Our second son arrived on March 22, 2014 with about as much drama as he could muster.
My labour started in earnest at 6:30am on Saturday. Dave was going to go to work that day to finish up a few more things on the job he had been working on. He left at about 7am. I didn’t realize that we were truly in labour until about 7:30 when I had counted the last few contractions being 20 minutes apart and consistent. I got up to go to the bathroom and started to leak…my water didn’t fully break, but something was happening and I felt the need to go to the hospital. I called Taz to let her know that Dax would be there in about an hour and then called Dave, who had just arrived at the turn off for the job, to tell him he needed to come home.
By the time Dave got home my contractions were about 7 minutes apart and getting stronger. I had packed up Dax and moved all of the stuff we needed to take to the front door. I was optimistic that we would have a natural birth. Oh so not to be.
When we arrived at the hospital my contractions were about 3 minutes apart. Yes, this happened in about 2 hours. We went up to labour and delivery, and into triage where they decide if you really are in labour or it’s false or if you need to be admitted. With my history and how consistent the contractions were it was determined that Yes I was in labour and needed to be admitted. By the time we were fully admitted and there was a room for us to go into my contractions were about a minute apart and lasting for (oh I don’t know – they hurt like hell and I wasn’t timing things anymore), but they had moved into my back and hips, which I can say is not a pain I can tolerate.
Gas didn’t help at all other than to keep me breathing. During this the nurses were having a hard time retaining the baby’s heart beat and there were a few cases of deceleration of his heart beat, but it came back up and wasn’t a concern, yet.
With the extreme pain in my back and hips I decided that I needed more to help the pain and because I was being constantly monitored a shower wasn’t an option. The call was placed for an epidural as my cervix wasn’t dilating as quickly as my labour was and I knew I couldn’t hold out with the pain.
Just after the epidural took effect the baby’s heart rate dropped alarmingly and the nurse called for the doctor…and actually made an error that probably saved both of our lives. She called for the OR docs too, not just the labour and delivery doc. There were about 8 people in the room when the call was made by all involved that surgery was required. I was rushed into the OR and another c-section was performed.
Here is where things went sideways (well further than needing another c-section). The OR docs found that I was bleeding internally from some ruptured arteries going to my uterus. They also found that my previous incision had started to thin and would likely have split if we had gone through natural labour. They spent about an hour and a half finding and stopping the loss of blood, which was almost 2L. The bleed was into the pocket that holds the ligament which supports your uterus, the broad ligament. This is not an easy to find bleed, but due to the amount of blood they found and were able to repair the problem. Often this is found post-op and a second surgery is required. We got lucky.
Our newest addition arrived at 1:02pm on March 22. He is perfect, there were no issues with him at all… it as all with me. There was even some concern, or oddity with my placenta which got sent off to the lab for further study. I was also told that if we have any more children they will be delivered by c-section, no questions asked or opportunity for regular delivery. Okay not a big deal, we would rather be safe than sorry.
After much prodding and fixing I was sown back up and moved into recovery. Because of the length of the surgery our son’s first meal was formula so he was full and sleepy. I was continually asked about my pain level, which for some reason didn’t seem so bad compared to the last time we went through the surgery. I was hungry and dehydrated (the gas did that), but was told I couldn’t eat anything until I was admitted to the postpartum unit. The nurse that was with us was a little concerned that I would throw everything up, I don’t blame her as she would have had to clean me up as I was pretty useless from the waist down.
There was also some concern about Seth’s (our newest’s) breathing, which to her sounded grunty. The doctors weren’t concerned.
We were admitted to Postpartum Unit at about 5pm and I got to eat some food soon after.
In the first pictures above you will notice how pale, yellow, I look. I continually was asked if I was light-headed, had chest pain or pain anywhere else. This was partly due to the blood loss and partly because of the surgery. I didn’t feel light-headed, but did get a headache and was tired. The headache I couldn’t pin to anything particular until I started to move around and found that when I stood or sat up it got worse. The pain from surgery seemed to be less than I remembered from the first time (or I just knew what to expect and found it easier to deal with).
The first night I slept well, I didn’t get a roommate until around 2am so felt fairly rested by this time. Dave had gone home around 10pm after I was finally able to feed Seth. Feeding Seth was probably the easiest part of our entire process. He seemed to know exactly what was needed and we quickly fell into a nice rhythm of feeding (well except for the 2am feed which he didn’t want to really take). Things seemed to be going well, until my blood pressure and heart rate were checked.
At this point my heart rate (resting) was far higher than the doctors and nurses were happy with, at about 122-164 beats per minute. An adults resting heart rate should be below 100 and usually around 70 or 80 beats per minute. This prompted more questions about feeling dizzy and light-headed, all of which I wasn’t focusing on and seemed to feel fine other than getting tired quickly. There was also the problem of my hemoglobin count kept dropping too and would not stabilize.
To help my heart rate return to normal they fast fed into me a number of bags of saline. Which immediately settled into my feet, legs and hands. It made my joints feel funny when I was walking around, and didn’t really help much with the heart rate issue. By day two in the hospital the docs were not seeing the improvement in my heart rate that they had hoped for and were starting to look for other options to get things to settle. They checked my heart to make sure that there were no abnormalities, which there weren’t, and finally suggested a blood transfusion. I consented to this and received two units of blood. This seemed to settle things out and the doctors were now happy to sign for my release.
This would have been great, but now Seth had fallen into percentile for weight loss that the doctors looking after him were not comfortable with, so we remained one more night in the hospital, during which he was weighed and found to be gaining weight. We were released the following day.
Now I am not telling this story to freak expectant parents out or even to scare people away from having children. The purpose for telling this store is to say that there are some things in life that you can completely control. There are others that you have a little control over, and still others that you have absolutely no control.
Having children is a choice, how they arrive…well, you can try to manage that, but ultimately they will arrive when and how they want to. Having panic over some of the more traumatic things that can happen is in my opinion unproductive. The nurses and doctors did exactly what I expected and trusted them to do to make sure that both my child and I made it through delivery and could go home in good condition. I commend everyone who was a part of Seth’s delivery for doing what they were trained to do. They in return were amazed at how relaxed and calm I was through the entire ordeal.
Again there are things that you can control, and things you can’t. I have learned through my experiences in child birth that it’s one of those things that you really can’t control. While we wanted to have a natural, limited pain meds birth for our second child, it was not meant to be, and in the end could have caused great harm to both of us.
I am happy to say that as I write this Seth is sleeping contently, gaining weight and happy. I am healing well and starting to feel like my old self… getting my body back too.
I would gladly go through the same thing again, in exactly the same way just to have our healthy baby boy.
The Adams-Schlag Family 