part 2, the birth

This is the second of a three parter... see the first part here

When we got to labor and delivery, I started crying. I had made it at least this far but I wanted to be sure my baby was ok. It was a tense moment when they put the fetal monitor on. Everything seemed ok.....huge relief. My doctor had left St Lukes and made it to Toledo Hospital before the ambulance. I guess he was kind of worried too. He broke my water immediately and put internal monitors in. "Geez, his hands are huge" I remember thinking. I was already 4 cm. It seemed as though the bleeding slowed. I started to relax a little though I was still having periods of feeling yucky. I kept saying "I'm not doing so good. The doctor encouraged me to get an epidural soon since bleeding makes the uterus contract a lot more. Of course, being my stubborn self, I said I didn't need one now, I was doing just fine. Well, it was more like my nurse, S called out to have anesthesia paged and I said "no, don't do that, I'm not ready". A few minutes later when the contractions started in earnest, I remembered the pain and coupled with the fact that I was already feeling pretty lousy, I called out for the epidural.

While we were waiting, my mom showed up (she has not seen any of her 7 other grandchildren born) and I convinced S to take off the crappy polish job I had on my toes. Obviously I was feeling a little better.

Since I was working earlier that day, when they called for the epidural the nurse told him "it's Margery" to which he replied "well, have her sit the patient up" to which S replied "she IS the patient". He came in and placed the epidural and all was well for about 10 minutes (it could have been longer or shorter, who the hell knows at that point). Knowledge was not my friend that night. Unfortunately, as an L&D nurse, I knew the consequences of everything that was happening. At this point, all the medical staff had left my room and it was relatively quiet. I could hear the fetal monitor and then I heard the heart rate in the 50s (it may have been lower or higher, again, I just know it was bad) for a couple minutes and no one was coming in so I used the call light "I need someone to come in here" and here is where everything went south (more south than it already was). Epidural + large blood loss= crappy blood pressure = baby heart rate in the toilet. The heart rate had been down for about 10 minutes which in labor and delivery land means you need to go change your pants now.

A LOT of people started coming in the room. The doctor came in and told me to push and eventually pulled the baby out with a vacuum. He was born at 0255 on March 15th. The NICU team was there and unbeknownst to me, the crash cart (for me) was outside the door. I kept bleeding. My mom describes it as "like a faucet", Eric said he wasn't looking down there and he couldn't see the blood but that he could hear it. Anesthesia came into the room and another CRNA C started shouting orders. I kept saying "I'm not doing very well". I just kept thinking, let's get this placenta out and get things stablized here. And then I hear "that's a nice shiny uterus" and I said "is my uterus OUTSIDE my body right now?!" and not one of my co workers answered me. I looked around and they all had a deer-in-the-headlights look. This is another time I said "oh, shit". I remember a lot of shouting orders and movement and I'm crying and bleeding. This is not looking good for me. I'm going to be one of those people that die in childbirth. Finally we head for the OR to try some other things.

As they roll me out of the room I look at Eric and say "please take care of my babies", I knew there was a strong possibility that I may not come back.

to be continued...