As I had stated in a prior entry we had discovered that our baby was in the frank breech presentation and had scheduled a version for 2/25 pending the results of at our appointment on 2/24. I spent that week standing on my head, doing pelvic tilts, watching TV on all fours, playing music to my crotch to “coax baby down,” blaring Miley Cyrus at the top of my stomach hoping to scare baby down to the right position, I tried everything! We went back for our follow up appointment on the 24th and found out that he had not flipped and remained in the breech position. This meant the cephalic version was on for the following morning, Friday, February 25th at 8:00 A.M.
Friday morning we woke up to 3 – 4 inches of heavy wet snow covering the ground, we have a steep driveway so this meant getting out could be difficult. We rushed to get ready and packed the car with anything we might need should anything go wrong with the version. I had a gut feeling and needed to bring all the necessities “just in case.” Joel thought I was crazy because he wasn’t considering it a possibility that anything would go wrong and that we might have a baby that day. After three unsuccessful attempts of getting out of the driveway, I broke down in tears at the wheel and went back into the house, defeated. Joel got into the driver’s seat with a feeling of “Oh we’re making this appointment!” and made six more attempts to get out and finally after saying to himself “God please help me get this car out of this driveway,” he got out!
It took us forever to get to the hospital because the road was so snow covered and it was still coming down very heavily. I don’t think we were able to go faster than 35mph the whole way. I called ahead to the Woman’s Health office to let them know we were on our way but that we would be about 20 minutes late.
When we arrived we first went to the Women’s Health clinic as I assumed this is where the appointment would be, however it was actually scheduled to take place over in the birthing center. We finally got up to the right place and I was asked to change into a gown and get into the bed in the labor/delivery room. The nurse hooked me up to a fetal heart rate monitor and a contraction monitor so they could get a baseline read of how both myself and baby were doing before performing the cephalic version to manually flip baby boy from the frank breech presentation to the appropriate head down presentation required for a normal vaginal birth. After an hour of monitoring baby’s heart rate and any contractions I might be having two things happened: 1.) It was discovered that I was having very regular contractions. This lead the doctor to have the nurse start an IV to give me some fluids in an effort to stop the contractions as they believe they’re likely being caused by slight dehydration. 2.) Baby thought it would be a good idea to step on or lean on his umbilical cord making his heart rate drop from 135 to 60 bpm causing multiple nurses and the doctor to rush in. One of the nurses repositioned me while another nurse moved the heart rate monitor around to try to find baby’s heart beat during what felt like the longest minute or two of my life, baby’s heart beat was found and it returned back to a normal rate.
Due to #2, the doctor wanted me to be on the monitors for another hour or so to make sure baby boy was stable and not going to do that again before attempting the version. She also checked me at this point and found that I was 70% effaced but my cervix was still closed. After about two hours or so, the doctor came back in, saw that we had remained stable and decided to go forward with the version. Using an ultrasound machine she determined the best approach and began pressing on the lower part of my stomach to try to dislodge baby’s bottom from my pelvis. After several attempts, were she used quite a lot of force, she was unable to get his butt out of my pelvis. It wasn’t painful at all for me, I could feel her using a lot of force and I could feel that baby was not budging an inch. The contractions were pulling his butt down and it was engaging my cervix the same way his head would have.
The version was ruled as unsuccessful, which meant it was time to talk about a new plan. We decided we would schedule a c-section for 40 weeks to try to give baby a chance to flip around to the right position. Neither Joel or I were thrilled about this, but we agreed and decided I would just keep doing exercises and various things to try to get him to flip. Before the doctor left she checked the print out from my contraction monitor and noticed that I had continued to have strong consistent contractions at 2 to 3 minutes apart despite being given the full bag of IV fluids. She checked my cervix again and noted that I was now 100% effaced and a little over 1cm dilated. I needed to stay for an hour after the attempted version to make sure baby was still stable, they hung another bag of IV fluids to continue to try to get the contractions to stop and at this point the doctor commented that if the contractions kept this up we may be having a baby today! After another hour the contractions had not let up and the doctor began talking about the serious possibility of a c-section happening that day. We requested to wait another hour to see if the contractions would slow and give us a shot at attempting another version the following week, she agreed but let us know that she didn’t believe they were going to stop and that the OR was all ready for us as you are required to have an OR prepped and ready any time you perform a version because of the possibility of the baby going into distress making an emergency c-section necessary. They also hung another bag of IV fluids to continue the effort of getting the contractions to stop, which after the hour had passed they had only intensified and become more regular. The doctor came in and said “this baby is sealing his own fate. Looks like you’re having your baby today.”
