Baden's Coming Part 2

Wednesday (12/22) I rushed to the dentist to get my bridge fixed that had broken the day before. You see, I was innocently eating a yummy piece of caramel on Tuesday when I felt movement in my bridge and a crunching in the caramel. Yep, my bridge had come loose and I thought it was totally broken. Knowing that I was likely to be delivering this babe in the next couple of days, I was a little panicked at the thought of going long term with a broken bridge in my mouth. I didn't dare probe around much for fear it would fall out and start hurting. So I called my dentists office and they absolutely could not fit me in on Tuesday. They had one space for me on Wednesday. Again, knowing that I was going to my Ob's office on Tuesday afternoon and doing another NST test, I was worried that I might be admitted for delivery and have this bum tooth. So I called in a neighbor favor...one of the guys in our ward is a dentist and I called in a panic to find out if he could fit me in. He could only get me in later that afternoon about the same time I was at my Ob's office. They told me to call as soon as I was done to see if they would have time to fit me in. By the time I was done at the OB and the NST test at the hospital it was around 5:00...way to late to get in to see our friend the dentist. Luckily I was cleared to go home from the hospital for the night and I did have the appointment with my regular dentist the next morning. I went in to my dentist's office and was in and out in about 20 minutes. The tooth Gods were looking out for us as it turns out my bridge had just come loose. It was not damaged in any way and they just had to cement it back in. Thank goodness for small miracles. We could not afford to spend up to $2000 for a new bridge at the moment.

After the dentists office I ran a couple of errands that I needed to do to finish Christmas shopping. Yeah, I know, I was supposed to be taking it easy. I figured dropping into one store to pick up something that I knew exactly where it was wouldn't be that big of a deal. My headache was starting to come back a little bit, but I wasn't too concerned. Jed and I went and got some lunch and stopped to order some new glasses for him and then headed home. By late afternoon my headache was getting worse. I knew this wasn't the ordinary migraine I usually get. The pain was at the base of my neck, an indication that it was due to my BP rising and not another kind of headache. I took it easy for the rest of the night. Trying to rid myself of the headache, but nothing seemed to be working. We went to bed, but I ended up sleeping for only about an hour before my head was hurting so badly that I had to get up. I ended up being awake for most of the night.

Thursday (12/23) morning when Jed woke up at 5:00 for work, I decided that I had better go to the hospital and have them monitor me again. They had told me that if my headache came back to come right in. Once they had me all hooked up, my first blood pressure was 142/97. WAY TOO HIGH for safety! They kept monitoring me for a few more minutes, but the BP still continued to be high and I desperately needed something for the pain in my head. The on-call Dr. was paged and she decided to immediately admit me and get me ready to induce.

I called Jed and told him the news that we were on our way to have a baby, possibly that day. The first order or business was to get me hooked up to an IV so they could give me some pain meds. The pain meds they were going to give me (Phenergan and Morphine) had to be administered in my arm. They could not be given through an IV in my hand, which is what they normally would have done. My poor nurse Annette, who was absolutely awesome could not get the IV in. She got in the first vein and got blood for labs, but when she tried to hook up the IV, she had lost the vein and it wouldn't take in the fluids they were trying to give me. She went to the other arm and tried to get the IV hooked up, but the vein blew and the fluids started to build up under the skin. Kinda cool, kinda gross to see. The 3rd try, she just couldn't get a vein at all, so she called in the anesthesiologist to give it a try. He also had the same problem. No veins to be found in my arm. So now I have 4 needle pokes, no IV and no pain meds yet. I guess I was pretty dehydrated and that was causing my veins to be difficult. They finally just decided to do the IV in my hand and then give me the pain meds by way of injection in my hip.
Once the pain meds were administered they started getting me ready for induction. Besides the pain meds, I was also given Magnesium Sulfate through my IV. The Mag is given to prevent seizures. Because high blood pressure in pregnancy(toxemia) can cause seizures they had to give me something to counter act that. Side effects of mag include flushing, diarrhea, fatigue and low blood pressure. I might add it also includes frequent urination. Boy oh boy I was going to the bathroom every 20 minutes! What a pain to have to unhook all the IV poles and get to the bathroom in time.

