Delivery Day

In celebration of our upcoming induction, I went into natural labor!  LOL!!

On Sunday morning around 2 am, I thought I was just having another sleepless night.  I was crampy, moody, and tired.  I started having contractions and dealt with them as I normally would-- I took a shower, laid on one side, then the other, got up and got a snack-- nothing would stop them.  Finally around 4, I woke up Doug to help me count them and time them.

By 8:30 we were into a good pattern with strong contractions every 2-3 minutes, so off to the hospital we went!  My first exam showed that we were 60% effaced and dilated to a 3.  Baby appeared to be in a decent position and station, so we were left alone to do our thing in our L&D room.  Our doula, Annette, was at another birth already, so she sent her back up, Christine, to be with us.  She was just perfect and such a calm, loving person to have around!

I labored well up to 6cm.  I had a lot of bloody show, and my water broke around 5cm dilated without intervention.  As we had planned a natural childbirth, I was ecstatic that things were going so great!  Well, after that water broke, I went downhill quickly.  I still had another several cm to go, and was progressing slowly so it could take hours.  I broke down and asked for the epidural- vehemently asked.  I was exhausted (having only slept an hour), shaking, and just could not continue that way.

After the epidural set in, I was much better.  I didn't even CARE that I couldn't feel half of my body-- just some pressure--or that I had an IV and a catheter in place.  If I wasn't already so in love with Doug, I would have married Eric, our anesthesiologist!  :)

Things progressed nicely, with a little help from pitocin (which I appear to be pitocin resistant, by the way, so induction wouldn't have worked well) to 10 cm and I was ready to push!  Exhausted already, shaking and sick, I pushed and pushed.  The baby went no where.  As we were to find out, she has a very large head, and she got hung up on my bones and simply couldn't get through.  She was posterior, so that didn't help either, and we couldn't get her to turn no matter what position we got into.

At around 2 am Monday morning (24 hours of labor) I started running a fever and could barely keep my eyes open.  After heavy discussion with our amazing OB, we agreed to a c-section.  Things become a little blurry at this point.  I remember lots of people in our room getting me ready, shaving my stomach, giving more anesthetic (thanks again to Eric, who was still on duty) and doing various other tasks for me.  I did throw up all over the place, but no one seemed surprised at that point.

My OB himself wheeled me down to the OR.  They didn't play around with time, which I assumed was normal.  I was quickly put on a table, strapped down, given warm blankets to stop my shivering.  Doug was ushered in and they started to open me up.  I felt some pressure, but that was it.  Before I knew it, the baby was out.  I felt a surge of nothingness- and then looked up at Doug in awe.  I didn't hear her cry at first and was scared, but then heard little mewing sounds.  Doug looked at me with tears in his eyes and snapped lots of photos.  The OB told me that she was having trouble breathing and was going to the nursery-- I sent Doug with her.

I got all stitched up, and in listening to the OR conversation, gathered that there was something very very wrong with the baby-- something about blood loss and a malformed placenta.  I was terrified.  As I was wheeled past the nursery, I noticed that Doug, Mom and Dad didn't look ecstatic and happy-- they looked scared.  My doula came into the recovery room and explained words I never wanted to hear.

My daughter began to go into a distressed state as I went into the c-section.  Her heart rate plummeted, which is why they cut me open so quickly.  When they pulled her out, she was bleeding out of her cord. Her cord had detached from the placenta, which was malformed.  Due to that, she had lost a lot of blood from her body, through her cord and into the amniotic sac.  She had then aspirated and swallowed some of that blood. They feared for her lungs (pneumonia) and her respiration as they had to artificially breathe for her for nearly 5 minutes.  They also feared because she had lost so much blood.  She got a blood transfusion right away, as well as quite a bit of fluids.  The decision was made by the head pediatrician that she was too unstable and needed to be in the NICU of the main hospital here in Atlanta.

Both my OB and the Pediatrician spoke to Doug and I about her condition prior to transport.  My OB explained that had we delayed even a minute longer, or had I insisted on pushing instead of surgery, we would have lost our daughter.  She was bleeding so heavily that we wouldn't have been able to replace that kind of blood and fluid loss and she would have been stillborn.  The Pediatrician went over all of his concerns (lungs, they pumped her stomach to get all of the swallowed blood out, need of fluids, suspected pneumonia) and the need for her to be somewhere that they could properly treat and monitor her 24/7.

I tried desperately to hang on to my sanity hearing this.  A transport team was notified to come up and get her, and I was finally allowed to see my daughter for the first time for a minute or two as they took her away to a different hospital, 45 minutes away.  I will never forget how tiny she looked in that big incubator, and how I bawled letting her go.  I didn't know if I would see my child again.

We prayerfully began the waiting game after her transfer.  Mom and Dad went back to their hotel, Doug went home to sleep and I sat here in the N-side Cherokee hospital praying for God to spare my daughter's life.  Thankfully, good news came in the morning!

Throughout the day, the news continued to improve.  As of yesterday evening, after Doug's visit, Samantha is breathing on her own.  Her oxygen levels are perfect and she's nice and pink instead of grey/white.  She doesn't have any issues with her lungs, and although they had to pump her stomach twice, she hasn't thrown up at all.  She has had two transfusions, lots of fluids, platelets and blood clotting medication.  She's being fed through a tube at the moment, and just sugar water, and loves to suck on her pacifier (good sign for sucking reflex!).  She's just beautiful, and I am forever grateful.

Doug and I finally, last night, were able to sit down together and decompress and talk.  He told me the horror of watching his distressed child be born (he stood up and watched it all) and how grateful he was that she was alive and improving.  In his words "God's fingerprint is on her entire life-- from her conception to her deliver, God has provided".  Had anything in that series of events been different we would have lost our precious child.  Had we been just a little later, had I insisted on pushing, had we been in a different hospital with a different OB and staff.....oh how wrong this could have gone!

We are humbled and thankful.  We don't deserve His mercies and understand what an amazing gift we have been blessed with.  We are in awe of our amazing God and thank Him for this beautiful baby girl.

As we know we aren't out of the woods yet (I am still in the hospital in North Georgia and Samantha is still in the NICU in downtown ATL) we ask for your prayers.  Prayers for healing for Shannen (LOTS of pain currently) and for Samantha (growth, blood pressure, eating, blood loss and transfusions, etc).

Below are the photos that I have of the baby, from when Doug went to visit her with my parents yesterday afternoon: