Sprout has Arrived

So Thursday night (4/1) I was supposed to get my cervix ripened. Friday am (4/2) the pitocin induction was to begin. You may have figured out that didn't happen :) And thank you to Jess for sending her love and letting people know when I was beginning this crazy thing called newborn care.

Here is the birth story!

Monday I woke up at 4 am with a backache when I had to pee - I pee so much through out the night - nothing unusual there.. Eh, finally these hospital beds must have got to me. It was consecutive hospital bed rest day 36. The beds are not exactly anything resembling comfy. I watched some really fascinating documentary on people who keep chimps for pets - scary - they are like little face biting babies that do not kill your social life like a human baby does, but rather just kills you one day. I never watch tv at night and thought it was funny I turned that on and watched it. So then, of course, I went back to sleep for a few hours and had a odd dream that my baby was born covered in hair like a chimp. Definitely interesting.

I got up early like usual and the back ache was still there - it was mild. About a 4/10 on the pain scale. Just a back ache. Then I had some mucousy discharge (TMI but nothing new there). Pretty much the only difference beside the back pain was I was in a horrid mood just kind of feed up with living in the hospital and started to pack up my belongings in anticipation for the end of the week. I was a bit crabby with the hubby too, but felt fine.

Then I went down for my NST and BPP. I told the hubby he could stay home because I was a little bitchy and it was just routine testing and I would call him when I was done. Plus, there was so much to do before I had a baby at the end of the week! During the NST, which he passed with flying colors, the tech asked me if I was feeling o.k. I mentioned my backache and she laughed. It turned out I was contracting every 5 minutes. Really?!? So we assumed they were just the beginnings and would either stay the same strength or get stronger.

When I got back to my room, my doctor came in and wanted to check my cervix since the contractions were new. Fine by me - I was dying to know how inducible I would be on Thursday and was hoping I would be 1-2 cm dialated. Well, she starts feeling around and her face kinda dropped abit. She took off her gloves and asked me how I felt. I told her fine, I was playing on the computer, just a backache. She then broke the news to me I was dialated 3-4 cms!

I was hooked back up the contraction monitor and it showed no contractions now. The question was, was i really in labor? Sometimes back labor doesn't show up on the machines. My doctor was paged and it was awesome that he was the MFM on call that day! Woo hoo! The resident came back into the room and told me my doctor decided I was going to be having a baby! There was no way the little guy was going to wait until Thursday anymore and since I went into labor on my own, they were not going to stop it.

I frantically called the hubby and told him we were having our baby!

I was transferred down to labor and delivery and hooked up to the machines again. Guess what, I was contracting... often! However, do to the baby's position it was hard to get an external heart beat monitor on him. We were going to have to place an internal scalp monitor as soon as I got the epi (which my doctor wanted me to wait until 5 cms for). I was checked and found to be at a 4 cm, so the pit was started. An hour later I asked to be rechecked so I could get the epi. I was a 4-5, so it was time for the epi! My doctors were all quite pleased with how quickly I was progressing. At this point they made me go empty my bladder and I had my hubby call my best friend who was going to be attending the birth and let her know it was very likely going to be soon. Non of this 18 hour labor stuff for me!

So he was telling her to head in and where to go and anesthesia was swabbing my sterile back for an epi placement. Then I looked up at my nurse and informed her my water broke. "Are you serious?" - she asks me. I lifted up my gown to display gushing liquid and replied, "yeah, I think I am pretty sure!" So my water broke, and then gushed again and then the anesthesia guy gave up and I gushed some more. So I am standing there in a puddle of amniotic fluid while the hubby is getting off the phone with my friend and the nurses are changing the bed. My hubby looks at me and asks why the hell I was just standing there. "ummm - you have no idea that my water just broke do you?". "Really!?!". So yep, I was on my way. This is actually the point that things started going wrong - but I didn't know it at the time.

So my epi goes in and the doctor is paged to place a fetal scalp electrode. After about 15 minutes they got a monitor on his scalp. They looked at the reading - suddenly I was being rolled from side to side with an oxygen mask on my face. 4 nurses run in, 3 doctors, one nurse tips my bed so my head is upside down and then suddenly my hubby is back standing next to me in scrubs. At this point I realized we were heading into a C-section. Then my MFM comes running in and looking at the monitor. Thankfully, baby's heart rate climbed back into the 120s from the 70s it had been hanging out in. My MFM sat next to me and explained baby's heart rate dropped dangerously low, but was recovered now. He would watch it, and to just trust him. He promised everything was going to be alright. "This baby will live" he told me.

The next two hours I labored on my left side with an oxygen mask on. I was progressing quickly but everytime I moved off my side the bay's heart rate would drop dangerously low. Every contraction, his heart rate would drop low. I was being checked every 10 minutes and was quickly at an 8 - 90% effaced. At this point my MFM walked up to me and said that he was not happy with how the baby was tolerating labor. It was time for an emergency C-section.

I was given terb to stop my contractions since I was now at a 9 and rushed into the OR. 10 minutes after telling me I needed to have the section - my MFM was making the uterine incision while my husband was being brought into the room. "Here's the problem" he exclaimed when opening my uterus. The baby had the cord wrapped tightly around his neck. Every movement and contraction was strangling him. Thank god my doctor acted when he did.

Louis Vincent DellaGatta Jr. was born by emergency c-section on 3/30/10 @ 1:02 a.m. His apgar scored were 9/9. He weighed in at 4 lbs 10 ounces and is 18 inches long. So far he has been able to room in with mom and dad and hasn't needed any special nursery care.

Hopefully he will be coming home with us Saturday! I am so scared to think of how close we came to losing him as well, thank god my doctor acted fast. Here he is -