Fiona Joy's Birth Story
Just like any other early morning, I had gotten up to pee for the buh-jillionth time. 35 weeks and six days pregnant, I was counting down the remaining 36 days until my due date. They couldn't pass soon enough.
I had been planning a natural birth from the very beginning. I was seeing some wonderful midwives at a local birthing center who were helping me achieve my goal of a drug-free birth. The ultimate plan was to have a natural water birth with a midwife present at their cozy birthing center.
I had endured a rough first pregnancy so far. Morning sickness all day for the first 14 weeks, increasing back pain, rapid and excessive weight gain, and high blood pressure where just some of the downers that were wearing me out.
Just a few weeks before, baby Fiona decided to go breech on me. Her little head didn't feel so little when it rammed into my ribs. We were both very uncomfortable. Needless to say, I knew we had to try to get her flipped around before the big day. With this problem and my rising high blood pressure, my chances of having a birth at the birthing center were looking slim. For liability reasons, they would rather have me birth naturally at the hospital with a Doctor on call just in case something bad happened (heaven forbid). I took measures into my own hands to get her flipped around and had started seeing a chiropractor who specialized with pregnant women and regularly practiced the Webster technique for flipping breech babies. I had been seeing her daily for the last week or so. No results yet.
After my routine morning haul to the bathroom, I returned to bed. As soon as I got comfortable in my sheets, I felt water dripping from my under-side. I thought to myself, "Did my water sack break?" I pushed myself up out of bed and back into the bathroom to see what it exactly was. After all, the possibilities are endless when you are pregnant. Sure enough, it was amniotic fluid from my water sack. It wasn't leaking very badly, so I decided to sit up at my computer for a while and monitor the fluid periodically. I had an appointment scheduled with my midwives in just 3 short hours. My hope was that I could make it until then without calling them (since the office was still closed, I'd have to call them at home.)
I saw my friend Tara was online on facebook. She is the head nurse at the labor and delivery center at the Providence Hospital here in town. I told her about my water breaking and she encouraged me to call my midwives and head to the hospital since I was so early to be delivering. I had taken my phone to the bathroom to check my water leakage again. Low and behold, by the time I got to the bathroom door, it wasn't just a leak anymore. I called my midwives and they told me to meet them at the hospital as soon as possible. I woke up my sleeping husband with the surprise news. He looked a little befuddled at first. It was too early for our baby to come!
We grabbed our packed hospital bags (lucky for me, I had already packed them the week before!) and darted out the door. I was wearing a night gown with a t-shirt over the top for modesty. With fluid still running down my exposed legs, I convinced my husband to take my mother-in-law's car from the garage instead of one of our cars, which were outside in the freezing snowy Alaska weather. We took her car and left a message on the sleeping grandma's cell phone explaining where her car had gone.
All the way to the hospital, I was having mild contractions every few minutes. We kept calm as we navigated through the 7:00am rush hour to the hospital. Waiting there for us was my friend Tara, who had just clocked in. She helped us get situated as we waited for our midwife, Barb. The nurses there were very sweet and helped me and my husband settle in. Soon Barb arrived and asked me about how I was feeling. My contractions weren't more than uncomfortable and coming every 5-7 minutes. With some hope, we called in the doctor and an ultrasound machine to see if there was any chance of flipping our baby and delivering naturally.
"There's absolutely no water left," Barb told me as she viewed the ultrasound screen. "And she's in such a weird position! Look at that."
Our little daughter was still breech with one foot up by her face and one down by her bum. Her little hands were tucked between her awkwardly placed legs. It also appeared that she was sitting on her cord.
Just about five weeks before, I had learned at one of my ultrasounds that I had what was called a Velamentous Cord Insertion. This particular condition leaves one or more of the blood vessels that attach from the cord into the placenta vulnerable to breaking. Of course, this is dangerous if one of them does break, as it is likely to lead to the death of the child. This could be handled in a regular birthing situation, but this was not regular.
It was explained to me later that the veins breaking would have likely been the case had they let me try to deliver naturally. Though, delivering naturally wasn't going to happen anyway with my crazy little girl being in her crazy position. It would be very difficult to deliver a breech baby who was doing the splits.
