birth of a ninja
I keep trying to type this out so I have an answer for "What the hell happened to you?" Unfortunately, I keep falling asleep in front of the computer. Doh. I'm also typing this out so I can hold it over Paddie's head if he's ever being a brat.
So, what the hell happened to you? (warning: gory details ahead.)
Sunday
We decided to induce the ninja after waiting two weeks past his due date. My mom had to have my brother induced. No problem, she says. I was in in the morning, and had a baby by lunchtime. Everyone else gives us similar stories. Hey, if you have to, its a good way to go. Not even a problem.
We get to the hospital, get ourselves checked in, checked out, and started with an IV of Pitocin. And then we waited. Four hours later, it's lunchtime, and we got nothin. There are contractions, but they weren't much stronger than the Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been having for weeks. Doc recommends a catheter-thing to see if that will help get the cervix to open up a little faster. Ten minutes, and a lot of swearing later, we gave up on that idea.
We kept the Pitocin going. Don't worry, the nurse says. Sometimes this can take 24 hours. 24 hours?! Ai.yi-yi. Still no pain, other than a sore cervix from where everybody's been poking it. At eleven, there's good news and bad news. The good news-- We're up to three measly cm! We get to move to the nice/larger delivery room! The bad news: they're stopping the Pitocin. Time to give the little ninja a break. Or who knows, you might stay in labor on your own.
That doesn't happen.
In the meantime, our friends the Batmans are in the delivery room down the hall. Jen had gone into labor on her own, and they had come in about an hour before us. Woo hoo! It was a race between the ninja and Milo for a while, and then Milo beat the pants off of us. Still, what are the odds, eh?
Monday:
More Pitocin. More contractions. One of the docs managed to get the catheter in by using Fentanyl. This has no effect on the catheter, but it made me good and high for a little while. They finally broke the water in the afternoon, and then things finally stated picking up. YES! After a few hours, the contractions were really starting to suck, but it was better than sitting around and waiting for something to happen in between pokes to the cervix. I asked for the epidural after dinner, which made things a lot better..
Well, mostly it did. There was one part of my pelvis that simply would not take the medicine. Instead of feeling the contraction all across the belly, it was instead concentrated in one agonizing spot. Bu the time the doc got enough happy juice in there to deaden the pain, I couldn't move my legs at all. Oops. This is especially fun when you're connecting to ten different machines and the nurses need you to change sides from time to time. They ended up havng to flip me like a big dead weight pancake. At one point, II had two straps across my belly for the fetal monitor, a catheter, an epidural in the back, an IV on one arm and a blood pressure monitor on the other. They didn't look amused when I reminded them I might have an extra spot in my left arm somewhere.
The Ground Control feed also made things a lot better. I couldn't see too well, but I got to hear most everybody, and just about died laughing when i heard Crickett and PBC singing "Push It." (I understand there are now actual lyrics to "50 Ways to Leave Your Mother", which I had to ask Coleman to stop reading because they hurt my stitches laughing.)
At one point, I nodded off for a few minutes, and woke up surrounded by ten people shoving a mask in my face yelling "BREATHE!" Oh shit. What the hell is going on? Everything is fine, they say. Now. At the last contraction, the ninja's heart rate dropped. Everyone flipped out for a few minutes, and now I get a new oxygen tube. That''ll teach me to go to sleep.
Over the next few hours, we got into a pattern. Contraction. Ninja's heart drops. Docs freak out and turn off the Pitocin. Ninja returns to normal three minutes later. Contractions stop. Docs turn the Pitocin back on. Contraction. Ninja heart rate drops. Repeat. About three in the morning, we finally convinced Doc Brock to just leave the Pitocin alone and let the ninja do his thing.
Tuesday
So we've been at the hospital for 48 hours. *twitch* The good news, we're finally finally dilated enought to start with the pushing. YES! The bad news is, the ninja is facing the wrong way. Normally a baby comes out with his face toward mom's back, but in some cases, he'll come out facing forward instead. The nurses were calling this "sunny side up", which I'm guessing is kinder than saying "Lady, you are so screwed." To get out, the kid has to do an extra manuever to duck under the bones in the pelvis, which puts a ton of pressure on Mom's spine when the contractions hit. If the doc has dialed down the epidural so you can finally feel your legs again and can push, this feels like you're about to die.
