The New Baby

"Surprise Mom! I decided to come into the world by scaring you half to death!" My little one was born September 1st at 11:14a.m. My contractions started around 8:30a.m. They were mild, but I got this feeling it was "the real thing." I called my husband-who was about an hour away-and told him to come home. By 9:30a.m. I started panicking because the contractions hurt and I knew I had to get to the hospital to have a safe delivery. The baby was breech and my amniotic fluid was low. Those are bad combinations for a vaginal delivery. We got to the hospital at 10a.m. I was four centimeters dilated. I knew I had less than an hour before the baby was coming. I could feel it.

The nurse at the hospital said I looked pretty convincing and started the normal protocol. I told her she needed to skip some steps and get this c-section going or this baby wouldn't make it. Shortly after that, the room was swarming with people; checking me over, rushing from one end of the room to the other, going in and out, etc. My contractions suddenly got a whole lot worse and I knew transition was just around the corner. Sure enough, a doctor came in and said I was at 7 centimeters. The nurse quickly gave me a shot of terbutaline to hopefully slow down the contractions. It seemed to work. They started spacing out about a minute apart. Thank God! The doctor said he was one of the only people in the area who has delivered a vaginal breech baby. He just happened to be at the hospital at the time. I finally started to relax-in between being in horrible contraction pain-and the anesthesiologist started the spinal. Whew!

My legs went numb in what seemed like seconds, my doctor walked in and the c-section began. So at the point when I planned on being nervous, instead I felt relieved. My uterus had to be cut in a T shape to get his little head out and he had to have oxygen the first few moments of life. But it could have been a whole lot worse. What a little blessing!

What I didn't know about c-sections:
1. They take out your uterus! I was listening to my doctor talk to the resident and he says, "Now we are going to take out the uterus..." I said, "Um, excuse me?" He giggled and said, "We're just stitching it up and we will put it back." "Uh, okay, I guess. Yikes!"

2. The anesthesia can cause you to have this strange, uncomfortable pain in your chest, shoulders and neck. The anesthesiologist gave me a massage during the surgery and that helped a ton!

4. You can get really nauseous during the surgery. Sometimes people even throw up. However, my anesthesiologist had me sniffing alcohol pads and putting pressure on my wrist and the top of my ring finger. That really worked! I wish I had known about the alcohol pads during the first trimester! What a great trick! I couldn't believe how it took away the nausea.

5. After the surgery it burns like crazy when you cough, laugh or sneeze. Try not to do these things for a couple days!

6. The constipation from the pain meds can be worse than the the incision pain. REALLY! Watch out for this!

My little guy is waking up now. He is a really good baby so far. He loves to eat and has already surpassed his birth weight at one week old. He was 6.7 pounds at birth and 6.13 today. Hooray!

Thanks for all the kind words this week and thanks especially to Erin and Laura who rushed over to watch the older kids while my husband and I sped to the hospital. That was a close call!

-NewsAnchorMom Jen

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