First I want to say – William is born! It is a miracle! The gift of a new life to a family is incomprehensible and indescribable. That being said, as promised in my birth announcement email, I am going to attempt to chronicle William’s birth and first week of life outside of the womb. It seems all kind of fuzzy now. Amazingly it is almost a month ago, but yet some of it seems like just yesterday. It’s a long story, so here we go.
You know what they say about best laid plans…
We had much anticipation and planning done for William’s birth day. Amy had read all the books and wrote a nice big birth plan. We had gone to the OBs and as Amy was showing signs of preparation for baby’s arrival we thought it was going to be early. For some reason I had thought it in my mind that it was going to be November 3rd since the first or second month of the pregnancy. Well November 3rd came and went…
On November 7th, our OB decided if William had not come by the 14th they were going to induce. So we knew the end of the pregnancy was coming one way or another. In Amy’s birth plan, she did NOT want to get pitocin, the medicine most commonly used to induce. So we prayed that William would come on time to avoid the need for pitocin. Well sure enough, on Saturday contractions began. They weren’t well established until Sunday at 10:00pm, so that’s when labor finally really began.
The morning of Monday the 13th, as Amy wrote in our previous blog entry, the OB said we may make it with a natural child birth before any induction was needed. By around 10:30pm, after about a day of strong contractions, we prayed and asked God to give us wisdom on how to proceed as I was getting concerned about Amy going through another night like Sunday night where she was only sleeping about 5-6 minutes at a time between contractions. It seemed clear to us that it was time to go to the hospital. We called our moms and my mom beat us to the hospital from Annapolis and Amy’s mom followed shortly thereafter.
Things continued to progress normally through Tuesday early, early morning, Although, as the pain increased, Amy’s next birth plan preference was quickly passing – her desire not to have an epidural. This lead to several other preferences that were quickly overruled, including being mobile, not having an IV, and minimal fetal monitoring.
After the anesthesiologist got the epidural all set up, Amy’s water broke. That’s when things got a little crazy. After several hours had passed with contractions that were fairly consistent, her contractions become very strong. Which is a good thing, right? Usually… Except in this situation, William’s heart started going into tachycardia, which means his heart rate was shooting way up dangerously high with each contraction. Quickly the nurses brought in a medication to slow things down. At this point Amy started shaking really, really bad. (NOTE to soon-to-be-dads: they say this is “common”. It would have been great to have known that. It was pretty scary!)
Well, remember her desire not to have pitocin? It was back in play. Amy was having decelerations – time when her contractions would slow down and get irregular again. So the medical staff decided it was time to try pitocin to get her going again. So, contractions returned to a more regular interval and strength. The nurses also decided it was time to start pushing. William was engaged at -1, which meant he was in the birth canal and just had to descend. The OB reduced the amount of epidural Amy was receiving so she could feel the contractions and begin pushing. This was extremely painful for her. TWO hours later, William was making little progress even though Amy was doing a great job of pushing!
Slowly William’s heart rate increased and was outside the norm. And then again, he went back into tachycardia during contractions. So we were back to the other medication to slow things down again. The doctor finally popped in and made her assessment. As she was walking out she said quietly to me that she thought it may be time to do a C-section. Next thing we know a nurse comes in to prepare Amy for the surgery. She really didn’t know what was going on, but she looked over at me, and I tried to reassure her that this was the best and really our only option. It was REALLY hard, because I know how much she didn’t want to have a C-section and how much she had already been through. It was past the 39th hour of labor! Also sometime during all this, Amy’s temperature shot up to 103 degrees. I have no idea when, things were starting to get real fuzzy from all the complications and lack of sleep.
In faith, we moved forward. I don’t remember much of this time except for changing into scrubs and getting ready to go in with her. We prayed, and at this point I think my mind stopped and my soul took over and I could just pray, “God help us.” That’s all I had at that time. It was all I needed though. Our sovereign, omniscient Lord knew all that was on my heart and what was happening with Amy and the baby.
As we got into the OR, immediately we saw more of Amy’s birth plan going out the window. Even the smallest details, like Amy not wanting her arms strapped down for the surgery were not going according to our plan. She was shaking so bad from the fever and exhaustion that they had to do it. It was very difficult to see that happen – it was such a small detail in the larger scope of things, but it reminded me how much we are at God’s mercy in this life. She was totally helpless on the operating table. Numb from the chest down and strapped in, in the hands of surgeons now, being directed by the Great Physician. Again, I prayed, “God help us.” And he did.
About 10 minutes after the initial incision, I heard a loud cry. Through teary eyes I looked over the sheet that protected the surgical field and blocked our vision as the doctor lifted our son for us to see. It was amazing. Can’t explain it, like nothing else I have ever experienced. This new life to love was finally outside of Amy. And more importantly, this ordeal that was now threatening Amy’s life was beginning to come to a conclusion.
I was able to watch William be weighed in and they gave them to me to hold. I immediately brought him to Amy and tried to hold him up for her to see before she passed out from exhaustion. We both shed tears of joy, thanking God for what he had done. It was really a challenge for me to be the first to hold him, Amy wanted to hold him immediately, and was not able. Strapped to a table, immobilized by medication, she could only look. Quickly I gave him back to the medical staff to finish their initial care of him. Since Amy’s temperature shot up during labor, it was assumed he had an infection. One other complication was that there was meconium present in the amniotic fluid, so there was a fear that he would have inhaled some of it due to the infection. Infections can cause gasping in utero and upon delivery. Thankfully, it seemed like he was breathing well. He got a very high Apgar score, a measurement of the baby’s initial health (one thing went ‘right!’).
This was the first day of a tough week at the hospital for both Amy and William…
to be continued…
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