The Story of Abel
Abel William Storch was born Wednesday, September 14th at 5:35 pm. 8 lbs 15.8 oz, 20.5". The morning of September 13th we had our 39 week appointment. One more ultrasound was scheduled to determine just how big this baby was going to be. Some of the measurements were off the chart and the guesstimated weight was 9 lb 5 oz. After the ultrasound we had our appointment with Dr Browne and discussed our options with him. I was 4 cm, 75% effaced, and -1 station with some fairly consistent contractions. Based on all of this information we decided to go ahead and move the induction up to the 14th (originally it was to be on my due date the 19th). We figured our chances of having a vaginal delivery as opposed to a c-section would be greater if the baby wasn't able to get any bigger. We also kind of banked on the fact that I was already "in labor" technically and figured that a little Pitocin would go a long way.
Abel William Storch was born Wednesday, September 14th at 5:35 pm. 8 lbs 15.8 oz, 20.5". The morning of September 13th we had our 39 week appointment. One more ultrasound was scheduled to determine just how big this baby was going to be. Some of the measurements were off the chart and the guesstimated weight was 9 lb 5 oz. After the ultrasound we had our appointment with Dr Browne and discussed our options with him. I was 4 cm, 75% effaced, and -1 station with some fairly consistent contractions. Based on all of this information we decided to go ahead and move the induction up to the 14th (originally it was to be on my due date the 19th). We figured our chances of having a vaginal delivery as opposed to a c-section would be greater if the baby wasn't able to get any bigger. We also kind of banked on the fact that I was already "in labor" technically and figured that a little Pitocin would go a long way.
We went home for one last night of uninterrupted sleep.
The next morning we woke up super early, before the sun even came up. We were both so excited that we got up way before we really needed to leave for the hospital. We showered and made sure we had everything we needed. Our bags were already lined up by the front door. On the drive to the hospital I was nervous and excited. For those of you who aren't familiar with Jack's birth story...he was late, I got an epidural, my blood pressure bottomed out almost to nothing, I was superclose to having a C-section because I wasn't progressing, I finally delivered him after 14+ hours of labor and 1.5 hours of pushing. After a few hours his blood sugar bottomed out to the 20's (really bad) and he was rushed to the NICU. Long story short, after much agony he ended up staying 4 days in the NICU and was put on a sugar water IV drip until his blood sugars evened out. It was a horrible experience, very stressful.
I wanted anything to avoid this again so this time around I was very meticulous and kept my blood sugars in check. I checked them up to 8 times a day and ate a very strict diet of super low carbs and pretty much no added sugar. It was torture, but well worth avoiding a potential stay in the NICU.
Okay back to my story. We arrived at the hospital and checked in. They drew labs, started my iv, hooked me up to the monitor. The usual stuff. My blood pressure was already low. At one point it ready 90's/50's. I was thinking..."oh great, here we go." My goal was to avoid the epidural as I think that is where all of my problems started the last time. Pitocin was started right away and then the plan was to up it until I had good strong contractions. Well I was doing fine all morning, into lunch, into the afternoon. I was allowed to have a clear liquid diet so my nurse gave me jello, broth, and drinks. I was having consistent contractions, but they really weren't bothering me.
After lunch the doctor checked me and I was still at 4 cm. A little frustrating to say the least. The doctor broke my water. I was allowed to sit in a rocking chair (while still on all monitors and stupid Pitocin) and rock. This made me much happier then sitting in the bed. That thing is NOT comfortable after awhile. I really wanted to walk around, but while you are on Pitocin you have to stay on the monitor. Whatever.
Okay back to my story. We arrived at the hospital and checked in. They drew labs, started my iv, hooked me up to the monitor. The usual stuff. My blood pressure was already low. At one point it ready 90's/50's. I was thinking..."oh great, here we go." My goal was to avoid the epidural as I think that is where all of my problems started the last time. Pitocin was started right away and then the plan was to up it until I had good strong contractions. Well I was doing fine all morning, into lunch, into the afternoon. I was allowed to have a clear liquid diet so my nurse gave me jello, broth, and drinks. I was having consistent contractions, but they really weren't bothering me.
After lunch the doctor checked me and I was still at 4 cm. A little frustrating to say the least. The doctor broke my water. I was allowed to sit in a rocking chair (while still on all monitors and stupid Pitocin) and rock. This made me much happier then sitting in the bed. That thing is NOT comfortable after awhile. I really wanted to walk around, but while you are on Pitocin you have to stay on the monitor. Whatever.
