• 5:40pm – while monitoring my blood pressure and such, Nolan’s heart rate dips to 80′s and we’re told that we may need a sonogram to check on him
• 7pm – After waiting over an hour, called the nurse to see if I needed a full bladder for my sonogram…or else I needed some help disconnecting myself in order to use the bathroom. At that point, the doctor decides that he probably just rolled on his cord and stated that due to his heart rate deceleration that I was no longer an elective induction patient and now had a medical reason if I wanted to do it that night (especially since I was so dilated). If I had a back to my gown I think I would’ve ran around hugging everyone in sight because I was convinced that I was going to be walking around and not have this baby until the bag and baby just fell out on their own, probably while in Costco lifting 40lb bags of dog food or something equally dumb and mundane.
• 7:30pm – we get my GBS-killin’ penicillin started
• 8:05pm – they break my water and I’m pronounced 7cm
• 8:45pm – start the pitocin to get my labor moving since I STILL wasn’t having regular or stronger contractions
• 9pm – They offered the epidural and since I didn’t feel too bad yet, I declined it, saying I thought I could wait until 10-ish
• 9:45pm – I asked for the epidural. I may or may not have been cross-eyed with pain at this point; I’m not sure since I had to take my own notes on this whole delivery even though a certain someone was sitting 3 feet away from me with their iPad. Not that I’m bitter or anything.
• 10:05pm – Epidural in place – hallelujah! It was all I could do to NOT jump up and hug the anesthesiologist. It may have had something to do with limited use of my legs, or the backless gown. I was checked and was still 7 cm, so they cranked up the pitocin.
• 11pm??? – Again, not good that I’m taking my own notes at this point in the night. At any rate, the epidural forgot to numb half my bottom – so while I was numb from my bra-line down, it seems that the nerves on the right side of my undercarriage ignored the memo and continued to cause me increasing amounts of pain. They try flipping me onto my right side to get the lidocaine to settle there. No relief. So my nurse ups pain pump and turns off pitocin to give the lidocaine a chance to work.
• 11:30pm??? – At this point I have tried to find that happy place in my head, but the bouncer at the door kicked my miserable self out. The contractions were coming on top of each other, giving me only about, what seemed, ten seconds in-between to gasp for a big breath of air to help me focus on the next wave of pain coming. I could hear people talking but couldn’t make out what they were saying. My wonderful nurse called the anesthesiologist back and he shoots a big shot of lidocaine directly into my epidural line. Within seconds I feel the numbness stretch up to my armpits, and the toes of my right foot have finally gone numb as well (they were the other hold-out…just wasn’t worried since I rarely give birth out of my feet). I feel my elbows getting numb, but not my forearms, upper arms, or shoulders. Alas, my bottom is still in a lot of pain and it seems that the shot only took the edge off so that I wasn’t actually yanking the bedrail off the bed or breaking Justin’s hand.
• 11:40 – My nurse starts chirping that one good way to get rid of this pain is to start pushing…because I’m finally 10cm. Part of me thought “are you kidding?” and the other part of me said something along the lines of “well, ok, if you say so.” Then the two nurses tell me to grab my legs and I started laughing because between the numbness in my elbows and the shaking from the narcotics, I wasn’t sure I could make my arms do much. So somehow my arms were hooked around my legs and we began pushing. After that first push, I finally feel the rest of the dang lidocaine make it to those triffling nerves in my bottom. And since the pitocin was still off, my contractions had finally slowed down to where I could get a good minute to rest and breathe in-between my sets of pushes. About ten minutes into the pushing, I start feeling really nauseous and am visualizing that on the next push I just may puke at the same time that my child is emerging into the world. A very weird sight. Even weirder was the little puke bag the nurse brought out. Ever seen one of those things? Looks like the little dust cups for a Dust Buster. As I’m laughing nervously at the thing, she mentions that the nausea will subside as soon as I deliver. I don’t believe her, and thankfully don’t need to use the Dust Buster bag to catch my vomit.
• 12:00 – Nolan arrives! He had the cord wrapped around his neck once (not twice like Cooper, nor was there a knot in it like Gavin, despite Nolan’s in-utero acrobatics).

