Luke's Birth

I woke-up Tuesday morning, Sept. 23, thinking that I wasn't feeling quite right. I had slept fitfully, with a lot of discomfort, but thought it was because I was anxious about being induced on the 24th. Wrong! I was having contractions. They started about every 7-8 minutes and would last 30-45 seconds. I had a doctors appt. that afternoon and decided to wait them out at home.
I got to the doctors office and had my regular ultrasound and NST. Mom met me there. The NST showed that I was having regular contractions about 5 minutes apart, lasting 45 seconds-2 minutes. After the NST, I went around the corner to the waiting room and signed in. When the nutritionist brought my glucose meter back, she noticed that I was visably uncomfortable. She went and told the nurses and I got into an exam room immediately. After a few minutes, the doctor came in for my exam and confirmed what I already knew - I was in labor! The doctors office is on the 5th floor of the women & children's center and she sent me straight down to L&D on 3rd! So, I officially drove myself to the hospital!

I got checked-in around 3:30pm, changed into my gown, got my IV and settled in to wait. I was dialated to a 3, but my cervix was still pretty thick. The on-call doctor came in a few hours later and checked again...I was between a 3-4 and she said that I probably wouldn't have a baby until Wednesday morning. By that time, my sister and my dad had gotten there and decided to go and get some sleep at my house until the next morning.

Around midnight, the nurse was coming in to check on me pretty regularly. I didn't know it at the time, but Luke had started having decels with every contraction. I got my Epi around 1:30 am - let me tell you, the first shot of Nubane is magic, but the 2nd and 3rd don't do much to take the edge off of the pain! Around 2am, the nurse was pretty much in my room full-time. I could tell that something wasn't quite right, but I didn't know what it was. Around 4am, I suddenly had an army of nurses in the room - and they weren't playing around. They tilted the head of the bed down so that my head was lower than my feet and the 4 of them were rolling me from my left to my right side and back with every contraction! The doctor had been called and was on her way down from the on-call room. When she arrived, they gave me a shot that stopped my contractions for about 20 minutes. Apparently, they lost Luke's heartbeat all-together! The doctor decided to break my water to try to ease the pressure on him, get an internal monitor in place, and hopefully speed my labor along. I was dialated to between 5-6 at that time. From then on, I kept my eyes glued to the fetal monitor (when I was on my right side, that is!). You'll never imagine how scary it was to see that heartrate dip to 12 with one contraction and 16 with another. I was terrified that I was going to lose my baby. The nurses kept discussing among themselves that it wasn't like the on-call doctor to allow a labor like this to continue without calling for a c-section.

At 7:45am, my doctor arrived to do her morning rounds. She took one look at the graphs and immediately sent me to the OR. The fact that they were running with me on the gurney didn't get past me - I was almost in a full-blown panic, but my mom said you would've never known it. They suited mom up and she chased us down to the OR. At 8:01am, Luke was in the world.
The cleaned him up, let me see him, and then the neonatal nurse took him back to my room. Mom followed Luke and surprised his G-daddy and Aunt Pam by getting in there before news of his arrival! I got back in the room around 8:40 - they had already given him a bath and the pediatrician had just made the call that he needed to go to the NICU. I got to see him for about 10 minutes before they wisked him away. His respiratory rate was just too high. Later on, we found-out that about the meconium and his lung problems. Then his sugar wouldn't stay up and he had trouble learning to swallow.

I had to stay in bed for a full 12 hours following the c-section, so I didn't get to see him again until around 10pm. Then the nurse wouldn't let me touch him for fear it would aggrevate his lung problem. Needless to say, it was a long, difficult time not knowing, not being able to help him, wondering if I was being punished for the path I'd chosen.

This past Wednesday, mom and I took Luke for his 1-week check-up and his pediatrician was amazed. When we left the hospital Monday morning, Luke was down to 7 lbs 15 1/2 oz. On Wed. he was up to 8 lbs, 7 oz! My little man has learned to eat! Unfortunately, he's not drinking from the tap - I'm having to pump every 3 hours.

The c-section wasn't as bad as I thought - even getting 17 staples removed. We're still at Mom & Dad's, but I hope to be home later this week.