For starters, we finally got to the hospital at 7 am, one day late. ("Late" because the hospital had cancelled our induction the previous day...and yeah, you can can imagine how well that went over with a 9 day overdue pregnant lady in the middle of a Dubai summer!). We check in to the hospital, they put us in a L&D room and the midwife tells us she'll be right back. About half an hour later, she strolls in to tell us that there are 2 emergencies c-sections plus my doctor is doing a scheduled c-section, so there will be a little bit of a wait. Fabulous! Aaron kept saying- OMG how much longer?!?! I of course had no idea but I kept telling him 15 minutes...it kind of gave me good practice for when we start those car rides and we hear a little girl in the back seat saying to us "Are we there yet?" Haha...
Here I am in all my pregnancy bloated gloriousness, waiting for things to get started. I tried to do a cute pose but I failed miserably!
Getting the hospital ID bracelet seemed like such a big step for us. It was the most excitement we had for the first few hours at the hospital. So much so, that we felt the need to take a picture of it!
While we were bored and waiting I made Aaron take a picture of my pedicure. The color of the pink polish is called Chastity. Kind of ironic considering I was in the hospital for... :)
***Funny Aaron story #1:
So we are in the holding room, waiting for our little party to start when Aaron realizes that he forgot to bring outlet converters for his computer. The outlets in Dubai are different, and since Aaron has a computer that is from the USA, he has to use this special plug that he can plug his computer in and it will plug into the wall. Aaron had downloaded a ton of movies and tv shows for us to watch while we were in labor and we wouldn't be able to do it if he couldn't keep his computer charged.
I told Aaron to run back home and just grab the converters. He was kind of iffy about it because he was worried I would deliver while he was gone. Keep in mind, at this point in time, I was not in labor or had begun the induction process so there was really no way the baby was coming within the next hour. But Aaron didn't believe me!
So a nurse finally came into the room to check out my contraction monitor and I asked the nurse if she knew if the hospital had any of those converters. She told us no. So then Aaron explains everything to her about this electronics stuff, and asks her if I will be delivering in the next 45 minutes. I think he seriously made her day because she started laughing so hard! She told him that the chances of me delivering were less than 0%! He felt a little bit better about that, asked her 2 more times if she was sure and then he made the executive decision to RUN home and get everything he needed (not literally run, but he went fast!). He seriously made it back in record time. It was very cute that he was so concerned and also showed that of course, he was clueless, like most men, when it comes this labor and delivery stuff!
***
So Aaron finally makes it back and we start the loooong waiting process. The induction finally began at 11am. Aaron told me he was certain that before we had come to the hospital that morning, I would have given birth by 11am! He was in a rude awakening, that's for sure! When the midwife began the induction process, she told us that usually first time moms need 3 rounds of the medication before labor would be induced. Then she laid the bad news on us. There was a 6 hour wait between each round. So that put us at 18 hours before my regular contractions would even begin! I wish I had taken a picture of Aaron's face at that moment in time. He looked like a little kid who woke up on Christmas morning to find out that Santa Claus had brought him a pink bike or a doll...soooo disappointed. When the nurse left, he kept saying that he couldn't believe it and this was going to feel like forever!
But, of course, we didn't follow the "average" induction. After my first round of medication I went from 1cm to a whopping 2 cm. We looked at each other and figured that I would end up needing 10 applications and the baby would come out sometime next week! So round 2 commenced. We ate dinner and began to watch a movie. A little bit before we started watching the movie, I noticed that I was beginning to have regular contractions. We began timing them and their duration and it ended up being 1 min apart and 30 -45 seconds each. They were uncomfortable but not painful. As the credits of the movie we rolling, I felt a big POP of me. It was the strangest sensation. The only thing I can liken it to is if you blow up a paper bag, then pop it. That's what it felt like. About 10 seconds later I realized that my water had broken. The party was getting started!