Once the pain was under control, the real induction stuff began. First they gave me a drug called Cytotec. Because my cervix was not softening and I was only dilated to a 1, they needed to get some things progressing in that arena. The cytotec is administered vaginally every 3-4 hours. It's job is to prepare the cervix for delivery. i.e. soften things up. It's side effects include diarrhea, stomach pain, vomiting, nausea, fever or headache. Yep, we had lots of side effects from meds going on. I think this was finally administered around 7:00 in the morning. So once that was all done, we just had to wait.

Jed had called my parents after he got to the hospital and told them what was going on. They promptly packed their bags and headed up north to be here for delivery. They arrived about 12:00 that afternoon. By then I still wasn't really progressing too much. The nurse said my cervix had softened a little bit and I was at about a 2. Not a lot of progress and the prognosis was that this was going to be a very long day! We just hung out and watched T.V. for most of the day. I was tired and tried to get some sleep, but it didn't come very easily what with me running the bathroom every 20 minutes or so.

Around 3:00 p.m. my water broke. Yep, something that was not expected, but definitely a small blessing. Had my water not broken who knows how long I would have gone without progressing and that would have increased my chances of having a c-section. At that point everything started to change very quickly. I immediately started having contractions that I could actually feel. They had me hooked up to monitors all day that showed my heart rate, blood pressure and contractions, but I really wasn't feeling anything up to that point. The contractions weren't too bad. Just felt like some minor cramping. But they steadily increased over the next couple of hours. Around 6:00 I asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist came in at just the right time as the pain was getting pretty intense by then. While putting in the needle, I began to have a contraction. So here I am sitting upright with my feet dangling over the side of the bed with a big needle being put into my back and the pain starts up. He's telling me to hold still and I was all I could do to keep it under control. Once the epidural was in, I had a super quick drop in my blood pressure and almost passed out. They were able to get me back on stable ground let me rest for a few minutes. Now that I had the epidural, they put in a catheter. I didn't think I would ever be happy to have a cath, but by that time I was so tired of getting up to go to the bathroom, it was a joy to have that little baby in place. I was now numbing up and only feeling slight pain from the contractions. Now that my water was broken they could also give me Pitocin, which everyone knows is the drug to really induce labor. A couple of hours after the epidural was started I realized something was wrong because I was starting to feel the pain from contractions extremely well. We called in the nurse and sure enough, there was a block in the epidural line that they had to fix. I have to say that anyone who goes through the pains of labor without an epidural is a superhero! I simply could not imagine dealing with that kind of pain for hours on end.

The Dr. on call was Dr. Lind. He came in to check me again around 7:00 p.m. and I had progressed to about a 3-4 centimeters dilated. Again, he said it could be a long night. He didn't think we would be having this baby until well into the next morning or afternoon considering how slowly everything had been progressing through out the day. We sent my mom and dad packing about 9:00 p.m. so they and we could try and get some sleep. My nurse checked me again around 11:00 and miracle of miracles I had dilated to a 9! Yes, we were all surprised. We called my folks to come back over so that they could be here when the babe was born. They got to the hospital shortly before the nurse had me start real labor and do all the pushing stuff. I had my mom in the delivery room with me and Jed. I am so happy she was there to share this with us. She was also a real help with getting me water and chap stick for my dry, parched lips and helping with the pushing when Jed was otherwise occupied. I think I Began actively pushing around 1:40 a.m. and Baden was born at 4:01 a.m. I hope my times are correct. I was pretty out of it and I really don't remember a lot of the small details. During this time, I vomited 3 times between pushing. Word to the wise...don't eat a yellow Popsicle a couple hours before you begin active labor. All that sugar is not a great thing to have in your belly when the only thing you've had all day is water and jello.

Jed was amazing and helped hold my legs through the whole thing, all the while filming it on his Droid phone. I am so happy we have that video, because after watching it when not under the influence of drugs it makes the experience seem all the more real and special. Unfortunately the mag sulfate made me pretty out of it, even though I thought at the time that I was pretty clearheaded.