Those of you who we have had the opportunity of talking to on the phone have all fallen victim to the random "sorry, gotta go" due to no less then hundreds of random nurse visits, phone calls from the NICU due to a girl that's gotta eat, and the very rare, afternoon nap.
So picking up from the first post...I believe I was rushing to Annie's bedside due to ever increasing contractions. Well, I just happened to look back at my first post and saw that it was at 9:00 in the morning...yeah that was nothing. The nurse asked her about her level of pain on a scale of 1-10...I believe that is the worst question to ask someone going through labor for the first time. How do you determine a value for a pain when each pain is progressively the worst you've ever felt? Annie said 7 and the nurse laughed stating that doesn't give us much room to go. Then she qualified it as a 10 being having your legs cut off...Annie reevaluated her answer and we moved on.
They had given her pitocin to get things moving and contractions started almost immediately. I had fun watching the monitor that they had her hooked up to (note the picture below). It didn't take too long to figure out that the black line at the bottom made a little bell shaped curve with each contraction and we were able to see how much time was in between each one. The red line at the top measured the baby's heart rate. Notice the gaps in the line where her monitor wasn't picking up...that comes into play later on.
Our nurse basically left us alone for most of the time. We just sat there and watched each contraction come and go. The doctors checked her about every two hours to see how she was progressing. Annie had started off at 3 cm when we came in and by 1 pm was at 7 cm.
About this point Annie decided to get the drugs. I was impressed that she was able to get through most of the process without them. They put in an epidural and she stated she should have gotten it a long time ago. For those of you who have been through this, you may relate...after the epidural Annie kept itching her nose and had the shakes. Not sure if she was cold or if it was nerves, but she shook basically up until delivery.
Around 3:30 pm Annie stated she was feeling a lot of pressure "down there". The nurse came in and said she was ready to start pushing. I was picturing docs in lab coats and bright lights. Instead the nurse walked up and told me to grab one leg...I guess I was an active participant.
She pushed for around 2 1/2 hours and then the moment I had pictured in my head finally came. Here come the docs and bright lights. However, I do have to say it was a little weird to watch her push for so long wondering when everything will be over, and then all at once having 2 doctors, a resident, 1 med student, 4 nurses, and 4 pediatric nurses all come walking in proclaiming "let's have a baby". It felt like everything started all at once. It never slowed down from there.
With about three more contractions, and the aid of those tongs that I had mentioned before, we had our little girl. They had been worried about her heart rate getting too low with labor going on for so long. They had a heated table set up near the entrance to the room and had told us that Claire would be taken directly to that table and most likely carted off to the NICU before we would have a chance to see her. And just like that, when she was out, they placed her on the cart and went to work cleaning off all the white stuff, which I've been told is a moisturizer for the baby while she's in the belly...kind of like a day spa. (you can see them at work in the pic below).
They were mostly concerned about her breathing and heart rate due to being 5 weeks early. However, after cleaning her up and inspecting her, they decided she was doing well enough to be brought back to Mama for a while before heading off to the NICU.
So here is what we found out later. The reason delivery was so difficult was because Claire decided she wanted to come out looking the doctors in the eye...face up. As we learned in our birthing class, most babies come out face down. Reason being that the pelvic bone is amazingly designed in a way that the nose and facial features actually fit almost perfectly through a notch in the back of the pelvis. When you decide to come out face up, its a rougher ride.
They took her away to a room they call "Transition". This is where they decide whether she needs to be kept in the NICU or if she can return with us to our room for the next two nights. You can guess what our preference was. Here they gave her her shots, measured her, and monitored her vitals, primarily respiratory and heart rate. They found that her blood sugar and blood pressure were both low.
Side note - The reason they believed her blood pressure was low was due the enormous amount of bruising (broken capillaries) that she had from the delivery. Much of which may have been due to her face essentially being flattened as she forced her way across the "non-notched" part of the pelvic bone. You'll see in some of the later pics that she has a lot of bruising around the nose and mouth.
