The Story of Carter's Birth

         It was Tuesday, March 22nd at 11:45 pm, Blair and I were watching "The True Hollywood Story of 24".  As I was laying on the couch, I thought my water broke, but I wasn't positive.  I told Blair and he started freaking out.  After 30 minutes into a show about a colossal squid, I knew for sure my water was breaking.  It didn't happen all at once, but gradually over the next few hours.  I wasn't having any contractions, so we looked online to see what we should do.  Then we called the hospital and they said we should come on in.  We were so thrilled that it was actually time and we knew we'd meet our son in less than 24 hours.  We called our parents, then I took a shower and got ready, while Blair finished getting our stuff ready to go and called a taxi.  At this point, I was surprisingly calm, even though I was running around my apartment in a total daze.  At 2:45 am, we hopped in a taxi and headed to Union Hospital.  A nurse checked to make sure my water broke and told me I was 1 cm dilated.  I was a little sad to hear that, but figured things would start progressing soon.  At 3:45 am, mild contractions started, and I was feeling just fine.  About an hour later, the contractions got really painful and I was not feeling quite so fine and already thinking, how on earth am I going to handle this?  A nurse came and checked me around 6:00 am,  I was still only 1 cm.  I  felt pretty frustrated, considering I was already in a lot of pain and I had 9 cm to go.  They gave me laughing gas (like at the dentist) to make me feel better and it did help.  Around 8:00 am, Dr. Wong showed up and told me I was still 1 cm and since I was in such pain I could have an epidural now.  I said no, because I thought it would slow things down.  Dr. Wong said the epidural wouldn't slow things down, but I thought "nobody gets an epidural at 1 cm".  I was already a total MESS, I was in so much pain, and I felt so discouraged.  At 10:30 am, I gave in and got the epidural.  Getting the I.V. was the worst part, because I hate needles anyway.  I felt much better with the epidural, (and so did Blair) but still uncomfortable and exhausted.  At 12:00 pm, I was still 1 cm and very upset.  They gave me pitocin to speed things up, but that made Carter's heartbeat irregular, so they had to stop giving it to me.  When they stopped the pitocin, my contractions slowed down and stopped being regular.  Dr. Wong said that since things weren't progressing, he thought I might have to have a c-section.  I immediately broke down and started crying.  I've never had surgery before and I was in no condition to cope with the terrifying feeling that it was coming to that.  I was scared to death.  He said I could try for another hour and see if I progress.  I tried hard!!  Guess what, still 1 cm, 15 hours since my water broke and virtually no progress.  At 2:30 pm, Dr. Wong asked me if I wanted to keep trying, but I really felt like there was no way I could push, if I ever got to that point.  Since I had made no progress except to become more frustrated and exhausted, and things weren't getting better, I felt I didn't have much of a choice.  More importantly, Carter couldn't stay in there much longer without it becoming dangerous for him.

      The moment I said yes to the c-section, there were 5 nurses swirling around me, prepping me for surgery.  It was very alarming and nerve-racking.  They put Blair in scrubs and wheeled me down to the emergency theater.  The anesthesiologist said he would put more stuff in my epidural, but I would still feel tugging, pressure, and pulling.  I was getting nervous, and then they strapped my arms down!  I felt really nauseous and threw up.  Then they started testing to see if I could still feel stuff.  They would poke me with a scalpel in the stomach, and ask if it hurt.  I could feel it very clearly and it hurt.  I also felt intense lower back pain.  I started panicking a bit because the last thing I wanted was to feel the surgery as it happened.  The doctor asked (hopefully) if I wanted to be put completely under with a general anesthesia.  I said yes, because I was about to lose it and as having severe anxiety when they couldn't seem to get me numb enough.  Since I was being put under, they said Blair couldn't be in the room, and the next thing I know he's being rushed out of the room.  With tears in both our eyes, he tells me goodbye, and goes to wait in the hallway.  He is now scared to death, things happened so fast.  The next thing I know, I'm awake and the nurses tell me Carter's healthy and everything went well.  I was pretty out of it, but I'm looking around for my baby.  They start wheeling me to my room and then I see Blair.  The nurses tell me I'll get to see my baby tomorrow.  Bear in mind it's 3:30 pm and they want me to wait until the next day to see my baby.  I was so upset and could not believe that, after everything we had gone through, they expected me to wait overnight to see our baby.  I told them that was unacceptable, and I looked at Blair with a crazy look in my eye and told him to handle it NOW. Praise God, because Blair was able to find the head nurse and persuaded her to make a phone call  by telling her that his wife was VERY upset about not being able to hold and breastfeed her baby.  It was against their policy, but shortly after that, they wheeled my bed into a private room and let me see my son for the first time.  It was the most surreal experience.  I didn't remember anything about the surgery and then I was looking at this perfect little boy, and he's mine.  I never imagined he'd be so perfect and beautiful.  We were able to spend around  40 minutes with him.  I even got to breastfeed him.  Blair and I were so emotional.  We knew ahead of time that Carter would have to stay in a nursery, and we accepted that.  That night the head nurse would come every 4 hours and wheel my whole bed to a private room, so that I could nurse Carter.

This is the first time Blair got to see Carter.  He was in an incubator.

        Even though the labor and delivery was not how I envisioned it at all, I'm so thankful for the whole experience.  It was certainly traumatic and there were points where I swore I would never do this again (Blair said I had that look in my eyes when I said it),  but it all turned out perfectly.  My recovery has been great and I loved my stay in the hospital.  I was able to visit Carter as much as I wanted to in the nursery.  The bad part was that Blair was only allowed to see him 30 minutes a day.  Your prayers and messages throughout my labor were so encouraging.  I was able to check them through Blair's  iPhone and that really kept me going.
       

           Carter was born one day past his due date on March 23rd at 3:26 pm, he was 8 lbs. 6 oz. and 20.5 inches long.  We're so blessed to have such an amazing son to share our lives with.