Colin: A birth story, part 2

OK, so, where did we leave off? Oh yes, we'd just arrived at the hospital, and Devin was wheeling me to emergency OB in a wheelchair.


So, we get up there, and the nurse checks for dilation, and says I'm at a 4. A FOUR! After all that intensity, I was expecting her to say 9, not 4. I was so sorely disappointed, and I was even thinking that they might send me home. Seriously. Because, in my experience, a 4 is nothing. A 4 is what you are for a week before you're a 5 or 6, and then a 5 or 6 is what you are for a week or 2 before REAL labor starts. I think the nurse sensed my disappointment, because she said, "Oh, no, honey, don't worry--we're admitting you. Let's just take some blood first." Then she asked me if I was going to want an epidural. Hmmm.... out of our 6 babies, I've only had 2 epidurals--the first one was with Kenneth, and it was terrible, and scared me from having one for the next couple kids, and the 2nd one (with Carinne, 3 babies later) was so beautiful, at one point I asked the nurse to go find the anesthesiologist so I could kiss him. I would have, too, but I think she realized I really meant it, and didn't find him for me. Which ended up being just fine, because I was on such a happy cloud and drifted off to blissful sleep.... But then, with Christian, there had been no time for an epidural.... So, here I was, thinking, forget this. If it's been this intense and I'm only dilated to a 4, I'm not hanging around all drug-free to find out what dilating to a 9 feels like this time. No way--I'm gettin' an epidural. So I said, "Yes, please, hook me up with that epidural." And the anesthesiologist came in after a moment and said he'd give me my epidural, just as soon as my blood work came back, to make sure my platelet counts were OK. I wanted to choke him, take his instruments, and give myself the epidural. Or have Devin do it (because that's SO much more reasonable, right?). I was HURTING, he had the means to end the hurting, and he refused to do it till my stupid bloodwork came back? The nurses told me they were mad at him for being such a prick stickler for protocol. Apparently, there are other anesthesiologists who aren't such sticklers. Guess I got lucky....

Meanwhile, the nurses wheeled me to Labor and Delivery, where I was checked again (and, it definitely bears mentioning here that there were at least 7 other people--nurses- and doctors-in-training, I think--in that room, just beyond the foot of my bed, all there to catch the show. The U of U hospital is a teaching hospital, so there can be lots of observers, if you as the patient tell them it's OK with you. I think I've mentioned before that I have no modesty when it comes to stuff like this, so I probably told them to invite anyone they could find wandering around the halls to come have a look-see...). This time, I was at a 9. It had been approximately 20 minutes since the last time they'd checked me. That's 5 cm in 20 minutes. So, Dr. Anesthesiologist came in right about that time (did you ever watch that show "Scrubs"? You know the macho, jerky, jock surgeon?

Yeah, that's the guy.

He was my anesthesiologist. Right down to the obnoxious do-rag and the sleeveless scrubs. I may have just imagined the sleeveless scrubs part, though) and announced that my blood work was back, and he could now dazzle me with his impressive epidural skills, if I'd still like one. I asked, "How long does it take for an epidural to start working?" He told me about 15 minutes. I said, "Hmm. I'll have this baby out in five. You can take your epidural and shove it up your...." I'm embellishing. I didn't say the part about shoving the epidural. Very loudly. OK, fine, not at all. But I definitely thought it. So, I'd like to imagine he walked away, all dejected-like, shoulders drooping, ripping off his do-rag and chucking it on the floor in frustration at missing out on being included in our bill. 

The nurse then checked me again and announced that I was complete. One of the doctors present (though there were several, not one of them was my perinatologist, who was home sleeping, I think. Smart lady) told me I could start pushing with the next contraction. Problem was, I didn't have another contraction. They just pretty much quit. I told her as much, and she said, "That's OK--you don't need a contraction for pushing. Just push when you feel like it." Well, previous experience has taught me that the reason you push is that the contractions make you have an intense NEED to push, right? I didn't really feel that urgency, and I knew--also from previous experience--that pushing a baby out of one's body is one of those things that's in reality even more painful than what you imagine it'll be, so I wasn't in any real hurry....

I could tell all those people in the room were watching in anticipation for me to do my thing, though, so I gathered up my strength, pushed with all my might for 10 counts, took a breath, pushed for 10 more, and repeated that a couple more times. After about the 4th push--maybe 5 minutes later--I felt the contours of my little boy squiggling through, and the next thing I knew, he was on the bed in front of me, quite calm, and blinking. It was 5:30 a.m.--not quite 3 hours since that first hellish contraction.

