I am still such a whirlwind of emotion that it is hard for me to even begin writing Raven's story. With Ryder, it was the experience of pregnancy and childbirth that was difficult and frightening. Now, after a fairly uneventful pregnancy, I have a baby in the NICU. She is going to be fine. I can't wait until I can look back on this week as a memory.
Last pregnancy I expected to go into labor for weeks: 10 weeks of bed rest, followed by 2 weeks of "false" labor. I can't say that I never thought about going into labor this time, but everything about how this final trimester was going suggested that I would make it to my scheduled delivery date of Oct 21st.
Monday night, I had some painful cramping in my lower back. Tyler rubbed it out for me and we all went to bed. In retrospect, I wonder if the baby dropped or that was the start of labor. I guess I'll never know for sure, and since the pain lessoned I didn't think about it at the time as anything other than a pregnancy complaint.
I woke up around 3:00am and noticed I was having some contractions. They were painful, but not unbearably so, and the timing was irregular. Previous nights, I had episodes like this and they always resolved themselves within an hour or two. So, I settled in to wait it out. After an hour I was still feeling them, so I decided to get up and walk around, thinking the change in position and movement would help. I went into our bedroom (Ty had been sleeping with me in the living room since I could only get comfortable on the couch) and started to gather items for the hospital bag, thinking that I may as well get something productive done while I couldn't sleep. I started laying out items on the bed. All the while, I am having contractions, some painful, some not.
At 5:00am I finally gave up on the idea of going back to sleep and got into the shower. I had also decided at this point that I may not be having an episode of false labor, although I was still in denial about this being the real deal. I started timing contractions, which were coming fairly regularly at 5 minutes apart. Tyler had been sick and I wanted to let him sleep as long as possible, especially if this was going to turn into a long day at the hospital. I had an OB appt already scheduled at 9:15, so I decided to finish getting ready, finish the hospital bag just in case, and call after the office opened to see if I should go there or to the hospital.
Tyler woke around 7:30am and although he wanted to call the on-call Dr right away, was willing to go along with my plan of getting ready and getting Ryder fed and to our pre-arranged babysitter. Finally at 8:45am we were on our way. Contractions were still steady and getting more painful. We dropped of Ryder, and I told Kristen that I thought I might be in labor. I called the nurse in the car who checked with the Dr. and said to go ahead to the hospital for monitoring.
We arrived at Labor and Delivery and I was given the fancy hospital gown and hooked up to the monitors. By now contractions were ranging from 2-5 minutes apart and I was having a lot of pain and cramping in between. The nurse tried to check for dilation and couldn't tell. At this point she told me that she was going to check in with my Dr but "didn't expect me to have this baby today." She came back in a few minutes later with a Terbutaline shot to try to slow the contractions.
The shot took the edge off the contractions, but didn't stop them. It did make me jittery - a common side effect I was told. The nurse left again to call the doctor. When she returned she said I would be delivering within the hour! The turn of events was almost too fast for me to process. It was also a very busy day in Labor and Delivery. I think there were 4-5 other women already in labor with 2 more on their way in. Despite all that my nurse, Rita, was excellent. It was completely opposite from my experience the last time. She was very caring and when she could tell I was becoming overwhelmed by all the information she dropped everything to come sit with me and talk me through it. I was nervous about Raven coming at 36 weeks (premonition perhaps?), and she did her best to reassure me that most babies who come at this point do fine. Because the day was so busy they wanted to send me to the 3rd floor for recovery after the cesarean, which would have meant having to be separated from Tyler and the baby. I was in tears over this. I had such a horrible experience the last time I was left alone due to the surgery. Rita advocated with her boss to let me stay with her observing; the compromise being that if she was needed because a delivery was happening right then, I would be moved.
The anesthesiologist arrived next and walked us through what happens in the OR. I was nervous, but feeling pretty in control at this point. He left to scrub and I was moved to be prepped. Everyone I worked with this time was warm and I felt taken care of. It was still nerve-wracking to be numbed, knowing that someone is about to cut open an internal organ, but I felt reassured and was as calm as could be expected. Tyler was soon in the room and the OB and his assistant arrived. It was time!
In what felt like a short amount of time, the Dr was telling me I was going to feel some pressure as they pulled out the baby. The anesthesiologist told Tyler to stand up so he could see - the anesthesiologist held on pretty tightly in case he started to pass out. This was funny role reversal. I had been hoping to see Raven born, while Tyler had no desire at all. I wonder now if they got mixed up on who wanted what. I found in the moment, though, I didn't really care. I knew that I would quickly get to see my baby girl.
She was delivered and the assistant OB brought her around the curtain so I could see her before they took her over to be weighed and assessed. I was amazed at how big she was for only 36 weeks. She arrived at 1:01pm. She was 7 lbs even and 20.5 inches long.