The doctor explained to me the urgent need for an emergency C-section and apologized sincerely for my "loss" of not having a natural birth like I had planned. He is a rare doctor at the fact that he would normally deliver a low risk breech baby. In this case he did not consider us "low risk." He promised me he would do his best to ensure that I would get the chance to have a VBAC natural birth with my next pregnancy. I took him at his word and I was wheel chaired to the operating room.
I tried to keep calm with my husband, Tara, and Barb by my side. I hardly noticed the contractions anymore as they came and went. My mind was on this unexpected surgery. Just three hours before, my water had started leaking. Now my whole life was changing as I was about to welcome into the world my brand new baby girl in ways I had never expected.
I sat up on the table and the anesthesiologist introduced himself to me and explained his part of the procedure. Tara held my hands as she stood directly in front of me. She told me to curve my back around my belly for the shots they were putting in my back for the spinal. I wrapped my arms around her and laid my forehead on her shoulder. The shots were painful, and more than anything they started to make me nervous. She whispered to me how well I was doing and how strong I was. I held back tears from the pinching as the anesthesiologist finished. I laid back on the operating table. Shortly after, my body went numb from my shoulders down. I could only feel the top half of my lungs, which was a weird sensation when trying to breathe. They placed an oxygen mask on me, which I repeatedly took off (it was making me claustrophobic and annoying the crap out of me.) David sat next by my head, resting his hand on me. Barb stood next to him and took pictures for us on David's phone. They placed the curtain up so my husband and I could not see what was going on. The rest happened so quickly.
The next thing I know, they were moving my baby girl across the room and onto the weighing table.
"Seven pounds, three ounces!" They told me, in awe of how much my premature daughter weighed. My husband left my side to see our daughter. Tara leaned down to me and whispered, "I've never seen Davey smile so big, have you?"
"No," I whispered back, as I looked over to see the corners of his mouth raised high around the edges of his surgical face mask.
They handed her to him, all swaddled up. Her thick dark hair was prominent as I looked her over. They stitched me up as I admired my daughter for the first time. They took her to the nursery to check her over as they took me away to the recovery room to monitor me. David followed her to make sure she was okay. After about 40 minutes, we met up again in what was going to be our room for the next several days. They told me baby Fiona's blood sugar levels were scary low. David fed her formula in the nursery to try to boost her blood sugar.
As my body's nerves started feeling again, I started shaking uncontrollably as a reaction to the spinal. The pain killers where hooked to my IV, but I was starting to feel the pain anyway. I tried to hold my baby, but it was difficult to control my shaking well enough to speak, let alone hold my child. The pain was growing increasingly uncomfortable as the spinal wore off. My husband's family was allowed in our room to see me and their new granddaughter and niece. They all held her while my shaking continued.
I complained when the pain was becoming unbearable.The nurses upped my dosage for the pain killers. They still were not working, but instead were just making me itchy everywhere. Still quivering under my blankets, they upped my dosage again and told me that was the most they were allowed to give me. Still, there was very little if any relief. They quickly realized that the pain killers weren't working for me, so they had me eat something so I could start taking other pain killers orally.
Our family left shortly after seeing that I wasn't quite ready for company. I'm sure it wasn't very comfortable seeing me shaking and complaining about the horrible pain of post-surgery to the nurses.
As soon as I could, the nurses had me trying to nurse Fiona. Her blood sugar levels were still scaring us and she needed the nourishment quickly. We ended up supplementing her with formula through a small tube under a nipple shield on my breast until my milk came in.
The first night was hard. I had only about 30 minutes of sleep total. Every hour there was a nurse coming in to check on me and Fiona. They monitored her blood sugar all night as well as my pain levels. The next morning, 24 hours after the surgery, I was able to get up and walk to the bathroom with the help of two nurses and two Vicodin. They took my catheter out (yuck) and I started making progress from then on out, little by little. Fiona took to nursing very easily with the help of a lactation consultant, which was encouraging.
On day four, they released me from the hospital. David was at work, but his mother Happy came and helped me take my baby girl home. I was still in a lot of pain, which didn't seem to go away as the next few days went by. I started running high fevers and shaking with the chills.
My friend Talena (Tara's daughter) took a day off work to take me to see a doctor at the hospital one morning after I was feeling too sick to even feed my baby. I came back with antibiotics for an inflamed and infected uterus.