At this point the doctor had the nurse draw my blood and fill out all necessary paper work to be admitted. Joel was very nervous at this point because now it was actually happening. He ran down to the car to bring our stuff up, namely my camera so he could take pictures of the whole process. This is a section that Joel wrote:
“We got prepped for C-Section and I ran to the car to get our stuff. Nervously (and trying to not miss anything...so running) after getting the stuff out the car I ran into the wrong Bassett building and went to the 3rd floor which I though would dump me out to the birthing center however I saw offices! Quickly I muttered to the first person I saw "Where’s the BIRTHING CENTER!" She got back into the elevator and said ill show you, and she had this long cart that you push mail in. We got to the first floor and I said "which way again" (Knowing she did not tell me but that cart would have made us take forever), she told me which direction and I ran. I got to the section she was talking about and I heard a "DING" sound elevators make and so I got onto it. Would end you know it dumped me into the back section of the birthing section which did not look the same and so I ran to the first person at the desk and said "BIRTHING CENTER WHERE THE HECK IS IT!" The person told me and I got back onto the elevator and went to the 1st floor went around to the other side of the elevator and finally got back to the birthing center. (BTW all of that happened in about 7 minutes). Ok I got back in the room and did not miss any of the consultation stuff we prepped for a C-Section and were on our way.”
At 3:30 P.M. they wheeled me down to the OR, Joel got all scrubbed up (see italic below for Joel’s point of view) while they prepped me. I had been strangely calm through the whole day and only got nervous as I was wheeled into the OR and they were explaining to me how everything was going to go down. I told them I had never had surgery before and that the epidural made me the most nervous. They really took their time explaining everything to me in detail which helped so much. I will also say that the Bradley birthing classes helped a lot because I was able to use some of the techniques to keep myself still during the version and during the epidural. The epidural itself was not even close to what I had worked it up to be. It was just a little pinch and then pressure, just like they said it would be. It was really weird not being able to move anything and I didn’t like that it felt like it was hard to breath towards the middle of the surgery because I’m so small it numbed me from the top of my boobs down, but I could still move my arms.
“I was so nervous and fidgety that when I put on my pants (the scrubs they gave me) I ripped both the jaw strings off trying to tie a knot; Christina was AMAZING and so calm. We went to the OR and I waited for them to do the epidural as I waited I took a nervous and so excited picture of myself. I got called in and they were all set to go, I held Christina’s hand and told her how incredible she was for being so calm in such extraordinary circumstances.”
After they had me all hooked up, Joel was allowed in the OR and sat on a stool next to my head on my right side. He was allowed to look over the curtain if he wanted, but I was not. I asked if they could video tape it so I could watch it later but for legal reasons they’re not allowed to. Bummer! I really wish I could watch it! The c-section itself only took about 15 minutes. A nurse told Joel that she would let him know when to get the camera ready to get a picture of them pulling Alex out. I was shocked because it felt like they had just started and then they said “Okay, here comes the baby!” Joel stood up and watched our son come into the world.
Here is Joel’s view:
“I stood up and watched our son come into the world. I fist saw a blue bum coming out and He came out doing his cannonball into the world! I was so excited I told Christina "HIS BUTT IS OUT!" This his legs shot out like they were spring loaded. I told Christina "OMG HIS FEET NOW" I looked back at her and she was so excited. I looked back at Alex and his head that he had been giving mom so much pain was wedged under her ribs so deep that they actually had to rotate baby Alex to get the head out. When I saw this I exclaimed "HIS HEAD IS OUT!" with tears in my eyes I gave her a facemask kiss and told her I loved her. He immediately started crying and they held him up and I quick snapped a photo. He was blue when I saw him and then turned red within just a short while. They laid him on the table right next to us and wiped him up. They then gave him to me to bring over to Christina and he held both my hand and Christina’s.”
After they cleaned Alex up a bit Joel was able to bring him over to me and put him on the table by my head. They unhooked my arms so I could touch him and say hello for the first time face to face. I can’t explain that feeling but it was amazing. Joel asked what I thought we should name him and we both agreed on Solon Alexander as soon as we saw his sweet little face. The anesthesiologist offered to take some pictures for us and Joel pulled my hand up to Alex’s hand and all three of us held hands for the first time.
Joel’s view:
“They then gave him to me to bring over to Christina and he held both my hand and Christina’s. We got a few pictures that the anesthesiologist took and I’m sure even if they are terrible pictures of the 2 of us they will be some of the most cherished. After we got the pictures it was off to the cleaning I kissed Christina once again and I went with our little baby Alex.”