Around 4:30 or so the doctor rechecked me and I had progressed to 6 cm. The contractions were still feeling about the same. Now they were about 1-2 minutes apart. I could tell when they happened, but they were tolerable and I was able to easily breathe through them. I was happy with the progress. I still wasn't requiring an epidural, but went ahead and accepted some Nubain (an IV pain medication). It made me super relaxed and sleepy I pretty much started to dose off when...suddenly...after about 30 minutes my pain went from tolerable to completely off the chart and out of control.
With every contraction my pain was ridiculous. They started coming really quickly. I felt the need to push, but I thought I was a little crazy because I was just checked and was at 6 cm. My nurse went to go get more Nubain. I kind of thought that was a little crazy because I felt like I was having this baby, but what do I know? After she left the room I looked at Ed and told him I had to go to the bathroom. Poor guy. I was still hooked up to everything. Luckily he took me seriously and we both proceeded to start ripping things off of me so I could get to the bathroom. For those of you who don't know...when you feel the urge to push it is basically the same muscles as when you have a bowel movement. Not to be gross, but this was how I felt. Like I had to push out a big poop. I made it to the bathroom and with my contractions I was pushing...and SCREAMING...and pushing.I felt like the exorcist. The pain was so bad that I was yelling, crying, swearing. Then when the contraction would finally stop I would just go, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry." I guess my screaming got the attention of someone who knows what they are doing because as the nurse was still getting pain medicine the doctor ran in and saw us in the bathroom. She said she could tell by the way I was screaming something was happening. She got gloves and reached down to check me (as I'm still on the toilet screaming with each contraction). She looked at Ed and said, "She doesn't have to go to the bathroom...the baby is coming, right now."
She looked at me and asked me if I was more comfortable in a squatting/standing position. I frantically nodded my head yes as I was screaming mid-contraction. Everyone was a little overwhelmed and running around aimlessly. No one anticipated I was going to have a baby anytime soon. The doctor was a fourth year resident and she was really nice. She got ready to potentially deliver the baby in the bathroom. In the meantime she told the nurses to get the squat bar ready just in case. She and Ed helped me through a couple more contractions and when the squat bar was in place she asked me if I thought I could walk back to the bed. I was like, "whatever I need to do to get this baby out."
Between contractions we managed to get back to the bed and I squatted, pushed with every contraction, and Abel came shooting out within about 10 minutes of good, hard pushing. I was so relieved. The pain relief from Nubain was long gone during the end stage of labor, but it was well worth it in the end when he came out without stalling labor like last time. Besides, when you see that baby's little face your pain melts away. The only bad thing about the way he came out so quickly is that he ripped me a new one. It took the good doctor about 45 minutes to stitch me up. Oh well.
I went ahead and breastfed immediately and he latched right on (score!). I knew this would be important to get us through our next challenge...keeping his blood sugars up. I was so petrified that he would go to the NICU like Jack that I breastfed him every 2 hours nonstop through the night in order to avoid a long hospital stay. We had chosen the "couplet care" where the baby stays in the room as opposed to the nursery. The hospital and nurses were very supportive of our decision, but he had to be taken to the nursery every 3 hours x 12 hours for heel sticks to test his blood sugar. If he failed even one he would go to the NICU.
Ed and I had been through this before so we knew we were in for a long night. As exhausted as we both were we made sure to stay up and feed him practically around the clock. I have no idea how much sleep we got the first night, but it wasn't much. We didn't care though. We were running off adrenaline. This baby was so cute and so sweet and we spent that night just soaking it all in. As the night went by we passed the first test, then the second, then the third, the final test was early in the morning and when the nurse brought him back she had a smile on her face. We were in the clear. If the baby passes the tests through the night then you are good, no more blood sugars. Yay! Even our nurse was super excited for us. Her name was Meagan and she was so sweet. She was rooting for Abel to pass so he could go home. She told us about how everyone in the nursery was talking about him and they all agreed he was super cute.
Ed and I had been through this before so we knew we were in for a long night. As exhausted as we both were we made sure to stay up and feed him practically around the clock. I have no idea how much sleep we got the first night, but it wasn't much. We didn't care though. We were running off adrenaline. This baby was so cute and so sweet and we spent that night just soaking it all in. As the night went by we passed the first test, then the second, then the third, the final test was early in the morning and when the nurse brought him back she had a smile on her face. We were in the clear. If the baby passes the tests through the night then you are good, no more blood sugars. Yay! Even our nurse was super excited for us. Her name was Meagan and she was so sweet. She was rooting for Abel to pass so he could go home. She told us about how everyone in the nursery was talking about him and they all agreed he was super cute.