Today, I took my last antibiotics. I'm off pain killers except an occasional ibuprofen. We are doing fantastic, and with the help of daddy David we are both well rested. Fiona is gaining weight like a champ and nursing is still going extremely well. In the two weeks since delivery, I've lost about 30 of the 60 pounds I gained during pregnancy. I'm feeling much better and peppier.
God sure has a way of throwing loops in my plans, but by the end He always brings the glory back to Himself. In this case, with my beautiful healthy baby girl.
I saw my friend Tara was online on facebook. She is the head nurse at the labor and delivery center at the Providence Hospital here in town. I told her about my water breaking and she encouraged me to call my midwives and head to the hospital since I was so early to be delivering. I had taken my phone to the bathroom to check my water leakage again. Low and behold, by the time I got to the bathroom door, it wasn't just a leak anymore. I called my midwives and they told me to meet them at the hospital as soon as possible. I woke up my sleeping husband with the surprise news. He looked a little befuddled at first. It was too early for our baby to come!
We grabbed our packed hospital bags (lucky for me, I had already packed them the week before!) and darted out the door. I was wearing a night gown with a t-shirt over the top for modesty. With fluid still running down my exposed legs, I convinced my husband to take my mother-in-law's car from the garage instead of one of our cars, which were outside in the freezing snowy Alaska weather. We took her car and left a message on the sleeping grandma's cell phone explaining where her car had gone.
All the way to the hospital, I was having mild contractions every few minutes. We kept calm as we navigated through the 7:00am rush hour to the hospital. Waiting there for us was my friend Tara, who had just clocked in. She helped us get situated as we waited for our midwife, Barb. The nurses there were very sweet and helped me and my husband settle in. Soon Barb arrived and asked me about how I was feeling. My contractions weren't more than uncomfortable and coming every 5-7 minutes. With some hope, we called in the doctor and an ultrasound machine to see if there was any chance of flipping our baby and delivering naturally.
"There's absolutely no water left," Barb told me as she viewed the ultrasound screen. "And she's in such a weird position! Look at that."
Our little daughter was still breech with one foot up by her face and one down by her bum. Her little hands were tucked between her awkwardly placed legs. It also appeared that she was sitting on her cord.
Just about five weeks before, I had learned at one of my ultrasounds that I had what was called a Velamentous Cord Insertion. This particular condition leaves one or more of the blood vessels that attach from the cord into the placenta vulnerable to breaking. Of course, this is dangerous if one of them does break, as it is likely to lead to the death of the child. This could be handled in a regular birthing situation, but this was not regular.
It was explained to me later that the veins breaking would have likely been the case had they let me try to deliver naturally. Though, delivering naturally wasn't going to happen anyway with my crazy little girl being in her crazy position. It would be very difficult to deliver a breech baby who was doing the splits.
The doctor explained to me the urgent need for an emergency C-section and apologized sincerely for my "loss" of not having a natural birth like I had planned. He is a rare doctor at the fact that he would normally deliver a low risk breech baby. In this case he did not consider us "low risk." He promised me he would do his best to ensure that I would get the chance to have a VBAC natural birth with my next pregnancy. I took him at his word and I was wheel chaired to the operating room.
I tried to keep calm with my husband, Tara, and Barb by my side. I hardly noticed the contractions anymore as they came and went. My mind was on this unexpected surgery. Just three hours before, my water had started leaking. Now my whole life was changing as I was about to welcome into the world my brand new baby girl in ways I had never expected.
I sat up on the table and the anesthesiologist introduced himself to me and explained his part of the procedure. Tara held my hands as she stood directly in front of me. She told me to curve my back around my belly for the shots they were putting in my back for the spinal. I wrapped my arms around her and laid my forehead on her shoulder. The shots were painful, and more than anything they started to make me nervous. She whispered to me how well I was doing and how strong I was. I held back tears from the pinching as the anesthesiologist finished. I laid back on the operating table. Shortly after, my body went numb from my shoulders down. I could only feel the top half of my lungs, which was a weird sensation when trying to breathe. They placed an oxygen mask on me, which I repeatedly took off (it was making me claustrophobic and annoying the crap out of me.) David sat next by my head, resting his hand on me. Barb stood next to him and took pictures for us on David's phone. They placed the curtain up so my husband and I could not see what was going on. The rest happened so quickly.
