Owen's Birth Story

Being pregnant was such a crazy rush of emotions all the time. As soon as I found out I was pregnant, I went off my Prevacid and started only using Zantac, which was completely useless in taking care of my reflux. but, there was no other options. I tried every home remedy out there, including apple cider vinegar a tablespoon straight up and one in 2 oz of water. There aren't words to describe how disgusting that is - trust me, don't try it to find out yourself. When it was really bad, it felt like I was choking and Todd would come home from work to find me standing up, watching tv and crying. Since standing up was the most comfortable position, it made sleeping a little tricky! I was exhausted, but luckily did not have anything more than just some basic nausea. We felt pretty strongly the whole time that we were having a boy, so when we had our ultrasound at 20 weeks, we were excited to confirm and share the news with our friends and family. Due to my family's diabetes history, they had me work with a diabetic educator from the start, watching my carbs, and tested me for gestational diabetes early and unfortunately I had it. I limited my carbs and exercised to keep my numbers in check and avoid meds, by the end I could only have 7 grams of carbs per meal or else my blood sugars would go up. I ate a LOT of spinach/chicken salad during the last 4 months!

By the second week in January, my caseload had been transferred to another therapist and we went in for our 38 week check/ultrasound to discuss our options with our midwife. She had initially said that given the gestational diabetes, it would be best to induce early, but at that appointment she said it was our choice. We had been having weekly ultrasounds/non-stress tests for the past month and everything looked fine, but we felt that we should go ahead and induce. Sarah told us to go home and pack up, then check into the hospital that night to start the process.

We had a super sweet nurse, but she herself was pregnant and throwing up, so one of her partners that night was trying to cover her caseload and our nurses' as well. I had a plan for walking the halls after the induction, using my birth ball, using my hypnobabies CDs, but cranky nurse said I needed to stay monitored. Things I know now - stand up for yourself! I thought she knew best and I was worried that maybe they thought Owen would go into distress or something. Really, it just makes their job easier and I know she was overstressed that night, but I could have used the support to use alternate means to manage the contractions. As it was, being stuck in bed left me with flat on my back, side, or up on all fours as my only positions. After 7 hours of contractions, I was still only dilated to a 3 and feeling very stressed by my lack of progress. It was about 3:00 in the morning and we felt that we should call the anesthesiologist to place the epidural so I could sleep. I was having severe cold chills, with my teeth chattering and I couldn't get warm, despite heated blankets and Todd turning up the heat in our room. The anesthesiologist was a bit of a jerk and told us that one wrong move by me could spell disaster so Todd locked his knees while he helped steady me at the edge of the bed. Suddenly, he made a funny noise and fell straight back, almost hitting his head on the counter, smacking it super hard on the floor. The nurse called for help, she and the epidural guy ran to Todd, other nurses came running and they tried to sit him up - he passed out again. When they were able to get him into a wheelchair, he was disoriented, unable to answer questions, and headed out the door to the ER with one of the other nurses. I was so calm through the whole thing, I was shocked and at that point, I wish I would have told the anesthesiologist to hit the road, but instead we went forward with the epidural while he told me horror stories about other dads who had passed out during various stages of delivery, subdural hematomas and people dying from them not being discovered, etc. And, found out later that our nurse NEVER has the dad stabilize the mom for the epidural without sitting in a chair to avoid them locking their knees and passing out. Thanks a lot sub nurse.

Meanwhile, back in the room, I was waiting for news from Todd and stuck in bed, unable to sleep when my water broke at 4:30. Todd came back in the room just before 7:00, on hydrocodone, and still super disoriented. He fell right to sleep and with the changing of shifts, we had the sweetest nurse come on board.