I recall when I was pregnant with Hayley that I loved searching for birth stories online and reading how very different every person's experience was. I never read anything about preemie birth stories, so here is ours.
Remember my quick post that my water broke on Wednesday and more would follow? Let's start with that. Wednesday was a good day for me. The contractions were virtually non-existent. It was a relatively busy day for me, work-wise. I wanted to get some things caught up and I had several people out on vacation, sick, or going out on leave. I made arrangements to have some "homework" brought to me that night so I could help my staff stay caught up.
I actually had two work stations set up at home. My company laptop would not work on my wireless network so I had to plug it in in our home office. But I needed to be reclining or resting with my feet up so I had my husband's giant bean bag chair in there. It sounds odd but it is such a large chair that it actually doubles as a king size bed when you take the bean bag out of the cover so hopefully you can picture that it was giant sized and quite comfortable to sit in with a laptop. Also it was surprisingly easy to get out of at 8.5 months pregnant. My other workstation was in the family room, at the recliner. I had our personal laptop there and I was using our web-based e-mail system to access my work e-mail. So what I was doing was sitting most of the time in the recliner, checking my work e-mail and when I saw something that needed my immediate attention on one of our company systems I was going into the office to complete that task on the company laptop.
Ok, getting on with the story. The phone rang and I didn't know if it was work or a friend calling so I grabbed it and headed into the office in case I needed my company system. It was my dad so I decided to sit in the bean bag and chat for a moment. As soon as I sat in the bean bag I wet myself. It wasn't a gush like the movies always show and nothing was dripping down my leg but it alarmed me because I have never had incontinence while pregnant. I quickly begged off the phone with my dad and went to the bathroom. I had heard from two of my friends that when their water broke it was like they just kept going pee long after they stopped actually going.
I peed and stopped. There was no extra water coming out so I actually did begin to question whether I just wet myself on accident. Only one thing that made me wonder was the green discharge turned clear. I called my husband and suggested that he head home. He asked me the same thing- did you just pee yourself? I was still questioning if maybe I did but we decided it would be safe to have him here just in case.
I took a shower and was blowdrying my hair when he got home. I hadn't had any further leakage so I honestly wasn't sure if I should go. I asked him and he said we would just go and get it checked out. I went to the bathroom quickly before we left so that I wouldn't be overextended by the time we got to the hospital, half an hour away with rush hour just beginning. Before I peed there was a quick leak and then I didn't have any doubt.
I tried to convince myself that the leaking was something other than amniotic fluid though. Especially since I wasn't contracting at all. Let me just say, I have spent much time in denial during this pregnancy and I really shouldn't have. Anyway- got to the hospital and checked in. I told the nurse that I wasn't entirely sure but I had heard stories where people had slow leaks and were turned away, only to return the following day truly in labor and now with a minor infection.
There are apparently three tests that they do to determine if it is amniotic fluid- the very first one was a swab test for PH and it came up definitively positive so we didn't bother proceeding. As she removed the speculum there was most certainly a larger gush than the first two and then I had no doubt.The bigger question was, did the doctor want to try and hold me off for a few days or did he want to go ahead and deliver.
By 5:30pm the answer was clear. The doctor was going to deliver me. I had already had the steroid shot a week before and the only reason he would have held me off was if they needed to administer the shot and give it a few days to work. I was told we would be in the OR by 6:30 or 6:45 so we called my mom to join me as my husband can't handle the surgical side of things.
My mom got there and the contractions began intensifying. They were coming every ten minutes and became painful. The doctor did get there at 6:30 and got to my room at the same time as the nurse. She came bearing news that we were bumped from the OR because there was another c-section that needed more urgent attention- the baby was in distress while mine was still doing perfectly fine.
We settled back in for some waiting, thinking we would be in the OR about an hour later. During that time I tried to prepare myself. This baby will be fine. We could still possibly go home together. Everything is going to be normal.
An hour went by. Then another 30 minutes. At 8pm the nurse came and said they were wrapping it up and that I would be next. I was hoping to be in by 8:30. At 8pm the contractions were coming every five minutes and I thought I was going to die. They didn't give me any medication because I was going for a spinal block right before surgery. I spent the next hour in hard labor, which I felt was somewhat unfair for someone that knew all along they would be having a c-section again. Oh well, it is what it is.
We went in to the OR at 9:02 pm. Again, not at all like you see on the Discover channel. They don't tell you step by step what they are doing. My mom kept peeking over the cover to tell me where they were at. She saw the head, and then the body was delivered but no one told us whether it was a boy or girl and they were blocking my mom's view. It was 9:25pm, although no one called the time and I found out the actual time yesterday. The baby started crying and so did I. I still didn't know whether it was a boy or girl. At this point the NICU team was working on the baby in the corner and they too were blocking the view.
It felt like forever. My mom had to ask twice whether it was a boy or girl before they finally replied. It was a girl. We still didn't know how big she was. I wasn't hearing anything alarming from the corner where the baby was being worked so I felt calm about that part. I kissed her as they hand carried her to the NICU, for me, another positive sign that they didn't need to wheel her there hooked up to tubes and the air unit. I found out at that point she was five pounds three ounces.
I sent my mom off to find my husband so he could see the baby quickly and I spent the rest of the time getting put back together. I was wheeled into recovery around 10:25 pm. My husband went in to the NICU and took a few videos for me to see the baby. I think he headed out around 11:30pm and I was taken to a room around midnight.
I didn't sleep most of the night because I was having a reaction to the anesthesia. It made me itchy all over so I had two doses of Benadryl. The Benadryl actually didn't do enough to quell the itching but it did make me drowsy enough to catch about three hours of sleep. At 5am I asked the nurse to take me to the NICU to see the baby.
It was my first chance to see and hold her up close and although five pounds three ounces sounded like a respectable size it was alarmingly tiny once I had her in my arms. Fortunately she was not hooked up to any oxygen so I was able to look into her tiny face and really see her. She was tiny but perfect. She has her big sister's nose, mouth, and chin, but nothing else. She has short blonde peachfuzz for hair and short blonde eyelashes. She looks nothing like her big sister or her dad, I suspect she will grow into her attributes and that right now we are looking at a baby that isn't going to look anything like the one she will become in just a few short months but I also think she will likely have more of my features.
We never found out during the course of my pregnancy what gender the baby was but we just knew all along it was a girl. Likely because (just like my first pregnancy) everyone kept telling us it was a boy. The first time around we believed everyone and also thought it was a boy. Funny thing, we actually never even picked a boy name this time. We knew the whole time that if it was a girl, and likely it was, her name would be Samantha Jayne. In just the last two days she has totally become the "Sam" that we are calling her. Her auntie has already nicknamed her "Samwich".
I am glad that Hayley has a sister, as I grew up with only sisters. I would like to say that I would try for a boy but we decided that two would be enough and well, after this pregnancy I am just not sure that my heart could take another one. We haven't made any totally rash decisions yet- although I debated asking him to tie my tubes while I was on the table- but we are likely done after Sam. We have two beautiful girls and are blessed in many ways.
I will be back later with more to share. The last two days have been jam packed with emotions, so many that I don't know which to share first!