The next thing I know, they were moving my baby girl across the room and onto the weighing table.
"Seven pounds, three ounces!" They told me, in awe of how much my premature daughter weighed. My husband left my side to see our daughter. Tara leaned down to me and whispered, "I've never seen Davey smile so big, have you?"
"No," I whispered back, as I looked over to see the corners of his mouth raised high around the edges of his surgical face mask.
They handed her to him, all swaddled up. Her thick dark hair was prominent as I looked her over. They stitched me up as I admired my daughter for the first time. They took her to the nursery to check her over as they took me away to the recovery room to monitor me. David followed her to make sure she was okay. After about 40 minutes, we met up again in what was going to be our room for the next several days. They told me baby Fiona's blood sugar levels were scary low. David fed her formula in the nursery to try to boost her blood sugar.
As my body's nerves started feeling again, I started shaking uncontrollably as a reaction to the spinal. The pain killers where hooked to my IV, but I was starting to feel the pain anyway. I tried to hold my baby, but it was difficult to control my shaking well enough to speak, let alone hold my child. The pain was growing increasingly uncomfortable as the spinal wore off. My husband's family was allowed in our room to see me and their new granddaughter and niece. They all held her while my shaking continued.
I complained when the pain was becoming unbearable.The nurses upped my dosage for the pain killers. They still were not working, but instead were just making me itchy everywhere. Still quivering under my blankets, they upped my dosage again and told me that was the most they were allowed to give me. Still, there was very little if any relief. They quickly realized that the pain killers weren't working for me, so they had me eat something so I could start taking other pain killers orally.
Our family left shortly after seeing that I wasn't quite ready for company. I'm sure it wasn't very comfortable seeing me shaking and complaining about the horrible pain of post-surgery to the nurses.
As soon as I could, the nurses had me trying to nurse Fiona. Her blood sugar levels were still scaring us and she needed the nourishment quickly. We ended up supplementing her with formula through a small tube under a nipple shield on my breast until my milk came in.
The first night was hard. I had only about 30 minutes of sleep total. Every hour there was a nurse coming in to check on me and Fiona. They monitored her blood sugar all night as well as my pain levels. The next morning, 24 hours after the surgery, I was able to get up and walk to the bathroom with the help of two nurses and two Vicodin. They took my catheter out (yuck) and I started making progress from then on out, little by little. Fiona took to nursing very easily with the help of a lactation consultant, which was encouraging.
On day four, they released me from the hospital. David was at work, but his mother Happy came and helped me take my baby girl home. I was still in a lot of pain, which didn't seem to go away as the next few days went by. I started running high fevers and shaking with the chills.
My friend Talena (Tara's daughter) took a day off work to take me to see a doctor at the hospital one morning after I was feeling too sick to even feed my baby. I came back with antibiotics for an inflamed and infected uterus.
Today, I took my last antibiotics. I'm off pain killers except an occasional ibuprofen. We are doing fantastic, and with the help of daddy David we are both well rested. Fiona is gaining weight like a champ and nursing is still going extremely well. In the two weeks since delivery, I've lost about 30 of the 60 pounds I gained during pregnancy. I'm feeling much better and peppier.
God sure has a way of throwing loops in my plans, but by the end He always brings the glory back to Himself. In this case, with my beautiful healthy baby girl.
Fiona Joy Chronister
Feb. 1, 2013 at 10:37am
7 lbs. 3 oz. 18.5 in.
Oh LeeAnna, what a story! It sure is a memorable birth!
ReplyDeleteMy first came 5 weeks early, but my water wouldn't break, I was having hard contractions which were not ceasing like they expected, and since she insisted, she came! She was 7.3, which caused some gossip in the V family, a baby that large 5 weeks early, there were some who assumed she was in the works before the wedding, but she was actually one of our many wedding gifts! I didn't have to go through any of the trials you did, no surgery, but there was a little decreased circulation in my sweet daughter's legs and arms, that was scary. But God is good and she was and is fine.
You have been given a precious gift and charged with a wonderful duty, raising a beautiful little person. I know you are going to be a good Mom, and your hubby will be a good Dad because you are taking your example from our Father, the best parent ever.
Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6. Probably the very best parenting advice ever. That and learn to keep a straight face, which is the hardest skill you will need!
Love and hugs to you all!