I was scheduled for an induction at 11 AM, but started having regular good contractions about 9 AM! We were so excited as we wanted to try for a natural childbirth, but we needed to make sure Eli was born "Mon-Fri" to ensure his proper care and have all the staff there. The hospital I delivered at is usually a lot of high risk women so the doctors/residents etc don't see natural birth very often. The resident came in when I got there for my "induction" and I told her I was already in labor. She was kind of rude, didn't believe me and said "You WILL be being induced today." Her and another student that she seemed to be mentoring were there to assess my vitals ask me millions of health history questions and check my cervix. I enjoyed so much the look on her face when she checked me and I was 4 cm, 50% effaced! She said she would "let" me see if I progress any more and check me in 4 hours. Then they would develop a induction plan. I had the most amazing nurse! I expressed to her my desire for a natural birth and she said all of her babies were natural and she wishes more women understood how much better it was for mommy and baby! She was my advocate against the intervention happy med students who thought they knew everything. She even pushed to get me wireless monitors so I could be more mobile since he had to have continuous monitoring. So that made the biggest difference. I was so thankful to be able to move and also not have pitocin or my water broke...made for some nice rests in between contractions and more productive contractions being able to move the way my body felt it needed to. I was mindful that I needed to alert medical staff BEFORE I was getting to transition so we could make sure the neonatologist and respiratory specialists had time to make it from the children's hospital. My contractions very suddenly became more intense. Coincidentally this was the same time the resident was supposed to check my cervix to develop a "plan" if I wasn't progressing. I was 6 cm, 100% effaced! (6 was the magic number that they would leave me alone intervention free I found out later). So they left. Well not even 30 min later I was having a LOT of pressure...I even said it out loud to my doula and then we laughed because at that very second my water broke! as soon as my water broke it was so much more pain...definitely hit the "serious" emotion and found myself saying over and over I can't do this I can't do this, I even surprised myself at how hard I had to concentrate to slow my breathing down. However since I had delivered naturally before that is the ONLY reason I knew I wasn't dying and that it really would be over soon! Hahaha! I slowly painfully made my way onto the bed and my next contraction brought the burn. That stupid resident tried to tell me not to push! (I could have punched her). However her telling me not to push reminded me that I had told myself that this time I had wanted to push only when I felt the urge to allow time to stretch and prevent tearing. As he was crowning I remember feeling like the burn would never end...it certainly lasted longer than my last baby. I wish I could take it back but this whole time I had my eyes closed (it was the only way to drown out the crazy amount of medical staff in the room). Well the burning of course did end and he was out! I was able to tear minimally and not through muscle. As the resident was getting ready to stitch me up she asked the attending doctor about lidocaine. He said oh no she's fine she had an epidural! And I was like um no! Lidocaine please! He said I had so much control that he thought I for sure had an epidural! I don't know if he was really meaning that or just boosting my confidence but it worked!
Because I had my eyes closed at the end I only caught a glimpse of Eli's feet as they rushed him away. Thankfully Brian had taken a pic with his phone...he was a beautiful pink baby with apgars of 8,8. He was in the stabilization island for over an hour because they had difficulty getting his lines in (he needed IV prostaglandins to keep his ductus arteriosis open to allow more red and blue blood to mix). They wheeled him in and he was noticeably different....turning blue and looked very "off" not your typical wiggly newborn.
They were very anxious for me to quickly say goodbye so they could transfer him. Brian went with him. It is about a 10 min walk to the children's hospital and Eli stopped breathing 3 times. Each time they were rushing even faster until the end they were in a full on run and paging backup and to have a room ready ASAP.
Once he got to nicu they were able to intubate him with a breathing tube to help him breathe. Then they did chest X-rays and an echocardiogram (ultrasound of heart).
Shortly after that the surgeon arrived. Eli's atrial septum (a hole in heart that all babies have in utero but closes 24 hours free birth) was closing and already very small. Because of this they did a balloon atrial septostomy (See video on the right) in which a catheter was inserted into his leg/groin and up to his heart. It went through his atrial septum and then a balloon was inflated at the end. Then it was firmly pulled back to rip open the hole to make it larger and allow more red and blue blood to mix. My husband said it was the most amazing/humbling experience to talk to the man that just saved our baby's life. Very shortly after the procedure Eli's oxygenation saturation went up to 80-90%! This will help buy time before he has to have his open heart surgery (Arterial Switch procedure where they will switch the pulmonary artery and aorta to proper location so his oxygenated blood will flow to his body and not return back to his lungs). His team of doctors are still working together to decide when it will be best to do his surgery, but it should be within the week or next week.
1:10 AM Tuesday
I just got back from visiting Eli. They kept having to draw blood from his heel and it was so sad because he would make this face like he was crying but couldn't because of his ventilator. =( His oxygen saturation since his balloon atrial septostomy has been 80-90% which is a LOT better! You can see the difference in his color in these pictures, it's amazing.
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