I couldn't stop looking at our sweet baby. I felt at that moment like the heavens had opened, depositing this little being in front of me. He was so, so tiny--and breathtakingly perfect. I didn't know what I'd been expecting for the previous 4 months since finding out he had Down syndrome. We'd also been told he had clubfeet, which isn't something that occurs very often with DS, so I think I was expecting some other weird surprise that also doesn't usually come with it. I suppose I expected him to look like.... I don't know. A miniature Quasimodo, I guess. With all sorts of deformities that couldn't have shown up on all the ultrasound images we'd seen of him. But instead, he looked almost exactly like Kenneth did at birth--same nose, same round face, definitely same upper lip... I gasped. And then I cried. Happy, elated tears. I would have loved him no matter what he looked like, of course, but this was an amazing thing. He just looked like he belonged to us, just like all of our other kids. I'd built up THE SYNDROME in my imagination till it was this huge, out-of-control monster, completely dwarfing reality. And the reality was, this was a sweet, helpless little baby who needed his mama to love and protect him. And he was absolutely mine, and I completely adored him from the moment I laid eyes on him. It was amazing to see that he knew me, too--turning toward my voice when I talked. I wanted to hold him and kiss his sweet face and whisper, "Hi there. I'm your mama," and all the other silly little things I'd whispered to our other babies when we first met. But gloved hands swooped in and whisked him away, through the window into the NICU for observation and an echocardiogram.

 

Pretty soon, 2 of the doctors were mashing on my tummy, massaging it to work the placenta loose, and intermittently pulling on the cord. It wouldn't budge, and they kept massaging and tugging, and then I noticed them exchange worried glances. One of them suggested checking me again, which the other one did. The one checking me exclaimed something like, "What the...?" Apparently, my cervix had completely clamped shut around the cord. And part of the placenta had already come out, and the other part was still attached, so I was still really bleeding. A lot. I could feel it, but I guess I'd assumed it was maybe the left-over amniotic fluid. There was a lot of rushing around, and someone told us I needed a D&C to clear out the rest of the placenta so I'd stop bleeding. The jock anesthesiologist was called back, and started to explain to me what to do while he gave me the epidural, but then, I guess they decided there was no time for one. And then everything felt like it was going in slow-motion, and that Kate Bush song, "This Woman's Work," started playing in mind. They put one of those surgery caps on me, told Devin they were wheeling me to the OR, and off we went down the hall.

When we got to the OR, they asked me to lift my rear off the bed onto the operating table. As I did so, I felt a huge whoosh of blood. I plopped back down and looked--my feet had been out in front of me, with my legs kind of curved into a diamond shape, and that whole area was a giant puddle of blood, which completely covered both of my heels. I think I may have felt faint, and muttered something about my socks getting all bloody. I remember the sweet nurses telling me not to worry, that they'd give me some new socks, as they pulled my blood-soaked ones off my feet and chucked them in the garbage. Somehow I wound up on the operating table, and they gave me some crazy drugs in my IV, which I figured out when everything went from being real to being completely, utterly, confusingly insane. Glittering, pink Tetris blocks showed up in front of my face, and they kept building higher and higher, till they formed a wall. I could hear voices behind the wall, and knew I could see who was talking to me if I could just make it past that wall. They asked me questions, and I think I answered them. And the glittery Tetris wall turned from pink, to purple, to blue, but it stubbornly stayed right in front of my face. And it was so sparkly and pretty, I had a hard time not focusing on it, and kept forgetting to try to get to the other side of it. I felt all kinds of stabbing HURT coming from my abdomen, and I heard myself moan, and maybe someone comforting me from behind that dang wall. And, eventually, the wall vanished, and I felt myself being lifted back onto the hospital bed. I think when I got back to the delivery room, Devin was back in there from having been with Colin in the NICU. He says I asked the same questions over and over, about 6 different times each. I was apparently pretty impressed with the fact that I'd lost almost 2 liters of blood. Duuuuuude. He was also kind enough to take pictures of me coming out of anesthesia, mouth hanging open, eyes all stoner-like. Oh, the horror. If I weren't so dang self-conscious, I'd post them for entertainment purposes.

So, there you go. That's how our sweet Colin made his entrance. Our little boy, whose arrival into the world showed us that absolute perfection can inhabit a body with an extra chromosome and crooked feet.

