were 15-20 minutes apart.  I told Tom he probably shouldn't go to work.  We got Celia off to school, dropped Sabrina off with the cousins, and I checked into the hospital around 10AM pretty convinced they would send me home eventually because the contractions didn't really hurt.  (But after Sabrina's super fast labor, I wasn't taking any chances.)  I arrived at the hospital dilated to a 5.  I had been at a 4.5 a week before, so it wasn't looking all that hopeful.  But the contractions continued.  The nurse called my doctor who told her to do a kidney flush to ensure that the labor wasn't just UTI-related.  So, the IV started.  The contractions stopped for a bit and I was getting nervous, but then they picked back up.  Still not really painful (again, I had been contracting for 2 months several times a day, so I was pretty good at handling them now).  By the time the midwife arrived around 1pm, I was at a 7 and she said I could stay.  She said that because I was officially in labor, she could do everything needed to deliver that baby.  It was basically the most relieving thing I've ever heard.  She did a quick bedside ultrasound to determine that the baby was facing up, but she said some major contractions should get him to turn around.  Around 2pm, I got an epidural.  This lady was awful.  She made me sit up in a weird position and then got mad at me when my body spasmed everytime she stabbed my back.  She called me a "control freak" and indicated that it was probably my fault that I was "Vagaling" (as they called me passing out because I had Vasal Vagal).  Of course the epidural spot didn't work the first time and they had to do it all again.  When she finally left, and I finally stopped passing out, the awesome nurses and midwife were totally apologetic.  They told me she was verbally abusing me and no one should ever blame me for "Vagaling."  I told her I actually get that quite a bit from nurses and the midwife said "well it's inappropriate.  You tell them that it's inappropriate."  They were awesome.  They were just about to break my water, but then the nurse looked on the computer monitor and noticed room 1 was in major labor, so she rushed off to go help (there were only 2 nurses on duty) and the midwife left me to recover a bit from all that "Vagaling."  Tom and I watched poor room 1 on the monitor (we could just see her contractions and the baby's heartbeat... no name or anything else... in case you're all worried about HIPPA).  I really hope she had an epidural with all those crazy contractions.  Around 3:30, they broke my water.  I actually had a water this time (I didn't with either of the girls), and they left us to rest.  Around 4, I was starting to feel some major pain in my back and on my right side.  She came back in and I was at a 9, but she said it was time to start pushing to help him turn around and move down.  She said as soon as he turned his head, he would just come flying out.  I started pushing.  I pushed for about an hour.  He moved down, but didn't turn his head.   It got to the point where it was so painful, pushing was the only thing that made the pain better.  So I kept pushing.  Eventually, he came out.  He came out facing sideways with his hand by his face.  He was a big boy and covered in cheese just like Sabrina.  They put him right on me and they cut the cord (Tom was not pressured into it this time).  Then the pushing on my uterus started.  That hurts!  Eventually, they had me push out the placenta.  That thing was so huge, she delivered it like a baby, with two arms.  It was the size and shape of a football and I couldn't believe how huge it was.  Luckily, because of my history, they were very proactive about bleeding and I hardly bled at all.  The nurse and midwife were awesome and all went very well.  He was born at 37 weeks, 6 days (following Sabrina's gestation by less than 24 hours).

(Here I am with a wet washcloth on my chest, recovering from "Vagaling" after the epidural and waiting for them to break my water.)