Labor and delivery were NOTHING like I expected. Maybe I should have figured, since the pregnancy was so different! Because I had to be induced with Ellison, and wasn't making too much progress from week to week at my appointments, I had this idea in my head that my body couldn't go into labor on my own. I was supposed to go in to my OB and get checked on Tuesday (3/4) and as long as it looked like induction would be successful, she had said she would induce me on my due date (3/5) since she was on call that day. So I figured that's what would end up happening. We had a steak dinner planned for Tuesday night and some cleaning to do. Turns out Kellen had his own plans and we didn't make it to that OB appointment!
I worked Sunday night and didn't get much sleep Monday during the day. We went to church Monday night so we were late getting Ellison to bed. And we may have let her stay up a little longer than usual since we figured it would be our last night putting only one child to bed, because she was going to stay with Gramma and Papa on Tuesday night if the decision was made to induce me on Wednesday. Ells woke up at 1:45 am crying, and since I desperately wanted some snuggle time with her, I went down to get her and cuddle with her. We fell asleep for a couple hours on the couch. After I got her into bed at 3:45, I never fell back asleep...because I started having contractions!
I never had Braxton Hicks that I could feel with either pregnancy, so I didn't have a clue what "natural" (non-pitocin induced) contractions felt like. It took me awhile to realize what was happening! I put off letting Jay know until closer to the time he would be getting up for work, and then I continued to move slowly because I didn't know when I should call the doctor's office. Basically I was in denial! Jay was trying to hurry me along the whole time, he realized I was in labor before I did. By 8 I was pretty uncomfortable, so I finally called the after hours line at my OB's office. By the time I called it was only 10 minutes until they would be opening, so I waited to call the office rather than having the on-call doctor paged. The nurse at the office said if I was getting to the point where I would want something for the pain, she would let L&D know we were on our way. Our bags were packed (mostly), but we had to wait for my mom to come get Ellison, load up the car...so it was after 9 when we left.
By the time we got to the hospital around 9:30, I was in PAIN! I wanted pain meds as soon as possible. Luckily they confirmed in triage that I was in active labor and we moved into a room fairly quickly. Once I got my IV in, they gave me some Nubain to hold me over until the anesthesiologist could get to me. Can't say I recommend that stuff, I felt super loopy while the nurse was asking all her admission questions! A little before 11 I got the epidural and felt so much better. What a wonderful invention! Things seemed to be progressing well and it looked like we would be meeting our baby boy fairly quickly.
Around 11:30 the doctor (one of my OB's partners) came in. He checked me and let us know that baby had a brow presentation and we were looking at a high likelihood of C-section. He said we would give baby an hour to possibly move, and left us to digest this new information. I really did NOT want to have surgery. But when he said we were hoping for a miracle, I was pretty discouraged.
When the doctor came back at 1, he said baby had moved. Unfortunately, it wasn't the way we wanted him to move. He was now in a face presentation and basically stuck, so we would have to go ahead with the C-section. There was a bit of a line for the OR so we waited for another couple hours. Being in labor and knowing you are going to have surgery anyway is a bit of a bummer! Around 3 they started to get me ready to move. I was so nervous. The only surgery I've ever had was a laparoscopic appendectomy, not exactly a major abdominal surgery. After getting me all prepped and ready, they made the incision at 3:32 and Kellen was out at 3:39. They needed to use the vacuum because he was so far down in the birth canal.
The worst part of the surgery was not being able to see what was happening. Kellen wasn't crying when he came out, which scared me. I heard them mention CPAP and lots of suctioning, which scared me more. I could hear them talking about how he looked like he was in a boxing match because his face had been so mashed during labor. I could see the clock and how much time was passing without me getting to hold him. It was not the birth experience I was hoping for - although I will say, the OR team was awesome!
There was a minor complication (blood in the catheter bag), so they had to open my incision back up after they were almost done closing. They had to inject dye into my bladder to make sure they hadn't knicked it. Everything looked fine though, and closing was finished about an hour after the incision was made.
After moving to recovery, I finally got to hold Kellen. It was over an hour after he was born. Definitely very different from my experience with Ellison, where she was put on my chest immediately after being born. Kellen was fussy the entire time we were in recovery. But his facial swelling went down quickly while we were there and we were able to see how much he looks like his big sister! They could be twins (although Ells had considerably more hair). We moved up to the postpartum unit right around 6 pm.
We are so blessed and in love with our beautiful boy! I have more to say about the rest of our day, but I'll hold off for now because this is LONG!
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