When they held him up I was surprised how much he looked like Gavin (well, minus all the rolls Gavin had), and I said, “look honey, he has your toes!” which made the doctor and nurses crack up. And man, did that child holler…it was great. Since he was yelling so much I felt more comfortable letting the nurses clean him up while he laid on my belly (unlike Cooper who was more gurgle and less screaming). I touched his skin and it felt sticky and smooth at the same time. And then, while he laid on my tummy, I cut my son’s cord, officially welcoming my third, and probably final child, into the world.

Nolan, 16 Hours Old

But, alas, no. She smiled benignly at me as she said “girl! I can’t believe you are STILL walking around here with that baby at 6 cm dilated!” and then rambled on about how I’d need to wait till next week before I can receive the Blessed Needle of Pitocin, as I am still lucky enough to not have any medical reasons to induce prior to the Sacred Week of 39. I shall not stop counting at 38 unless it is to be followed by 39 (can you tell I’m channeling my inner Monty Python?).

Obviously, should my system GET A CLUE and go into labor on its own, they will obviously not stop anything. My gripe is that if I wait much longer with these wimpy, non-regulated, yet somewhat effective contractions, that by the time my water breaks or I get to next week, I will be so freakin’ dilated that they will tell His Eminence, the Anesthesiologist, to withhold the Holy Epidural and I will be forced to birth a now 8-pound bruiser without the benefit of pain meds to keep me calm and keep me from screaming like a woman possessed.

So. I have a new-found motivation to get my house clean. It helps that I am at working from home and have instantly gained 12-15 hours a week just by not commuting. It helps that Justin arrived safe, but exhausted, Friday evening from a whirlwind 29-hour series of flights from Noorvik to Kotzebue to Nome to Anchorage to Seattle to DC. It also helps that the only real, bonafide contraction aggravator I seem to have in my arsenal is heightened activity. So since it is well in the mid-80′s outside (too hot for me to walk), I have cleaned two bathrooms, and have a fairly sizable list of additional items to take a shot at in order to egg-on my system to do what it was built do to…cuz folks, waddling around 6cm dilated HURTS! All those muscles and ligaments and bony structures are all moving apart like the freakin’ Red Sea all while supporting an ever-growing baby. While Baby Center had estimated my kiddo last week to be an average of 6 or 6-1/2 pounds (and not much heavier this week), the LDR nurse that took care of me on Friday thought he looked to be close to 7 or 7-1/4 pounds…and since I already have a history of big babies, and she has helped deliver hundreds, or maybe even thousands of babies in her career, I lean a little bit more towards her estimate. So bring on the housework! Maybe we’ll finally be able to bring on a baby!

Taken last week at 37 weeks, 1 day

Wednesday morning I had my 37 week check-up. My weight was good (36 pounds gained), my blood pressure was good (110/75), even my pee was good (no sugar and very little protein)! The doctor asked about contractions, and I assured her that ever since she put me on work-restriction and told me to slow down that I went from having a very irritated uterus pumping out 30+ contractions per day (just during waking hours), to around 15 or 18 per day. Also mentioned that while I had a lot less of the Braxton-Hicks type contractions, I was getting a few more of the painful ones…usually radiating up my back to my shoulder-blades, but even those were few and far-between. I reminded her that last time we chatted three weeks ago, Justin was tentatively going to Alaska, and now he was actually there and that in itself ramped up my activity levels at home since it was only me and the kids. She raised an eyebrow at me, asked when he was coming home, double-checked my chart, and said, “alright, lets check on this little guy”.

She poked and prodded him, got a good grip on him, declared him to be still head-down (anyone else think it’s kinda cool when the doctor can grip the baby’s head from the outside?), listened to his heart, and then did my cervical check.

Wow! I had forgotten how uncomfortable that can be!

