StaceyDeLapp
Cathlete
I went into labor on Monday, September 13th. I was fairly certain that I was in labor that morning as I left for the post office run that I had to make for my business that day. By the time we were leaving Seattle, I was having pretty regular contractions, but just 3-4 per hour. That's how my labor began previously with my first 2, but we were scheduled to take the kids to the Puyallup fair, so I thought I'd just watch and see. We got to the fair around 11:00 and I was still having regular contractions. Even when I was changing positions, I was still having them and I was just hurting (in my legs) a lot more than I'm used to, so around 1:00 or 1:30 I started timing them. They were coming about every 6 minutes. I wasn't having any pain yet, so I told my husband that the kids could go on a few more rides and then it would be time to go. We left around 3:30 and by this time, my contractions were every 4-5 minutes and they were starting to hurt. By the time we got to the hospital, my contractions were getting very painful. This labor was more like my first. It hurt the whole time, whereas with my daughter, just the last hour was horrible. When we got checked in upstairs, I started asking for something to help with the pain right away. They gave me Fentinal (sp?) about 45 minutes after we checked in. I was at a 4 at 5:00 p.m. The Fentinal helped quite a bit as it took the edge off, but I was still in pain and waiting for an epidural. At least while I was waiting I felt like I was in much more control. My dr. was called, but since it was after 5:00 p.m., I had to have the on-call dr. Out of 3 kids, I have never once gotten to have my ob deliver my baby. I was even more upset that my OB wasn't theire after my mom came into the room and didn't like the dr. who was filling in for my dr. (My mom works at the hospital in the OR and has worked with this dr. before) The dr. checked me and in 30 minutes I had gone from a 4 to an 6. She said let's break her water to get these contractions to speed up. I didn't mind her breaking my water, but my babies heart beat had been high - 185 bpm which was a concern. I felt that my labor was already going extremely fast. 30 minutes later, she checked me again and I was at an 8. She recommened pitocin to speed up the contractions. I was against this as my contractions were coming every minute and a half and were lasting for a minute or longer. The belt had slipped up and she couldn't see how strong my contractions were. She decided to wait on the pitocin. As soon as she walked away, the nurse started getting really concerned because she could no longer find my babies heart beat. They tried to find it on his scalp, but when it was at 60 bpm, I was rushed in for an emergency c-section. I cried the whole way to the operating room. I was so worried about my baby. When he was born, he need to be rushed to ICU and put on oxygen and an IV. (My placenta abrupted after my water was broke and somehow, even though my bags were intact up until 30 minutes before he came out - he was delivered at 6:52 p.m., my amniotic fluid got an infection in it.) I was so sad to go up to my recovery room and not have my baby with me. This was Monday and they were estimating a 3-day stay in the ICU. I got my first glimpse of him from the doorway of the ICU (I was still in a hospital bed) that night. He looked so small and helpless. (He was 6 lbs 8 oz and 20 inches long so small to me, but still a good size.) My pediatrician came by the next morning and told me that Jacob looked great and that maybe he would be out by the next day. I was thrilled. He was being weaned from the oxygen at this point, so I still wasn't able to nurse. I noticed that his eyes seemed glued shut and asked for something to clean them with. When I was cleaning them, there was a yellow discharge that kept coming out of this eyes. I was concerned and told the nurse. The next day, he was off the oxygen, but still needing his IV so he had to stay in the ICU. I was able to nurse him a few times. His eye discharge was not any better and they did a culture to send to the lab. That night, I came in for my 11:00 p.m. feeding and was told that I could not nurse him because his breathing was getting very rapid again and that meant his body was stressed out trying to breathe and digest at the same time. They wanted to keep him off the oxygen or that would increase his stay. I was very upset. The next a.m. I went to check on him and was so happy to see that he was not on the oxygen, but that joy was short lived when they told me that his eye culture came back with a bacteria called (I'm going to spell this the way it's pronounced, not proper spelling) hamafullis. This is a nasty bacteria, and when a baby gets an infection, it can move throughout their bodies. If it went to his lungs, he would have pneumonia. If it went to his spine, meningitis. If it went to his brain...I don't know, we didn't go there, and thankfully, after doing the blood culture (and watching it for growth for 3-days) they discovered it to be isolated to his eyes only. They had said if that was the case, they would only keep him for an additional 3-4 days of treatment, but they had done 3 other tests to check for infection - white blood cells (looked good), red blood cells (looked good) and some sort of "c" test (don't remember full name of it) that was very high. Normal newborn is less than 1 and his was above 9, so with this being the case, they took the safe route and opted for a 10-day course of antibiotics. Then my incision ended up getting infected and I needed to start antibiotics. I was not allowed into the ICU until I had been on antibiotics for 24-hours. I was so upset. At this point, I was finding out bad news every single day. I was so afraid each day I headed for that nursery (I was discharged on Thursday and commuting back and forth to the hospital.) This past week, though, everything just keeps getting better. He is eating, gaining weight, his eyes are totally better. He looks so healthy, and I get to bring him home on Saturday at 8:00 p.m. We can't wait. My other 2 children don't understand why he can't be home with us. They are so thrilled whenever they get to go see their brother. My daughter is especially sweet with him. I told the nurse that I was worried to bring him home after all of this, but she said he will be just as hardy as other babies, and that he got off to a rough start is all. He's a beautiful baby, and if I figure out how, I will post some pictures later on.
Oh...I almost forgot. I slipped on my stairs at 2:00 a.m. this morning when I was coming downstairs to pump (it would be SO much easier to get up for my baby than for a silly pump!) and I ended up bruising my pinky toe so much that I'm afraid I won't be able to get shoes on today. Can you believe the luck I've been having?
I am counting the days until my baby comes home.
Take care everyone.
Stacey
Oh...I almost forgot. I slipped on my stairs at 2:00 a.m. this morning when I was coming downstairs to pump (it would be SO much easier to get up for my baby than for a silly pump!) and I ended up bruising my pinky toe so much that I'm afraid I won't be able to get shoes on today. Can you believe the luck I've been having?
I am counting the days until my baby comes home.
Take care everyone.
Stacey
Thanks for sharing your story. BTW, when was/is your due date? and PS, with a C-section you are suppose to limit/eliminate stairs for at least 2 weeks (okay, i"ll stop nagging).