Colin at 1 month old

photo by Sarah Bush

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The Soul that rises with us, our life’s Star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar:

Not in entire forgetfulness,

And not in utter nakedness,

But trailing clouds of glory do we come

From God, who is our home....

~William Wordsworth

Colin: A birth story, Part 1

I don't know about you, but I love to read/hear birth stories--which is funny, right? Because there's really very little variation from one story to the next. The basic elements are like this: start contractions, go to the hospital (unless it's an induction, and then those 2 are reversed. And if it's a home birth, you just skip the hospital part altogether. And if you have the baby in the car on the way to the hospital, you'll still eventually wind up there), get an epidural or not, push the baby out. If you're having a c-section, you still end up in the hospital, and the baby still comes out. Point is, that baby's coming out, no matter what method is used. That's pretty much the point of birth. And, no matter what method is used, there will be pain, and there will be a baby. Those are the 2 invariables. But, still, humor me as I recount Colin's birth story....

It was a dark and stormy night, about 5 months ago.... Definitely dark, anyway.... And maybe snowy, too. It was a Wednesday, 5 days before I was scheduled to be induced. I'd never been induced before, and I'd only had 1 baby be born before my due date (that was Kenneth, who came a week before he was due. The others were, in order: 3 days after, 1 week after, 2 weeks after, and 3 days after). Point is, I wasn't expecting this baby to make his entrance before my induction date (which was 3 weeks before my due date, technically. The perinatologist wasn't going to mess around with waiting for labor to start on its own, since she'd been made aware that I'd shown up to my local hospital--5 minutes away from home--fully dilated and ready to push with the last baby, and Colin was to be delivered at the University of Utah hospital, an hour away from home, because a cardiologist had given us a 95% chance that he had a coarctation of the aorta, which would need repair within days of his birth at Primary Children's hospital, right next door. Also, she was mindful of the increased likelihood of the placenta breaking down prematurely, which is something that tends to happen in a good percentage of Down syndrome pregnancies, and results in increased chances for stillbirth. Remember all that?).

So, anyway, I was planning on buying his dresser and his car seat that weekend, and packing my hospital bag, so I'd be ready for the induction on Monday (procrastination usually never fails me). That day (the day of the night I'm telling you about, so Wednesday, day. Pay attention), some friends had brought me to lunch to celebrate my birthday, and I'd had a couple strong contractions while we ate--the kind that makes you stop what you're doing, close your eyes, and breathe slowly and deliberately. They got all wide-eyed and told me, "You're gonna have this baby today!" I laughed it off, since extended false labor is just part of my birthing experience. Walking around for a few weeks dilated to a 5 or 6 makes for a super-short labor, when the real thing eventually rolls around.... However, I'd been checked when I'd gone in for the version the week before, and I was only at a "big 1, small 2." That normally means nothing for me--BUT, I'm thinking that version may have had something to do with triggering real labor. Seriously, go read that blog post I linked to, if you haven't already. I'll wait right here while you do.... I don't often think of myself as being very awesome, but during that process, I was pretty amazing. Chances are pretty good that you'll come to the same conclusion.

OK, so, moving on.... I went about that day like I'd been doing every other day--basically just being big and pregnant and sore all over. And also, slightly grumpy, and definitely sloth-like in everything I did.

After we went to bed, I woke up a few times from strong contractions, but went right back to sleep afterwards, so that I almost didn't remember I'd had any. But THEN.... Oh, THEN, things completely changed. I woke up at 2:45 with the most intense contraction.... and it didn't ever seem to go away. It was big and powerful, and gave me the strongest urge to.... ahem.... go sit on the toilet. And this was a pumped-up contraction on steroids, and it never seemed to ease up, I'm telling you. But somehow, I made it from the bed to the toilet, and I sat there, waiting for this contraction to mellow the heck out so I could at least move, for the love of all that is good. I felt paralyzed on the toilet, and I started to feel very afraid that I'd get stuck there from the crippling pain, and that the baby would be born into the toilet, if this contraction wouldn't go the hell away (that's happened to people. Ever watch "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant" on TLC? Also, yes, at this point, I was swearing in my mind a little). I found this graph online, which has nothing to do with contractions, but which adequately demonstrates what I'm trying to convey here (ignore the numbers and the "10-year yield," even though it did feel like the yield from this contraction would last a full 10 years, at least):