We called the nurse, who came and told me to try to hold off on getting an epidural because it would slow things down. She also told us that there is no way we would be delivering that night and we would be delivering well into the next day. Well I have to say, as soon as she left the room the contractions got INTENSE! I was able to get through about 10 of them before I told Aaron that I needed the epidural ASAP. We called the nurse who came into the room about 10 minutes later. As soon as she saw me and saw how restless I had become, she moved us right away into a delivery room.
The walk to the delivery room felt like it took HOURS. I could barely walk. We got to the room and the nurse told us that she called the anesthesiologist and he would arrive in about 30 minutes. 30 MINUTES?!?!?! OMG!!!!!!!! Let's just say that was the LONGEST 30 minutes of my life! I was in terrible pain. Aaron was great though and he was able to help me and comfort me. I made the poor guy go ask the nurse during the 30 minutes that we were waiting where the hell the anesthesiologist was. He always did it when I asked him and he reported back to me. It was brutal!
***Funny Aaron Story #2
This is funny now. However, at the time, I was about to kill him!
So while I was laboring with NO pain relief, Aaron had his camera in his pocket and our video camera around his neck. Right after a very intense contraction, he said, "Hey I should totally take a video of you having one of those killer contractions...isn't that a great idea?" I glared at him, began to threaten to do something very violent to his manhood, but was cut short because another contraction started up. What is the deal with this guy??!! Needless to say, he did not get a video in of me in agonizing pain, but he did manage to take a picture of me between contractions...I have still yet to decide his punishment for this one. Any suggestions?!
***
So finally the anesthesiologist came and I got my epidural. Aaron stayed in the room during the procedure and he actually stood in front of me (I was sitting at the edge of one side of the bed) and he held my hands. The epidural was AMAZING!! I was so happy to have it!
Here I am looking lovingly at the little bottle of anesthesia being pumped into my back:
Here is a trio of pictures of Aaron re-enacting what had happened so far throughout the day. I don't know what to say about this. It was his idea and I went along with it...
Right before the epidural however, the baby's heartrate was not looking good at all. The doctor and midwife were monitoring it and she never had any accelerations, which are a positive, reassuring sign when the baby is in utero. The doctor checked me again and I was 5-6 cm. They put an oxygen mask on me and had me move into a couple different positions, but her heartrate never picked back up. Of course I know how to read the heartrate strip since I did my nurse internship in L&D. I knew it was really bad and what was most likely to come. Sure enough the doctor told me I was going to need an emergency c-section!
Then he left the room to find out the status of the OR and Aaron and I heard him screaming that they needed to finish up in there because he had to get this baby out of his patient (being me). I was freaking out! We were both so scared.
Aaron left to go put on his scrubs and they wheeled me into the OR. The anesthesiologist gave me a huge extra dose of anesthesia for the surgery and they prepped me for everything else. I didn't see Aaron anywhere and I was totally freaking out but the doctor reassured me he was coming. He finally came in and stood by my head.
Then the doctor told me that he checked me again and I had managed to dilate to 10cm. In a period of only a few minutes I went from 5-6 to 10! So he told me that instead of doing the emergency c-section, he was going to deliver me by forceps. So basically, I had a normal delivery in the OR! Who does that?!?!
The entire delivery lasted about less than 3 minutes. I pushed 3 times and out came my baby! I didn't feel a thing either because I had SOOO MUCH anesthesia in me. It was the best experience of my life to see my little girl for the first time ever. I cried for about 20 minutes straight and I couldn't believe she was finally here. We were so stressed out and scared minutes before her delivery but she came out perfectly fine and healthy, crying her little lungs out. The nurses joked that she would be the next Beyonce with that voice!
Here is our first family picture:
And a bunch of pictures of us still in the OR and in the recovery room:
Oh and by the way, Aaron looked so cute in his scrubs. When we were in recovery, I told him he would have made a hot doctor and some of the doctors and nurses in the room with us laughed!
No comments:
Post a Comment