Sunday, September 30, 2018

Delivery!

It has been nearly 3 months since I had my little man but I have been so busy with him and life I haven't had a chance to sit and write down his birth story! 

I had one other Dr's appt before I had him and it was just like the previous two, no dilation, baby was head down (super low as usual on my bladder!), my vitals were great, NST was great. 

On monday February 11th I had a normal day of cleaning, I decided to wash some bottles and get some more stuff together for the baby. I had contractions all through the day and some lower back pain. None of this was unusual or any worse than normal for me so I went about my day. I made dinner and my husband, my 6 year old and I were sitting at our dinner table. We were talking about when the baby might come and on what day each of us thought he would come when I felt what I thought was my water breaking. It was very light, not like the gush I had with my previous son, but when you have felt it before you remember the feeling. 

I'm sure I got an odd look on my face and looked at my husband said calmly "I think my water just broke." "What?" he said, "Are you sure?" I got up from the table took a few steps (out of view of my son) and pulled down my pants to check. "Yup, pretty sure." I said and began to waddle to the bathroom. By the time I got to the toilet I was hollering at him: "Yup, it definitely broke!" All I could think was "Dangit!" Because it was 5 weeks early. I was instantly worried about him not being able to breathe on his own, not being able to take him home, etc. I of course had hardly anything packed. I had packed the baby's bag after washing all the baby items and put the baby stuff away, but I had pretty nothing packed for myself. 

So we set about calling family and friends who would be watching our son and got all my things together. My contractions were very regular and coming closer together, so I knew I was definitely having good labor patterns. It took about 30 mins to get everything packed and everyone called. We headed to our friend’s house to drop off our 5 year old son. When we got to their house (a short 10 min ride) I waited in the car while my husband ran him inside. My contractions were coming stronger and closer together. We quickly headed to the German OB hospital (another quick 10-15 min ride) and were met at the door by one of the midwives and brought back to an exam room. I have her my mütterpass, which is a small German OB medical record book and let her know what all had happened. On the way to the exam room she informed us that since I was early I wouldn’t be able to deliver early at St. Elizabeth’s because they did not have a NICU and I would have to go over to Heidelberg.  She did a quick pelvic check on me and let me know it was safe to drive over to Heidelberg and that she would not have to call an ambulance. I asked her how many centimeters I was dilated and she said "3". "ok" I replied. "How many did you think you were?" she asked me. "Around there," I said. So we headed back out to the car and headed to Heidelberg which luckily wasn't far, however we weren't sure which part of the hospital we needed to get to. Eventually we pulled up to the front entrance we, which had only two parking spaces for emergencies and my husband turned to me and said maybe I should go park in the parking garage. "Don't you dare!" I said as my contractions had started to come every 3 minutes on the way to Heidelberg. We managed to wind our way through the hospital and get to the OB floor. I believe we got there around 8:45pm. We were placed in a exam room that was large and dimly lit with an exam table, and a few chairs and a sink. I found out later from one of the midwives that I labored in one of the triage rooms because they were so busy that I never had enough time to make it into a laboring room. I initially laid on the table when I got into the room and I quickly realized that laying made my back and stomach pain much more intense and got back up. After being in the room for a short bit someone came in to do an ultrasound to check on the baby's position to make sure he was head down. To me it seemed like it was a half an hour after we were put in the room, but when you are in labor time becomes very distorted. I eventually found that sitting on a rolling stool was very nice to get me through my contractions. Between the waves I would rest my head on my arms that were on the counter or place a wet paper towel on my forehead and when a surge would hit I would rock back and forth on the stool. I went into a zone and though yes it was painful, it was not unbearable. I began moaning through the contractions, somewhat unbeknownst to myself and one of the midwives came in and said she would like to check me. (I now realize that this can be an indicator that labor has progressed!) I climbed on the table and she checked me and said I was complete! (We had only been at the hospital for an hour and a half at this point) I was so glad to get off that table! And as soon as I did a surge hit, and I didn't know what do without my stool. I tried going from foot to foot and the midwife told me to sway my hips. The midwife let me know we would be moving to a labor room down the hall. Once the surge was over I started walking to the door and she had to wrap a blanket around me. I was ready to walk our pantsless, not a care in the world! I could tell my baby was about to come! as soon as we walked the short distance to the room another surge hit right as I climbed on the bed on hands and knees. The midwifes (another one had joined us now) got me facing the right way as I asked if I could push. They said yes, bless them. I will spare some details here except to say that with 2 contractions my son was born! He was so tiny and looked nearly identical to his brother. He was born at 10:44pm and weighted 5lbs 11oz, 17.32inches. I got to hold him for just a minute and then the midwives took him to the NICU. He was breathing just fine on his own and was nice and healthy, just tiny. His labor was very short at only about 4 hours, and I needed stitching. I asked the midwives to show me my placenta after it was delivered and there was one small clot on it which could have been left over from the hematoma. My placenta also was not perfectly round and the attachment point for the vessels was a little unusual. Nothing super rare or unusual, but interesting none the less. 
After I was tended to I walked down the hall to the NICU and saw my baby boy. He was so adorable and tiny. It was hard going to my room that night without him. I will skip many details here... Baby boy stayed in the German NICU for 3 days and then was transferred to the pediatric hospital to gain weight. All in all he was in the hospital for 10 days. His big brother did not get to meet him until he came home. The days splitting my time between the hospital and home were difficult and yet so cherished because when I was at the hospital with him all I did was just hold him and love him. Just him and me.