See how it goes up, then pretends to go back down, but then sneakily goes right back up again? Even higher than it was before? That's what this contraction did. It was the craziest thing, and I actually spent some moments contemplating how very crazy it was. But mostly, I just waited for a downward dip that was long enough to get me from the toilet back to the bed so I could wake up Devin and tell him we needed to go to the hospital. (In retrospect, that was super considerate of me. I could've just hollered, "I'm in labor! Help me got off this *#%& toilet!" But people were sleeping, and I didn't want to disturb anyone.) I eventually made it there, and fell onto the bed next to him: "Devin, I'm not sure, but I think I'm probably in labor. Like, real labor. I'm having a horrible contraction that won't go away." Without moving--not even his lips, I think--he mumbled, "Take some deep breaths." So I humored him and took a few deep breaths. The contraction stayed. Really. I mean it when I say that this was all one big contraction that never really went away--it just hovered and dipped and shot back up again. So I whispered, "That's not really working. I'm still contracting." Devin, in his annoyed voice, said, "Are you breathing? ...Deep breath in.... And deep breath out..." And those ellipses in there? That's where he snored a little. (In his defense, he's been around for all of my false-labor experiences, and some of them lasted up to 12 hours, and none of them, besides Kenneth, our oldest--the one who came a little early, remember?--ended in us driving to the hospital....) "Devin...." I said, cautiously (cautiously, because Asleep Devin is much less easygoing than Awake Devin), "We need to go to the hospital. But I can't get up, so I'm gonna need you to get me some clothes from on top of the dryer [laundry was another of those things I was planning on doing over the weekend]...." Devin responded with a snore. "Babe! Did you hear me?" "Yeah, hang on," he mumbled, and rolled out of bed and shuffled out of our room. A couple minutes later, he shuffled back in, empty-handed. "Babe, you forgot my clothes" (imagine that as being all breathy and a little panicky and angry and really drawn out, because my uterus was still a tight ball of intense pain and fury, and my back had joined the pain party, too)."  "Oh.... Well, are you sure we need to go, or should we wait and see if it calms down?" It's a good thing humans haven't evolved to shoot lasers out our eyes (but wouldn't that be so awesome?), because Devin would've been charred right there where he stood. "No... [the ellipses here stand for me panting or groaning] I think... this is for real. It's so... intense, and it's just... not... letting up. Go get me... my X t-shirt... and my Y sweats, and I'll... call the hospital... and tell them... we're coming in." So he left again, with slightly more purpose, and when he came back (with my clothes this time, bless him), I was doubled up on the floor with the phone to my ear, trying to tell the emergency OB nurse at the U of U that what I had going on, no human had ever before experienced in the history of childbirth. Not really, but I think it was pretty clear to her that I meant business. She said, "Well, honey, you need to get to A hospital, even if it's not down here. Now get going! GET!" (or something to that effect). Devin helped dress me, but even in labor, women are just better than guys are at hooking a bra (and, seriously, unhooking them too, most likely.) He asked if I wanted him to pack anything, like a toothbrush. "No time... just grab... the camera." He helped me out to the car, and off we went into the night (oh, and Devin's awesome cousin Nicole was living with us at the time, so we didn't even have to wake anyone up in the middle of the night to come stay with the kids. Bonus!).

The contraction(s? Not really--I still think it was the same bugger contraction I'd been dealing with the whole time) was/were so intense, we weren't sure we'd make it an hour to the hospital, without stopping on the way to birth the baby. So, when we got to the intersection at the bottom of our neighborhood--where turning left takes you to our little hospital, and turning right takes you down the canyon to the U of U hospital--Devin turned to me and said, "What do you think? Should we try to make it to Salt Lake?" I pictured having the baby in Heber, and having him loaded onto the Life Flight helicopter immediately afterward, while I was stuck in Heber without him. That option was immensely displeasing. "No, just go for it. We can make it." I closed my eyes, and started intensely praying that labor would slow down just long enough to make it to the hospital. And, I'm telling you now, a little miracle occurred, and that's exactly what happened. Devin timed them at 5-7 minutes apart, the whole way down the canyon. I even started to wonder if this was another false-labor episode, and felt stupid for freaking out so much, when we may just end up being sent right back home by condescending nurses....

Fortunately for my pride, the contractions picked right back up again pretty much the moment we were in sight of the hospital. I'm not making that part up. It was wild. Devin loaded me into a wheelchair, and raced me through the halls to the emergency OB department.

And, that's where I'll end this portion of my account, mostly because I'm sure you're tired of reading about it by this point, and maybe you have laundry to do or a meal to make or grout to scrub. So, you go do that stuff, and I'll work on writing the next part, and we can meet up again right here....