As I gripped the sides of the table, squinting and wishing I had paid attention to how big her hands were, I saw her eyes widen, which got my attention. She asked “are you sure you’re not contracting?” I usually did not get that kind of response from my cervical checks since I was “almost 1cm” when I was induced at 41 weeks with Gavin, and “2-3cm” at the hospital to induce Cooper at 39 weeks. I grasped my belly, which had stiffened slightly in response to the medical procedure, answered “a little…but it’s stopping now, even”.

The doctor looked away from my questioning gaze quickly, and asked “when is your husband due back?” I told her “May 6th. You’re going to give me bad news, aren’t you?” She answered, “yeah, he’s gonna wanna come back sooner or risk missing the birth. You’re 4-5cm dilated.”

I was so floored that I’m pretty sure I called her a liar. I’ve never been that far without a pitocin drip, had already gotten my epidural, and had been in a considerable amount of pain just prior to seeing my best friend, the anesthesiologist. I mean, I know the pitocin ups the intensity of the contractions and helps you actually have “real” contractions, but 99% of the ones I had been having up to this point usually just slowed me down to a shuffle while walking, or after a long day, just flat-out wore me out like I had been exercising. But very little pain. In fact, the 20-30 min round ligament pain I would get (dr. said it was like a charley horse), was excruciating and would bring me to tears, but those didn’t do anything and I had never had any contractions thus far that garnered more than a whiney “owwwww”

The doctor let me know that she had a few patients that walked around that far dilated for a good week before having the baby, but most of her patients usually had the baby within a few days. She offered me a few options: go back home and wait for Justin to arrive, hoping he makes it in-time with the 20-or-so hours it takes to travel back from Kotzebue; or go ahead and get induced now, and I could have the baby probably by dinner-time. I shook my head and said, “my emergency birth coaches are both working…I don’t want to be THAT by myself!” So we agreed I would go home and try to stay off my feet as much as humanly possible with two small children that insist on eating.

So I emailed, then left a voicemail, and finally texted Justin in an attempt to reach him so that he could get his flights changed or take a dog-sled or something to get back right away. Then, because I and everyone else, was convinced I’d have a good 8 or 9-pounder at around 39 weeks and only had size-2 diapers, I ran to the nearest store and bought some Newborn diapers (supposedly he’s around 6-1/2 pounds), picked up some nursettes in case I need to supplement, grabbed a few other odds and ends and then came home to sit on my butt working and alerting my co-workers, friends, and family about the start of Baby Watch.

After resting in front of the laptop for a while, I slowly started gathering items I’d need for my bag, and a bag for the boys. I picked up the kids, we had frozen waffles for dinner (don’t worry, I toasted them first…heh heh…oh…I’m the only one that thought that was funny. ahem), and I got them to bed early. At one of my bathroom breaks I noticed that I had lost my mucus plug (I know it’s natural and a part of life and stuff, but still…ewwww). So I folded some laundry (while sitting), read a little and went to bed.

Thursday was quiet, partly because I had parked myself in front my my work laptop, and just tried to remain calm and hydrated. As the day progressed, however, I just kept feeling worse and worse. So I grabbed the infant car seat and the bottles from the basement, double-checked the bags I had packed, texted Justin that I was really feeling ill, that I seemed to be leaking some fluid (possibly amniotic?) and went to bed early with a Neat Sheet and a beach towel underneath me.

At 3am I really started to feel sick. I was a little hungry, thirsty, but still nauseous. Went to the bathroom and realized I was still leaking some sort of fluid, and I was contracting every 15 minutes, with a new symptom: menstrual-like cramps in my back and lower abdomen. I drank some water and layed there trying to relax and sleep, but the contractions (still not very painful) and the cramping was making it difficult to doze…plus, I was keeping track of them on an app on my phone since I was too tired to mentally note how far apart they were. Finally around 5:30am I had had enough and got up, got dressed, and ate. I made the final additions to our bags, got the kids up early, brought their breakfasts to daycare and dropped them off a good hour earlier than usual. Then I made a few calls and went to the hospital while I still could drive myself. Figured since I had failed my GBS test, getting to the hospital now also afforded the doctor enough time (four hours!) to give me the antibiotic I need prior to delivery.