So there we were. After an hour of pushing, we were in a dilemma.. If I pushed any more, I was going to pass out. If I didn't push, the ninja's heart rate would keep dropping. Enter: the Suction Cup. Yes, I'm serious. The doc can stick a giant suction cup on the baby's head and pull to give mom a little help. Ninja are impervious to suction cups. What's a suction cup when you have bear claws to stick to the side of the womb?
Time for the c-section. Crap. Just what I'd wanted to avoid, tho if I'd known that everything that could go wrong with this birth would, I would have just scheduled it. I wasn't thinking really clearly, but I think I counted 16 people in the delivery room: the doctor, his resident, several nurses, the anesthesiologist, his assistants, the OR techs, a couple of pediatric doctors (just in case), some medical students who heard the crazy lady that's been in labor for 48 hours is finally delivering, and Coleman.
The C-section wasn't actually too bad. I was a little out of it, but they loaded the epidural with a cocktail of happy juice so I couldn't feel anything south of my lungs. Coleman sat by my head trying to get me to not panic by talking about Mt. Fuji, and then the anesthesiologist popped his head over the curtain to announce the head was out. "WHAT?!" That was quick.
A few tugs later, we finally heard a little gurgly noise and a thin WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. It's a ninja! FINALLY! I've never been so glad to hear a crying baby, ever.
It actually took them longer to put me back together than it did to get the ninja out, so I watched the pediatric docs fussing over him while the rest of the team put my guts back where they're supposed to go. Coleman got to cut the umbilical cord-- or at least, cut it shorter; we were already officially disconnected. One of the nurses took some pictures.
I didn't get to hold him right away, since I was shaking so much I was afraid I was going to pop one of the dozen fresh staples in my guts. Depending on which nurse you talked to, it was either stress/hormones/anesthetic/exhaustion or some combination of everything in the last 53 hours. Still, we ended up with this little guy:
Patrick James Coleman
finally born July 13, 2010 at 1.06pm
8lbs, 10oz, 22" long
STR: 2
DEX: 0
INT: unk
CON: 10
CHAR: 18
And now the real adventure begins. :D
So, what the hell happened to you? (warning: gory details ahead.)
Sunday
We decided to induce the ninja after waiting two weeks past his due date. My mom had to have my brother induced. No problem, she says. I was in in the morning, and had a baby by lunchtime. Everyone else gives us similar stories. Hey, if you have to, its a good way to go. Not even a problem.
We get to the hospital, get ourselves checked in, checked out, and started with an IV of Pitocin. And then we waited. Four hours later, it's lunchtime, and we got nothin. There are contractions, but they weren't much stronger than the Braxton-Hicks contractions I'd been having for weeks. Doc recommends a catheter-thing to see if that will help get the cervix to open up a little faster. Ten minutes, and a lot of swearing later, we gave up on that idea.
We kept the Pitocin going. Don't worry, the nurse says. Sometimes this can take 24 hours. 24 hours?! Ai.yi-yi. Still no pain, other than a sore cervix from where everybody's been poking it. At eleven, there's good news and bad news. The good news-- We're up to three measly cm! We get to move to the nice/larger delivery room! The bad news: they're stopping the Pitocin. Time to give the little ninja a break. Or who knows, you might stay in labor on your own.
That doesn't happen.
In the meantime, our friends the Batmans are in the delivery room down the hall. Jen had gone into labor on her own, and they had come in about an hour before us. Woo hoo! It was a race between the ninja and Milo for a while, and then Milo beat the pants off of us. Still, what are the odds, eh?
Monday:
More Pitocin. More contractions. One of the docs managed to get the catheter in by using Fentanyl. This has no effect on the catheter, but it made me good and high for a little while. They finally broke the water in the afternoon, and then things finally stated picking up. YES! After a few hours, the contractions were really starting to suck, but it was better than sitting around and waiting for something to happen in between pokes to the cervix. I asked for the epidural after dinner, which made things a lot better..
