Samuel

Sammy arrived on March 4, 2010! He will be three weeks old on Thursday, March 25th. Here is his birth story.

Sammy was due on February 25th (actually, he was due anywhere between Feb. 21 - 26th according to the various dates I was given over my pregnancy). Since Max was a week early, I was hoping Sammy would follow suit. When he didn't, I found myself feeling WAAAY overdue by his actual due date. I had two hopes for this birth. First, I wanted to try for a VBAC (Vaginal Birth After Cesarean). If you've never tried to accomplish this in today's medical climate, I assure you, it is challenging to say the least. I don't even mean the actual act of having a VBAC. I just mean getting a doctor to agree to allow you to try it. Most doctors in this area are very gun-shy about VBAC's. I've been told, "No one sues for a 2nd c-section, but if anything goes wrong with a VBAC, doctors are much more likely to get sued." I even changed practitioners about half way through my pregnancy to a midwifery practice that was more supportive of my desire to have a VBAC. Second, I wanted to go into labor on my own and experience what contractions really feel like. Yes, I really wanted to know!! With Max I never felt any contractions because the minute the doctor determined my water had broken, I was prepped for a c-section since Max was breech.

I am happy to say that I got both of my wishes. I TRIED for a VBAC and I definitely got to experience what contractions felt like! Sammy was almost a week late and I had a day and a half left to go into labor on my own before being induced Friday, March 5th. I had heard about using Castor oil to get contractions started, but I was scared of the side effects (severe cramping, bathroom issues and possibly vomiting), so I put it off hoping that Sammy would arrive without prompting. When Wednesday, March 3rd arrived, I decided to just go for it and I drank two 2 oz. bottles of Castor oil (one bottle mixed with Sunkist orange soda, then "chased" by a cup of warm tea.) I took them about 6 hours apart. Around 9 Wednesday night I started having some mild contractions - I wasn't even sure that's what I was experiencing. My in-laws were here and we all went to bed at a decent hour in case the big event was imminent. About an hour later, I woke up with slightly more uncomfortable contractions. It was about 11:45 p.m. The house was quiet and I intended to stay home for as long as possible to avoid being laid up in bed at the hospital. I didn't wake anyone and decided to e-mail a few people to pass the time. In the span of about 10 minutes, my contractions got so strong that I couldn't e-mail and I just walked around and around the main level of the house trying to get through the pain. I finally decided I needed company, so I woke Matt up and by the time he was alert, I was ready to throw my plan to stay at home out the window and get to the hospital.

When we got there around 12:30 or 1 a.m. I was 5-6 cm. dilated. My dad rushed to the hospital as soon as he heard we were on our way. I was pretty sure I'd get an epidural at some point, but I envisioned myself having hours to roam the halls, every once in a while stopping to allow a contraction to pass. The rest of the time, I thought Matt could talk me through everything using the relaxation scripts I provided to him in my Bradley Method book. Instead, I found myself clinging to the bed rail to get through the pain and begging for an epidural and blessing the person who invented them the minute we arrived. They couldn't get my epidural in fast enough, in my opinion. Once the epidural was in, they checked me again and I was 9.5 cm! My dad got to sit in the room with us for a little while and once I was that far along he decided he'd go to the waiting room for the rest of the time. What seemed like a split-second later, I was desperate for a Popsicle. The nurse came in the room with one for me, took a look at the monitor and yanked me over to my side by my arm. Evidently either my blood pressure was high or Sammy's heart rate was too low. I didn't know what was happening, but all I knew was that Popsicle was about 3 feet away from me and they wouldn't let me have it. They quickly put an oxygen mask on me and soon after were telling me it was time to push. I pushed about 6 times and they told me that Sammy's heart rate was going too low and they'd let me try a few more times and then it was c-section city. I pushed 3 more times and they said I was doing well, but his head wasn't coming down at all. They mentioned a vacuum and forceps and I quickly decided I'd rather have a c-section than have Sammy's head yanked on for dear life. They basically said a c-section was the only option then anyway. I was okay with that decision, but I was bummed because when I was pushing it was about 3 or 4 a.m. and I figured there was a good chance he'd be born by about 7 a.m. and I could order pancakes from room service for breakfast! Some people may use the motivation of seeing the beautiful face of their baby as motivation to keep pushing. For me it was pancakes!! So when I realized I'd be having a c-section, my main thought was, "Man, there goes my pancake breakfast!" When you have a c-section you can't eat for several hours to a day or so after the procedure.