After three hours there, where I wasn’t any further dilated or effaced than I was Wednesday, had a negative amniotic fluid test, and had walked around the birthing center for an hour trying to see if that would restart the regular contractions I woke up with, or see if I’d dilate further, they finally said, “well, you aren’t contracting regularly enough yet, they aren’t increasing in intensity, and you’re not dilating further. Since you’re just 37 weeks now, we would rather send you home than give you pitocin or break your water since little boys are more likely to have breathing problems before 39 weeks.” And while it all made sense in my head and I was relieved that he’d be staying put at least long enough for Justin to get back into town (he was somewhere between Anchorage and his Seattle layover at that point), and I know full-well how much better and healthier the babies are the longer they stay, in my heart I was a little disappointed to not see his little face yet. I also felt bad that I had alerted a lot of folks that I was going in the hospital and now I was coming home…I had worried a lot of people for no reason, it seemed. So I let as many folks know as possible about the false alarm, picked up some lunch, and went home to rest before the kids and Justin arrived.

Dear Women-Who’ve-Never-Been-Pregnant:

Do not, I repeat, do not EVER say to a pregnant woman “wow! you’re getting BIG!” or “you must be getting HUGE!” It is tacky that you, a woman who has most likely never watched her weight and waistline balloon 30, 50, or even 70 pounds within 8 months or less, to say that to a woman who is MORE than aware that she is starting to gain satellite planets. And certainly don’t say that sort of thing to a woman who is anything less than your best girlfriend or closest sister.
To put it bluntly, even MEN know better than to let that sort of phrase fall out of their mouths within earshot of any woman they may think is pregnant.
This kind of behavior is even more insulting and unwanted than unauthorized tummy-touches.
So don’t do it. You could lose a limb.

So now that I’m “in the home stretch” as they like to say, and at 35 weeks I’ve gotten to the point where I will purposely go into places of business just to scare the heck out of the employees. I am ridiculously large at this point, my uterus is measuring a good week-and-a-half larger than I am gestationally, I’m just under the 40lb gained mark, and have a highly irritable uterus. Thankfully, as of this past Monday, I have officially been on work-restriction and was ordered by my doctor to “lower my activity levels”. I laughed so hard peed my pants (not that it isn’t hard to do now). Since she hadn’t seen me in a while (I go to a big OB-GYN practice), I reminded her that

1. I work full time 30 miles away from my home
2. My husband travels a lot for work and likes to go places like northern Alaska, where it takes him 2 days to get there and 2 days to return, not to mention the 7-10 days he’s actually working while there
3. I have two older boys
4. My family lives 700 miles away

She told me to work from home, then, since that was one big way to keep my activity down, and keep me off the road when I’m having some 30 contractions per day during my waking hours. Even though I’m having a lot of contractions, they’re (thankfully) not doing anything besides wearing me out, but her concern is that they’ll become more organized too soon unless I decrease my activity and stress levels.

I was also worried that I was going to have some enormous baby and asked about a sonogram and how soon would they consider delivering if he was as big as I swear him to be. She grabbed my tummy, got a good grip on him, and poked and prodded around. She felt pretty certain that he probably was only slightly bigger than average, that a good portion of what I’m toting around in my belly is amniotic fluid (I’ve always had larger-than-average volumes of amniotic fluid, so not too surprised), and that within the past 2-3 years, if the only concern is the size of the baby, they will not deliver any sooner than 39 weeks because should the baby get wedged in there on the way out, they can always do a c-section. I shrieked at her, “but I don’t WANT a c-section!!!! especially an emergency one!” She laughed at me (actually laughed!) and said, “well, you’ve already delivered two really big babies…I don’t think you’ll have any trouble delivering this one.” I just scowled at her and tried to decide what would be more embarrassing: me passing out on the OR table from that dang vagus nerve and becoming the laughing stock of the hospital; or me and the baby both needing diapers.