Well, mostly it did. There was one part of my pelvis that simply would not take the medicine. Instead of feeling the contraction all across the belly, it was instead concentrated in one agonizing spot. Bu the time the doc got enough happy juice in there to deaden the pain, I couldn't move my legs at all. Oops. This is especially fun when you're connecting to ten different machines and the nurses need you to change sides from time to time. They ended up havng to flip me like a big dead weight pancake. At one point, II had two straps across my belly for the fetal monitor, a catheter, an epidural in the back, an IV on one arm and a blood pressure monitor on the other. They didn't look amused when I reminded them I might have an extra spot in my left arm somewhere.
The Ground Control feed also made things a lot better. I couldn't see too well, but I got to hear most everybody, and just about died laughing when i heard Crickett and PBC singing "Push It." (I understand there are now actual lyrics to "50 Ways to Leave Your Mother", which I had to ask Coleman to stop reading because they hurt my stitches laughing.)
At one point, I nodded off for a few minutes, and woke up surrounded by ten people shoving a mask in my face yelling "BREATHE!" Oh shit. What the hell is going on? Everything is fine, they say. Now. At the last contraction, the ninja's heart rate dropped. Everyone flipped out for a few minutes, and now I get a new oxygen tube. That''ll teach me to go to sleep.
Over the next few hours, we got into a pattern. Contraction. Ninja's heart drops. Docs freak out and turn off the Pitocin. Ninja returns to normal three minutes later. Contractions stop. Docs turn the Pitocin back on. Contraction. Ninja heart rate drops. Repeat. About three in the morning, we finally convinced Doc Brock to just leave the Pitocin alone and let the ninja do his thing.
Tuesday
So we've been at the hospital for 48 hours. *twitch* The good news, we're finally finally dilated enought to start with the pushing. YES! The bad news is, the ninja is facing the wrong way. Normally a baby comes out with his face toward mom's back, but in some cases, he'll come out facing forward instead. The nurses were calling this "sunny side up", which I'm guessing is kinder than saying "Lady, you are so screwed." To get out, the kid has to do an extra manuever to duck under the bones in the pelvis, which puts a ton of pressure on Mom's spine when the contractions hit. If the doc has dialed down the epidural so you can finally feel your legs again and can push, this feels like you're about to die.
So there we were. After an hour of pushing, we were in a dilemma.. If I pushed any more, I was going to pass out. If I didn't push, the ninja's heart rate would keep dropping. Enter: the Suction Cup. Yes, I'm serious. The doc can stick a giant suction cup on the baby's head and pull to give mom a little help. Ninja are impervious to suction cups. What's a suction cup when you have bear claws to stick to the side of the womb?
Time for the c-section. Crap. Just what I'd wanted to avoid, tho if I'd known that everything that could go wrong with this birth would, I would have just scheduled it. I wasn't thinking really clearly, but I think I counted 16 people in the delivery room: the doctor, his resident, several nurses, the anesthesiologist, his assistants, the OR techs, a couple of pediatric doctors (just in case), some medical students who heard the crazy lady that's been in labor for 48 hours is finally delivering, and Coleman.
The C-section wasn't actually too bad. I was a little out of it, but they loaded the epidural with a cocktail of happy juice so I couldn't feel anything south of my lungs. Coleman sat by my head trying to get me to not panic by talking about Mt. Fuji, and then the anesthesiologist popped his head over the curtain to announce the head was out. "WHAT?!" That was quick.
A few tugs later, we finally heard a little gurgly noise and a thin WAAAAAAAAAAAAAH. It's a ninja! FINALLY! I've never been so glad to hear a crying baby, ever.
It actually took them longer to put me back together than it did to get the ninja out, so I watched the pediatric docs fussing over him while the rest of the team put my guts back where they're supposed to go. Coleman got to cut the umbilical cord-- or at least, cut it shorter; we were already officially disconnected. One of the nurses took some pictures.
I didn't get to hold him right away, since I was shaking so much I was afraid I was going to pop one of the dozen fresh staples in my guts. Depending on which nurse you talked to, it was either stress/hormones/anesthetic/exhaustion or some combination of everything in the last 53 hours. Still, we ended up with this little guy:
Patrick James Coleman
finally born July 13, 2010 at 1.06pm
8lbs, 10oz, 22" long
STR: 2
DEX: 0
INT: unk
CON: 10
CHAR: 18
And now the real adventure begins. :D