At this point Joel went with Alex while the surgeons began sewing me up. I remember the surgeons looking at me over the curtain and telling me how great I did and I replied “You did all the work! I just laid here!” The one surgeon (who was our doctor throughout the full day, the same one who tried to do the version) told me she was taking her time since we weren’t in a rush at all and was going to do a special stitch to give me the best chance of being able to do a VBAC, especially considering that I had been a perfect candidate for natural vaginal birth. I was away from Alex and Joel for about an hour total with the closing and recovery time. During that time Joel was kept trying to get the nurses to let him bring Alex down to me because he felt so bad that I wasn’t getting to spend time with him right away. Here is his view:
“We took the elevator up to the birthing unit and told the nurse we were doing the Bradley method and we wanted everything to be natural and since that was out the door we were going to try to do it as close to as possible. They were awesome about accommodating us and our nurse fought to make it so that the first thing the baby had was breastfeeding. None of this sugar water crap or formula. His Glucose was low so we had to keep up his temperature so he did not get formula (apparently when babies get cold and there core temp drops there glucose goes down also. during the measuring Alex would cry and I would speak to him and say "Alex its ok, Dad is here" and he would stop crying and start crying again when I would stop talking. I told the nurse originally it was to go that as soon as the baby came out he was to be put on Christina’s chest for nursing and skin to skin contact I tried to convince her to take just the baby down to Christina to nurse and have that skin to skin contact but she said a really nice "no way." Since that was not happening I would do the skin to skin contact. She agreed that it was fine and we went to the room, which now was filled with Christina’s mom, dad & sisters. I took off my shirt and waited for Christina to get back. I was very nervous and kept asking the nurse to take the baby down to her (mainly I wanted her to be able to hold and see her son!). I told mom to go and ask if she could take at least the camera to Christina so at the very least she would have some pictures to hold her over. I was EXTATIC to hear that they let mom in! Shortly there after Christina came in looking like she had not gone through a thing and I put our little Alex right on her chest. We kissed and were so excited our son was born!”
Meanwhile, in the OR I was getting unhooked from machines and IVs so I could go into the recovery room. When they moved me from the operating table onto the bed I became very nauseous and felt like I couldn’t breath. They gave me an oxygen mask and had me take slow deep breaths to relieve the feeling. It went away pretty quickly but the feeling like I couldn’t breath was pretty scary. While in recovery I started feeling very nauseous again from the epidural after they rolled me from side to side to clean me up a bit (blood and iodine) and I ended up throwing up (SO glad I was still numb at that point!) I refused the anti-nausea meds because the feeling subsided pretty quickly. Then I hear a familiar voice beyond the curtain, my mom! They let her come down to check on me and show me pictures of Alex! She also snapped a horrible picture of me giving the thumbs up (see above) to show Joel that I was okay and would be up shortly. She was only allowed to stay for a minute, which was fine because at that point I was able to start moving my legs a little. The benchmark I needed to reach was being able to pull myself over onto my side incase I had to throw up so I wouldn’t choke on it, lovely! It wasn’t very long after my mom left that I was ready to be wheeled up to our room to hang out with Alex, Joel and my family!
During our hospital stay we had some amazing nurses and some not so great nurses. Nursing was a bit of a struggle because Alex would latch and fall asleep or latch and then immediately unlatch and all the time spent in between was me trying to get him to latch at all. Every nurse had her own tips, tricks and techniques of course, which was usually helpful but sometimes frustrating. All the nurses pretty much thought I was insane because I refused all pain medications other than motrin. A couple tried to convince me to get hooked up to a morphine drip, not believing me that I'd be able to handle the pain. I am proud to say that I was able to handle it and it wasn't that bad. Overall we had a great experience in the new birthing center.
We were discharged from the hospital Tuesday afternoon around 4:00 p.m. My milk came in later that night and I was SO engorged, it was awful. I had to take a hot shower and pump to relieve the pressure because they were so full Alex couldn’t even latch.
Did this happen the way we had planned or hoped it would? No, but this is exactly how it was supposed to happen and our strong willed little man had a plan all his own. Despite being a bit early, he is completely healthy and hasn’t faced any complications. Our only struggle has been getting him to nurse well, because of this he lost a little over one pound in his first week. We have an appointment on March 28th to check his weight again, which will hopefully now be well above his birth weight. We have been successfully nursing and supplementing with formula as necessary, like when Alex finishes nursing and is still hungry but I have nothing left. We also have an ultrasound scheduled for the same day to check his hips. They’ll check his hip joints to make sure they’re okay, despite both pediatricians stating that they don’t believe anything is wrong with them, they want to be 100% sure because it will be easier to fix it now if there is anything wrong than it would be to do something about it later.
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