Today we celebrated the LAST of the summer birthdays! 3 birthdays within 3 weeks is nothing compared to the 4 birthdays in 11 days we celebrate in the spring, but it does make for a dizzying celebration!
It is hard to believe that Emily, who was supposed to be our "last" baby is only 1 year shy of being an adult!
We didn't know what to expect as far as labor when we arrived in the labor and delivery unit of the hospital on July 11, 1994. Brett had been a fairly long and complicated delivery, Hannah had been very short (50 minutes start to finish). At a routine visit to my OB that morning, he decided that he wanted to induce labor that afternoon, as the baby seemed big and I was miserable. The heat was oppressive, my legs were swollen so badly that I couldn't even tell that I had ankles and my toes were so swollen they ached! We began the induction at 1 PM, I was already nicely dilated (between 3 and 4 cm) so they started an IV, added pitocin and broke my water, once we were settled and the room cleared out, it was close to 2 PM. The contractions were strong and steady by not unbearable, I even manage to fall asleep for about an hour. Then things CHANGE....I feel unbearable pressure and ring for the nurse. NO ONE ANSWERS. I ring again. And again. And again. By this point I have flipped around backwards on the bed and am squatting and clinging to the headboard to deal with the pain. I scream at Jay to go find SOMEONE, find ANYONE because the baby is coming! He grabs the first person he finds in the hallway, later we laugh that it was lucky it wasn't the janitor, but I think at that point I wouldn't have cared if it was the janitor. The young resident he was pulled into the room seems a bit frazzled, but comes over and checks and confirms that there is the top of a head presenting itself. He has me flip back around in the bed and asks Jay to go and get a nurse from the nurse's station. They return just in time to see the head emerge. OK, next push, we should have a baby. NO....push again....NO.....push again....NO...THIS BABY IS STUCK....the nurse literal jumps on the bed, her butt in my face and she pushes on my stomach as hard as she can to pop the baby through the pelvic bone....you could literally HEAR the pop, Emily breaks her collarbone as she clears the bone. 3:55 PM Emily enters the world! Apgars are 5 and 9, due to the stress of her delivery. Weighing in at 9lbs 13 oz, measuring 20 inches, she looked like a little butterball turkey! An absolutely BEAUTIFUL butterball turkey! Maybe I just think TURKEY because they didn't feed me lunch before they started the induction!
No comments:
Post a Comment