What Now

Billy's birth story

Neither of my boys had an easy birth. I mean heck, my sister in laws barely have time to get to the hospital before giving birth. Not me.

On Billy's due date I went into false labor. I felt so sick. I remember coming home from the hospital and puking up my cream of wheat.  I still can't eat the stuff 13 years later.  Three days later I begged Mike to not go into work, but the contractions weren't close enough together to warrant going to the hospital yet. Mike no sooner go his big rig to Oakland's warehouse then to get my call telling him that I don't care if they send me home we need to go to the hospital, I didn't feel right.

A couple hours later as I was strapped to the monitors, the nurse about to send us on our way home, then my water broke on the hospital bed. They took one look at the puddle under me and said there was meconium in the water.

I should back up a little, I'm the kind of new mom who read and planned for my birth. I had a detailed birthing plan. I would have my husband, sister, mom, and midwife in the room and that was it. Hell my sister had strict instructions to stay "north of the border" I would stay mobile. I would not have an epidural. Get the picture, totally control, heck I even brought the music I wanted to hear.

I had no idea what meconium was. They immediately requested to put a monitor on the baby now that my water had broken. I was formally admitted. My plan officially thrown out the window. Priority number one was giving birth to a healthy baby by any means necessary. It was discovered Billy was Sunnyside up. None of this made sense. Eggs? What? They explained meconium was the baby's stool in the amniotic fluid. Sunnyside up meant he was facing the wrong direction not breach, but this explained the intense back labor I was having.

Now instead of having just a few people in the room we had a nurse and a doctor, and I was told the baby would immediately be seen by a pediatrician, and his team would be in the room also. Oh and hey, the doctor who is on duty has a pack of residence shadowing her and they would also be in the room. My modesty was quickly discarded.

The baby showed signs of distress on and off. My mom and Mike had to take turns pushing heat packs on my back. To help with the pain they gave me fentinal assuring me it was safe for the baby but would help with the back labor. I remember being aloud three doses and not believing they pushed the last dose because it did NOTHING to touch the pain. I couldn't walk the halls like I planned because of all the monitors. Eventually they let me sit on an exercise ball, this helped progress the labor. It came time for the Doctor and entourage to come back to the room but now there was a new complication they could see.

The baby's umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck, the doctor needed to prepare the ER in case we needed to go in for an emergency C section. It was decided she would attempt to unloop it as I pushed. Thankfully it worked, but as he was born it was noticed that there was also a knot in his umbilical cord. Luckily it had not tightened and I remember him being wisked away to the other side of the room to his own team. It felt like ages before he was brought back to me but I'm sure it was only a matter of minutes. Billy had to struggle to enter this world, and it was a miracle as I look back that we got him for the time that we did considering all he went thought just to be born.