At that point everyone had also heard about how Abel had come into the world so quickly and unexpectedly. Apparently he was the popular birth story of the day. When the doctors made their rounds they had all heard about his birth. Everyone was super happy and we were so proud we had made it through the night. We figured we could relax and enjoy our baby. We would go home after one more night of being monitored in the hospital. We got some sleep, enjoyed some visitors, and just continued to bask in the wonderful newborn glory. We watched every move he made and marveled at how perfect he was. He didn't even have a cone head, which amazed us considering he was so big.
The second night we were told that in the morning they would draw some more blood. A bilirubin level. We didn't really think much of it. He wasn't yellow. Well the next morning the nurse came back and told us his level was pretty high. They would have to recheck it in 6 hours. If it didn't go down he would have to stay longer. WTH. We were going home, this number was just a fluke. Well then they rechecked it and it was higher. He was going to need lights right away they said.
I was crushed. Heartbroken.
After all the hard work of avoiding the NICU and worrying about his sugars...now we had a whole different issue. Why? Why? Why????? We had been down this road before. We pretty much knew we had earned ourselves some more days at the hospital. I was going to be discharged later that afternoon. Where would we go? At this point Abel was a champion breastfeeder and eating every 2-3 hours around the clock. He hadn't had any formula, he made it through the whole blood sugar thing without any supplementation. I wasn't giving up without a fight.
I knew enough about bilirubin levels to know that the best way to get the number down was to stimulate the gut and basically poop it out. The lights help break it down as well, but it is super important to stay hydrated and to poop, poop, poop. We live a good 30 minutes from the hospital so there was no way we could drive every 2 hours to feed him. I was seriously prepared to camp out in the waiting room or even pitch a tent on the lawn in front of the hospital. I'm not kidding.
Luckily they told us that even though they were full they could offer us a "courtesy stay" in a different room. We jumped at it. It was basically a room with a bathroom, bed, and chair that pulls out to a semi-cot thing but we didn't care. We were going to be there for our baby. Our schedule for the next 48 hours was as follows: walk to nursery, feed baby x 30 minutes, walk back to room, pump any extra milk x 20 minutes, sleep x 1 hour, wake up, repeat. By the second night we were exhausted. It was grueling. He had to be stuck in his little heel every 6 hours for blood. His levels were (very slowly) coming down. We had a few ups and downs. At one point he was on double lights, they started an IV and put him on fluids to flush his system, and we fed him every 2 hours.
FINALLY on Sunday after many tears, shear insomnia, blood draws, waiting, etc we got the news that we could go home, but with a bili-light. Abel had one last examination by the doctor and then we were going to be up for discharge. Well...he felt a little bump on his right clavicular area and ordered an x-ray. Great, what else will they find wrong with him?? The x-ray came back and it pretty clearly showed a fracture of the right clavicle. The nurse practitioner placed a call to the pediatric orthopedist. We held our breath waiting for more horrible news. Luckily he said we could come into the office the next day and get Abel checked out.
We got our discharge instructions from our nurse, waited for the bili light to be delivered, and got the baby dressed in real clothes. We were finally free from hospital prison! :) I cannot begin to describe how nice it was to be home. You don't realize how wonderful your own bed can be until you have to sleep in an uncomfortable, cold, loud hospital room for 4 nights.
On the way home we stopped at the store to get Jack some toys. We wanted him to be happy and excited when the baby came to live with him. He was waiting for us when we walked in the door. I missed him so much! In the 5 days we were gone we only got to see him a couple of times. I had been dreading this day for a long time. Let me explain. I of course had been excited about bringing the baby home, but the other part of me was dreading it. Of course I worry about Jack and how he will feel about not being the only child anymore. I worried that he would hate the baby and be mean to it. Lucky for me he really doesn't seem to mind having a baby around. Thank goodness!
In the next couple of days we had a few visitors, caught up on sleep, and enjoyed our little family. The bili lights actually only lasted one more night. The day after we got home from the hospital we followed up with the pediatrician, got a repeat bili, and also followed up with the orthopedic doctor. The bili level was okay, lights discontinued, and the orthopedic doctor said we just have to watch the clavicle and it should heal on its own. Abel had even gained some weight! Most babies initially lose weight and are expected to regain to their birth weight by 2 weeks of age. At 5 days old he weighed 9 lbs 1 oz!! Feeding around the clock had worked!!!
The rest of the week we basked in our new life. So far Baby Abel is an awesome newborn. :)
