Canaan's Birth Story

Thursday, December 8, 2009

2am - I woke up in the middle of the night feeling like my water might have broken, but it wasn’t significant enough to know for sure… so I decided to wait until the next morning to call the doctor’s office.

9am - I put a call in to the doctor’s office and heard back nearly an hour later. At the time, BJ was at work (we had already had a couple of ‘false alarms’, so we decided he should go in that morning) and MaryAnn Poundstone was over cleaning the house. When I got word from my doctor to come straight in, MaryAnn drove me to church where we met BJ’s mom (Linda). She took me to the rest of the way to the office to see what might be going on.

11am - Linda and I waited in the office and I was finally called back to see Dr. Caminitti (or, as I called her, the ‘young one’). When she checked me I was 4 ½cm dilated, 100% effaced, -1 station (I had been at 4cm, 100% effaced and 0 station for about a week already) and she found that my water had in fact broken! She said to head to the hospital and I was SO thrilled (not another false alarm after all)!

11:45am - Linda and I headed out straight away for the hospital while BJ left to meet us there. Since it had been quite a few hours since my water had started breaking I didn’t feel in too much of a rush. Once BJ arrived a few minutes later we went in to be admitted.

12:15pm - Once in our birthing room (which was SO fancy with hardwood floors, a flat panel TV, etc - but we wouldn’t end up spending much time there!) I was checked again and after a terrible botched IV attempt (after jabbing me over and over the nurse eventually gave up and the nurse anesthetist had to come in and finish the job) was given a bag of fluids.

1:30pm - Dr. Venard (who has become my favorite of the three doctors at Women Partner’s) came in to break my water completely. About 20 minutes later (and after the start of a few very intense contractions), the nurse anesthetist came back in to give me my epidural. BJ had to leave the room and so it was just my nurse Kate (the nurse who botched the IV was not seen again that night), the nurse anesthetist and myself. Kate was a cute little nurse and was so sweet and encouraging through the whole process of our delivery. The epidural process went very smoothly and the dosing was just what I would have wanted – I didn’t feel pain but still could move my legs and feel touch.

BJ came back into the room and not too much longer Kate was watching the monitors and started to be concerned about the baby’s heart rate. Within what seemed like seconds I was surrounded by about ten nurses and they called for the hospital staff doctor to make a decision about what they should do. We were told that I would need a c-section and I was rushed back to the operating room as they had BJ get dressed in scrubs, a head cap and mask. But once in the OR, the baby’s heart rate actually started to stabilize. Dr. Egner (my primary OB doctor) came in to check me and determined the primary reason for the baby’s sudden change - within 20 minutes I had dilated from 5 to 8cm (the normal rate is about 1cm per hour). Since the baby was doing better, Egner decided that everyone had overreacted and I was wheeled back into the birthing room.

Back in the birthing room, I continued to be monitored closely as we talked and waited. It wasn’t much later that Canaan’s heart rate started once again to drop, and once again I was quickly surrounded by nurses and doctors as it was determined, once again, that I would need an emergency c-section. They rushed me out and back into the operating room. There I was given (through the epidural) the full c-section dose of pain medication. A nurse poked me with a needle up my body – I had no feeling below chest level.

5:00pm - The operating room was very bright and full of people working quickly to prepare me for surgery. BJ was able to join me at that point. The gave me Terbutaline to help stop my contractions (and as BJ overheard, they accidently gave me too much) and afterwards Dr. Venard came in to check me and found that I was 9 ½ cm dilated. Since once again the baby’s heart rate had stabilized (something about that room certainly agreed with him!), she decided that we should go ahead and try to delivery naturally there in the operating room. They started me on Petocin to counteract the Terbutaline and everyone worked quickly to prepare the operating room for delivery (because wasn’t set up for that purpose). Soon they were giving instructions to BJ on holding my legs to help me push.

Once everyone was ready and my next contraction started, I started working to will my numb body to push. With every contraction I pushed, and at one point it was just BJ and a nurse holding my legs and helping me through it. BJ was so incredible and encouraging. We found that I pushed best while on my side, and soon it was time for Canaan to show up. Dr. Venard was there once again and she helped things along using the vacuum.

6:01pm - At the last moment I was able to look and see his face for the first time. They placed him on me and gave BJ the scissors to cut his cord. After that they took him away to be assessed and BJ was able to snap his first few photos of our little man! The whole experience was intense and amazing!