She also had some loss of blood from some cuts on the top of her head. This goes back to the note at the beginning about the heart rate. Throughout the pushing process, the nurses had the hardest time keeping a heart rate on the baby due to her moving so much inside. Finally they decided to use an internal monitor. This is where technology and torture tread the same line : ) Actually, I think its really cool how this thing works, but at the same time, it sounds really bad. So they take this corkscrew like needle (really small) attached to a wire and essentially screw it into the skin on the babies head. From there it picks up a continuous heart beat regardless of how much the baby moves...theoretically. However, as Claire would get further out, the monitor would stop working. Unscrew that one and put in a second, and a third...fourth, and fifth. I assume because of the number of probes they ended up using, she had some cuts on her head that were causing her to lose some blood...and essentially lowering her blood pressure.
I was able to visit her often while she was in transition. They filled me in to each update, and eventually told us that she was doing so well that she would be brought back to our room and be able to stay with us. It wasn't until later that we learned that her blood sugar dropped even more and she had to go to the NICU.
This is the welcome sign that awaited us in Claire's little room in Bay 2 of the NICU. By the time we got there they had already taken pictures, posted this sign and had foot prints on stickers for us to keep.
While in the NICU they have her hooked up to an EKG (three little stickers stuck to her chest that measure her heart rate). They also have an IV in her right hand and a thermometer that reports back to her bed to tell it to warm up or cool down (kinda like your oven at home).
Notice the bruising around her mouth and nose. It is actually a lot lighter here then it was in transition, but you get the idea. Her worst bruising though is on top of her head and on her right collar bone (you can see it in the picture...that's not a shadow). Poor thing...
This is her giving a shout out to all you Hulk-a-maniacs out there. All 5 lbs. 15 oz of her.
Annie getting a chance to watch her for a while. It was the hardest thing to see her there and not be able to pick her up. She had so many wires hooked in, you were afraid to touch her. We did get more brave as time went on and got really good at moving all the wires with her.
So as for today, she had a very busy day. Annie and I were able to make it down to the NICU several times as doctors were coming to check on her. We wanted to get the updates. Claire has a really large birthmark on the right side of her chest around to her back. We didn't think anything of it, but the nurses stated that there were several different departments that wanted to check her out. Her heart rate, blood pressure, and breathing were all perfect (the main things) but the thing holding her up was getting this birth mark checked out. Turns out they were concerned it could be related to anything from internal defects, glaucoma, some issue in the brain, or a genetic defect. So because of that we had visits from opthamology (the eye guys), genetics, pediatrics, and dermatology. Everyone wanted to poke her with something. She had a different band-aid on her foot each time we came back : )
And now my favorite part. Annie was able to feed Claire this morning. That was a huge step. One of the determining factors in Claire coming home with us is that she is able to feed. A lot of preemies don't have the strength to feed correctly and end up staying for longer periods of time. Claire, however, took it like a champ. We were actually registered for the breast feeding class at the hospital for Thursday night. Well, we missed it and settled for on the job training. 
Speaking of which...its about time to go for her nightly feeding. Looks like it daddy/daughter time : )
3 comments:
She is so cute! Sounds like her days of feedings with mom and burps with dad will be much more fun than her journey into the world. Poor thing! Congratulations!
OK, I could not help but cry after seeing pictures. You two have been on such a long and difficult journey. You deserve nothing more than to be able to take your little girl home and shower her with love. She is gorgeous!
It's Aunt Ruth, here, ya know Annie, the one that's always crying. What a miracle! The most touching and what brought tears to my eyes was Justin's last comment about when he got to burp little Claire. We are so happy for you. You are all in our thoughts and prayers. Love, Aunt Ruth & Uncle John. P.S. Grampa Lower is really happy for you. He says he really missed Gramma at times like this.
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