I had a previous c-section and found it to be very easy to experience and recover from, so I wasn't very nervous at all. However, once they started it seemed like it took a lot longer than my first c-section. I couldn't feel any pain, but I could feel tons of pressure and it really felt like people were up on the table punching my stomach for the longest time. I didn't know why it was taking so long. How hard is it to pull a baby out? Time was hard to gauge in my medicated state, so I thought I was imagining how long it was taking. Then I thought it was taking an extraordinarily long time for them to bring Sammy to me, also because of my inability to gauge time. Later I saw the medical summary of the procedure and it stated that it was an "urgent c-section" with a "difficult delivery" and Sammy was in the "footling breech position". Evidently he flipped around at the last minute and they had a hard time grabbing him. It wasn't my imagination that I felt like I was being beat up. Sammy weighed in at 10 lbs 6 oz! He was born at 5:50 a.m..

The first time I saw him, they wheeled him past me in an isolette (or was it an incubator?). They took him to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, where he stayed for 5 days. When he was born he had fluid in his lungs and his breathing rate was very high (80-100 breaths per minute instead of the 40-60 it should have been). I was told that when babies come through the birth canal, the pressure often squeezes fluid out of their lungs, but babies born from a c-section don't get the benefits of that pressure, so that's probably where the fluid came from. They had to treat him with antibiotics every few hours for 5 days to make sure he didn't develop pneumonia. When they wheeled my bed to the NICU to see him after I had been patched up, his head was under a square plastic thing that provided oxygen to him and his arm was taped to a splint and he had an IV in his hand and lots of wires on his chest. It was hard to see him like that, but I tried to keep it together and really listen to what the neonatologist and nurses were telling me and not to get scared by the fact that he was in the NICU. What I heard them saying was that he was going to be okay relatively soon and that he was going to be staying at that hospital, not transported somewhere else. As long as I was able to go see him whenever I wanted to and I knew his issues were most-likely short term, I was able to hold it together. In the last few years I've known several people whose children were born very prematurely and had to stay in the NICU for months on end. I thought of those parents when I was hearing what the problems were with Sammy and I knew that, while it wasn't ideal, everything was going to be okay. I knew if those parents could make it for months and months, I could do it for a few days.

After seeing Sammy briefly, I went to my new home-away-from-home, room 1110. I really wanted to be able to go down and see Sammy whenever I wanted to, and to do that I had to be able to get from my bed into a wheelchair, which meant I had to regain feeling in my legs after my epidural. All of the nurses were amazed at how quickly I was up and around. I was waiting for feeling in my legs and as soon as I was able, I was out of that bed and down in the NICU. Later that day I was walking! As an aside, I need to mention what an awesome husband I have! Matt went home for a bit Thursday evening, and when he returned, what did he have with him? A big stack of pancakes from IHOP!!!! I got my pancakes after all!!

I really wanted to nurse Sammy, so around 8 p.m. on his birth day, I got to! Nursing was a challenge for the next day or so as my milk hadn't come in yet and I was trying to stay with the NICU's schedule of feeding every three hours. Sammy was famished. I eventually supplemented with formula (Gasp!! I don't think a drop of formula ever touched Max's lips the whole 18 months I nursed him!). I hated to do that, but with him being away from me and the fact that my milk hadn't come in, I felt like I had to do it. The funny thing was that I was "busted" by one of the lactation consultants the minute I gave him formula. I am very pro-breastfeeding, but she didn't know that and I could see her panicking a little thinking this was the "gateway drug" of moving on to full-fledged formula use. I got to know all three lactation consultants VERY well and they were all very helpful. My milk eventually showed up and I think we all relaxed a little. I can see why many people decide to formula-feed, though. I actually let Matt go down and do the midnight and 3 a.m. feeding twice and it was awesome to be able to sleep. He enjoyed the bonding time as well.

By Saturday, Sammy was breathing much better and they started weaning him off of his IV's and supplemental oxygen. Sunday they decided they could speed up his antibiotic doses so he could be release Monday night with me instead of Tuesday. They really wanted to be able to keep us together since I was nursing. Monday night we were both released and by 10 p.m. we were home to move on with our lives!! Max and Sammy didn't meet until the next morning since children under 13 weren't allowed in the NICU. That was also a difficult part of the NICU experience, but I knew that at Max's age he didn't really know what he was missing and he'd be excited no matter when they met.

The kids are waking up from their naps, so that's Sammy's birth story for now!