I know, I know I said I would keep you all updated on a regular basis and I broke my promise to you all!!! Huge let down. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Ok we good? Great. Now let's get you all updated on the Kinanes!!
Well you all know by now that Mr. Wesley is HERE so let me back-track just a little to explain how he got here...if you have to go to the bathroom I suggest you do it now before you start reading this post cause it is longgggggggg.
So as I was nearing the end of my pregnancy my docs had become concerned about my amniotic fluid level being high. Lots of things can cause this; gestestional diabetes, exposure to a toxin, an infection and sometimes it can happen just cause. As I hit week 38 they made me have a plentiful amount of blood drawn to test for a cause of the high fluid volume as well as ordering non-stress tests and weekly ultrasounds until delivery. We got the results the next week and all was good but they decided since I was so near to my due date to go ahead and induce me on 10/28/2011.
Since we now had a deadline to have stuff done by we went into a tizzy to get things done, stocked and cleaned. I went into Rosey mode and scrubbed down the casa in prepartion of bringing home baby. All the laundry was done, bathrooms scrubbed, every crook and cranny dusted, bottles sanitized; the house was ready to go! That night my Braxton-Hicks contractions that I had been having for 3 days all of sudden became regulated.
It didn't really even occur to me that labor had started. My contractions weren't too uncomfortable and were happening at a consistent 10 minutes. I went to bed and didn't really sleep all that well. I finally got a nice 2 hour stretch of sleep until a really strong contraction woke me up. They had started coming at 5 minute intervals atthis point. I just continued to lay in bed and breathed through them. Jimmy had to work that morning at 11, he asked me to call the docs and see if I should go to get checked before he had to go in just incase this was actually gonna happen or not. I called the nurse at my docs office told her I had been having contractions every 5 minutes for the past 3 hours. She stopped me and firmly said, "we suggest you go to the hospital when your contractions are 5 minutes apart for at least ONE HOUR." Me being me asked, "soooo, what's my window? When should I really get there?" The nurse basically told me to get my butt in gear and get to the hospital. I decided to take a shower cause I didn't know when I'd be able to take one again. We stopped and got something to eat cause again I didn't know when I'd be able to do that again. We got to Sentara Princess Anne at 12:30pm.
We made our phone calls to Jimmy's parents, my mom, and Susan (my oh.so.fantastically amazing doula!). We didn't know if they were gonna keep me so we kept the list short. As I waddled through the parking garage I had to stop cause a contraction had gotten to the point where I just needed to stop; I leaned against a support pillar to breathe through it and I heard a woman passing by saying something like, "I remember those days." We got into the maternity ward and I as I was struggling to sign my "AK' initals on the HIPPA form I couldn't help but notice a cute little preggo who was so bubbly talking about how her water broke but wasn't having any contractions yet. As they were taking her to the triage area I remember thinking to myslef, "Pitocin is in that bitch's future!" (excuse my french.) They took me to triage as well only to transfer me to a labor room 5 minutes later because since I was to be induced the next day their thought process was "let's get this started".
I got comfy in the bed, they strapped me up to check the babe and that's when we hit the first "stubborn baby" moment. I started having a contraction that just wouldn't end! This sucker ended up being 13 MINUTES LONG! Well at the 10 minute mark Wes started showing signs of stress. They were flipping me over and around in all sorts of positions to try and get his heartrate back up. I looked at one point and there were 6 nurses and my doctor had arrived in the room. [Enter first threat of c-section]. One of the nurses grabbed my arm to start an IV. Once she was done they flipped me into the hands and knees position and gave me a shot of Turbutaline. Finally, the contraction ended, Wes recovered, my doc started breathing easier and retracted her threat of a c-section, the crowd of nurses finally filtered out as well. [p.s. a major side effect of the drug they gave me is it makes you shake like a crackhead for 30 minutes after they give it to you...not fun when you are trying to eat ice chips!] Susan arrived after the fun began but at least she got to see me shake for 20 minutes :). They were finally able to check me at this point; 6cm dilated and 100% effaced = SCORE!
After my uterus and Wesley calmed down they let me get on the birth ball we brought. It was nice to get out of bed and have contractions on the ball; I think it made it easier to get through them. My water still hadn't broken yet so that also made my contractions not so bad.
Fast forward through the boring stuff. I got to 8cm and kinda just got stuck. They decided to break my water to move things along and I was game. The nurse got real serious with me and warned, "now this is where it's gonna get tough! You may feel like you are gonna loose control!" I had the thought in my head that, "no, I got this. I've made it this far without any pain meds I can do this." Man how the game changed from that point.
I went from being in control to straight LOOSING MY COOKIES!!! I became that screaming lady they ask to quiet down so they don't scrae the other laboring women. Contractions became to much to bare. I was exhausted and the contractions became harder and harder to get through. All I wanted to do was push but my cervix wasn't budging. I broke down and asked/screamed/begged for something to just give me a break. Since I couldn't have an epidural they were going to set up a PCA pump that I could control how much medicine I gave myself. I got a tiny dose of fentanyl which didn't touch my pain nor did I feel like it relaxed anything within me. I lost control and seemed to never really regain it. Wesley started to get stressed again and this time he wasn't rebounding no matter what position they had me in. The nurses, NICU team, and doc came all a running again. Enter second threat of a c-section. Susan convinced my doc to give me one more contraction to try and push and get my cervix to finish dilating. All I cared about was getting Wesley out at this point. The doc numbed me up a bit with a local and placed a vacuum on Wes's head. I was given the go-ahead to start pushing and all I can remember saying was, "I don't know how!" With about 5 minutes of pushing Wesley was out, Jimmy was in tears, our moms were in tears, I was in tears and had some nice damage that had to be repaired.
The NICU nurses cleared Wesley from their care [he had, had a stool in utero] but he came out hollering and they didn't have to deep suction him. Jimmy didn't get to cut the original cord cause of the high-stress situation but he did get to trim it up.
It was a beautiful moment. Something that is pretty hard to place into words. I couldn't believe it, he was here, he was perfect, and he was really here!
Labor is just that labor. If I hadn't had Susan or Jimmy I probably would have ended up in a c-section. Those two were absolutely amazing for the strength, support, and focus they gave to me.
So, there ya have it Wesley's birth story. :)
