5/26 - My Early Bird

Welcome

Looks like we finished up those room decorations just in time!

Hand painted by yours truly.

It all started Wednesday night but I had no idea what was coming or even that it was starting at that point. Sierra was following me around like a mother hen and I started to feel what I thought were just Braxton Hick's contractions after I got off of work for the night. But I slept well (fabulously so). Thursday morning I had a few hours of work and by the time I finished the contractions were stronger but I was still not alarmed. It was that evening that I became alarmed and I texted Melissa. She recommended I do the following:

• stay off my feet except to go to the bathroom
• 1-2 servings of liquid Cal/Mag (500/1000)
• glass of red wine
• bath (= hot tub!)
• drink more water
• talk to Jaxen    

I did all of these things but still ended up calling her again at 3:45am with contractions 2 min apart so we packed up some things and went to Good Samaritan Hospital expecting an ultra sound and a bed rest conversation and then to be sent home. I was insanely upset about having to go to the hospital! Instead, they found me 90% effaced, 1 cm dilated, and +1 station so they hooked me up to all sorts of uncomfortable machines and made me lie in a TERRIBLE bed for hours and hours. Later that afternoon, nothing changed and so we went home. After resting at home for a few hours things were picking up so we drove to the Foothills Community Hospital in Boulder on a lead that I would be happier and more comfortable there. 

That was the toasted toads truth.

I barely recall entering the hospital in boulder (or any of this for that matter.) only that the car ride there hurt pretty badly. Exactly what I had been trying to avoid by having a home birth. By the time we got there I had been having strong contractions every 2 min for about 24hrs. I was already exhausted especially because the other hospital only allowed me juice and ice chips to eat. Ridiculous! I'm about to output the same energy expenditure as a 50 mile hike and all I get to fuel up is juice and ice chips?!?!? Archaic. Anyway, since I was still at 1cm they gave me a shot of morphine so I could rest. It was supposed to last all night. I got maybe 3-4 hours of full comfort out of it. When they check me a few hours later it had relaxed me enough so I was at 3cm. At 4 cm, they realized I was so exhausted I might need an epidural so I got one and luckily it bought me more rest and slightly more dilation. But not enough. In came a tiny amount of pitocin and an hour or two later I was pushing out a baby! That was difficult, more so than I thought but I buckled down and got it done in about 45min. No tearing or cutting necessary and really the next day I felt only slightly worse than after a workout muscle-wise. A slow Placental abruption is what they think caused early labor but we havent gotten the results back from pathology yet. Next stop, the NICU.

The NICU suite was just like a hotel room so we never had to be more than 10 steps away from Jaxen. They delivered me 3 meals a day with a small kitchen in the hall that provided snacks and drinks. Since Jaxen came out so strong and full of vigor, he was taken off the machines after only 8 hours of monitoring! The rest of our stay was very uneventful until we tried to leave. They had to do all these tests on him to make sure he was taking in enough o2 and long story short they ended up sending us home for 3 small tanks and one large one which we proceeded to take him off after 24 hours. It was making him docile and lifeless and impacting feeding too much. Minutes after we took him off we saw the life come back into him!

In summation, that was the longest and most fearful 3 days of my life. The exact opposite of the full term hypnobabies home birth I had planned. At the same time I feel good about it because I know I had no other choice and it brought me the most beautiful baby in the world.
 

Never got to take a week 35 photo :(

FOR BABY PHOTOS CLICK HERE

"'Predictable' means that, from the very beginning of his life, you tell your baby ahead of time when a change will happen -- even a tiny change, such as 'I will turn the light on,' or 'I will pick you up,' or 'I'll go to the bathroom now.' Although his immediate reaction may be to ignore or protest the change, soon he will become confident in the face of changes."
~ Magda Gerber