Monday afternoon I was sitting in a hospital bed hooked to monitors for my weekly non-stress test in the inner bowels of our base OB clinic. I usually had them on Tuesdays, but just happened to be scheduled a day early this time, at 37 wks + 1 day. After reviewing my blood sugars, monitoring fetal heart rate, and checking amniotic fluid, the OB asked if I had any questions. I casually mentioned that I had been dealing with itchy hands, legs, and feet for the past week and a half and that it particularly bugged me at night. The OB said "My antennaes aren't going up, but I think I'll have some labs drawn on you. You are scheduled to be induced in 2 weeks, but if your liver function is raised, we might have you come in earlier because there unfortunately would be a higher risk of fetal death. In cases like this, we try to keep the baby in as long as possible, but typically take them at 37 wks, which was you yesterday. Come back Thursday and we'll talk about your results."
On the way home from picking up the husband, I was in the middle of explaining to him that I might have Gunner as early as Thursday, when my phone rang. It was the OB saying "I got your results back, and it looks like your liver function levels are elevated, and by that I mean three times what they should be. Your liver is in cholestasis. Please report to labor and delivery when you can and we will go ahead and induce you tonight. If we wait, both you and baby could be in big trouble."
We went home and gathered what I had prepared for the hospital, and I did my best to let everyone know what was going on. At labor and delivery, we went straight back to my birthing room where they inserted a foley balloon to manually dilate my cervix to a 4 or 5. That was pretty intense. After 6 hours of definite, but bearable contractions, the balloon finally fell out and they let me contract on my own for awhile.There was a shift change and I finally met the OB who would be catching little Gunner. Her name is Dr. McBee and she has the largest hands I have ever seen on a woman. Kyle and I took turns trying to explain my pain tolerance to the nurses when they wondered why I was just sitting there and thought it must not be working. Every shift change we would have to explain to a new set of nurses that I feel pain, but don't externalize it, which is why I look like a person sitting in bed watching TV instead of a person in labor. My contractions looked significant on the screen, but I kept rating them at a 3 out of 10. I am horrible at rating pain and hate when I have to do it. I almost always say 3 because it was my jersey number in little league. They decided that meant the contractions weren't strong enough, so they started the pitocin. Unfortunately, the adding of pitocin tended to make Gunner's heart decelerate during contractions, so we had a very very long journey of switching it on and off throughout the night and the next day. I kept contracting, but stayed stalled at 5 cm, which was incredibly tiring and frustrating. They asked if I wanted an epidural, which had been suggested to me as a means of relaxing me and hopefully keeping me conscious for the rest of the delivery. I said sure, since my passing out would be bad for the baby. After a mostly failed epidural (which messed with my heart in a really weird way and was intended to keep me from passing out as I have a habit of doing, but really just made me feel pins and needles on one side of my body) and manually breaking my water, I tried to tell the nurse that I felt light-headed and sick, but since my vitals looked normal at the time, she left. I laid in bed and watched TV. Suddenly it felt like I was laying on a slab of ice and slowly sinking down into it. The nurses came running in and yelling and suddenly I was laying on my side with an oxygen mask. Apparently my blood pressure and heart rate plummeted and they saw it on their monitors in the nurses station.
I was now forbidden to lay anyway but on my left side connected to Oxygen, a blood pressure cuff that went off every 10 mins, an IV, an epidural, a catheter, and ciculation boots. I laid there breathing the oxygen for hours waiting for what I had heard was the most painful part, transition. The pain had changed locations, so I thought it might be starting, but wasn't sure. Over time the pain became very intense and full of pressure. A few hours later,after 24 hrs of labor, Dr. McBee came in to check me and said I was complete and transition was over. She asked if I wanted to try and push or if I wanted a break. I thought that was such a silly question, and I said "Let's do it now." Here came the hard part.
I waited for a good contraction and did my first 3 10 second pushes, then immediately requested something to throw up in. After I lost my all-liquid diet from the past 24 hours, I was good to go. Lemony Snicket's a Series of Unfortunate Events was playing on the TV and I tried to explain to my OB what it was about between pushes. I'm not sure how well I did because pushing 3 times during each contraction has to be the hardest, most exhausting thing I have ever done. I have also never sweat so much. Dr. McBee said that I was a good pusher and was making progress, but that Gunner's heart was dipping more drastically after contractions and that she wanted to get him out by vacuum as an emergency measure when I got him low enough. That was absolutely terrifying. I did not want that to happen. I remember thinking "I need to get him out on my own. I'm going to get him out on my own." Kyle later said he knew that was what I was thinking and that's why it wasn't much longer after that. This was definitely the painful part. I knew I was getting close when Dr. McBee started to quickly put her smock on while asking Kyle if he was going to cut the cord. I was able to get him out without the use of vacuum after only 40 mins of pushing altogether. Dr. McBee started to pull him out, but had to stop because Gunner's cord was wrapped around his neck, which explained all the heart decelerations. She quickly apologized to Kyle, and cut it herself because it was pulling on Gunner's neck. (Kyle was able to cut it later when they clamped it, though.)The baby came out squeaking and making little puppy noises. They flopped Gunner on my chest while they worked on him and I was so indescribably happy. I barely heard Dr. McBee say that I had a second degree tear and she started to sew me up. I was so enthralled by my son that I didn't care about the pain at all. He measured in at 7.95 lbs and 19.5 inches at 3 wks early, born at 9:22 pm March 18th.
After all this, Gunner and I were closely monitored for blood sugar and bilirubin for him, and blood pressure, Oxygen levels, and plummeting heart rate for me. It was a strange sensation to feel so wonderful and so awful at the same time. Kyle was feeling sick so I sent him home to sleep instead of having to use the hospitals fold out bed. Gunner and I had to stick it out alone the next couple of nights while Kyle had to stay home and recover from his own malady, but he was feeling much, much better the day we were finally discharged. Within 20 minutes, Gunner went from high risk to low risk, and I finally passed an EKG, so they let us go home. Now I am typing this in our living room while Kyle and Tesla the dog are asleep on the couch and Gunner is napping in his swing, milk drunk. We are all so happy to be safe, sound, and finally together.
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