Although I might now need to consider diapers for my dog…poor thing just had a wicked case of the shamans. Ewww.

I had all these huge plans to better document this pregnancy. For one, this is the first pregnancy where I had a blog, as opposed to being an editor and guest contributor (the now-defunct-blog-and-is-a-boring-resume-site-justinrummel.com). Two, I like to talk a lot. Three, I’m obsessed with pregnancy and babies already. And four, since Justin wasn’t documenting some of this pregnancy, I knew I needed to step-up so that this kid didn’t think we weren’t just as excited about his impending arrival as we were for his older brothers. But then Justin started traveling all the time, leaving me to play single-mom. And stuff at work ramped-up quite a bit, leaving me working close to 50 hours a week. And Gavin had the nerve to grow up and join this cult, called Kindergarten, and thus I was required to start helping him with homework instead of slacking off and letting him watch cartoons each evening while I prepared dinner. And then I would get writer’s block and weird, hormonal self-doubt, because, honestly, who else is as obsessed with your growing baby as much as you? Nine times out of ten, even the father isn’t as interested as you are. Not that that’s a bad thing…but you dads could at least pretend you’re interested in the in-utero hiccups, how a well-placed baby kick can trigger a fart that would impress most frat boys, and occasionally call your wife a sexy lady even when she’s reduced to wearing the XXXL pit-stained t-shirt you wear to do the lawn.

Now, some things have changed at work and I seem to have a little more time on my hands. Not because my work-load has lessened (because it hasn’t), but some changes in titles, exemption statuses, and other decisions from the Grand Pubahs have forced me to reduce my hours back closer to 40 per week (though there’s now a weird balancing game I have to play and a new time-reporting system that has gone all sorority girl on me: seems nice and pretty, but is really a pain and no one understands it). While Justin was home for a while, he’s starting to get back into the traveling thing again, but some other changes at his job seem to be on the horizon, too, that may make it easier for him to be home more…please pray for us! And I seemed to have mustered past my self-doubt about obsessing about my own unborn child now. Must be because I’ve passed the “Sick as a Hairball-Ridden Cat” 1st trimester, the “I’m feeling fairly happy and mentally balanced” 2nd trimester, and am now well into the “More Hostile than a Sleep-Deprived Badger” 3rd trimester. So here are a couple thoughts I’ve had recently:

Names and Size
This may go for other pregnant women, but please, please, please, if you are not a close friend and I only see you in the waiting room at the OB’s office, or I’ve never considered going out to have drinks with you, please don’t ask for what names we’re considering for this child. Or worse, offer us some of your outcasts and hand-me-down names. Earlier in the pregnancy I would smile politely and say stuff like, “hmmm…we’ll have to think about that one!” Now, though, I can barely find a shred of decency in me to say such things, and will instead probably respond with, “no thanks. We’re not white-trash enough to pull off that name, but feel free to keep it on your short-list, eh?”

As mentioned, I’m past being nice, no matter how hard I try. So please don’t say to me, “wow! you’re getting huge!” Thanks, Captain Obvious, I hadn’t realized that despite the fact I lost sight of my feet back around Election Day and I’ve developed a blind spot where I lose sight of children under the age of 3, and any animal smaller than a Newfoundland.

C is for Ceasarean, Which Really Ain’t For Me
I’m terrified of c-sections. For me, that is. I’m fine if other women have them and fully support it as a very routine, safe, and viable option for gettin’ that baby out, but I have a ridiculously irrational fear of having a c-section. I mean, if I had to have one…if I had a medical reason for one, obviously I would have one because my number one priority is the health of this baby. I know women who ASK for c-sections because they’re terrified of labor, and to some extent, the actual vaginal delivery. Can’t say I blame them because frankly, while the human body is wonderfully and beautifully made, even after delivering two good-sized babies, I still have a hard time wrapping my head around the notion that my body was specifically made to do just such a thing. But major abdominal surgery while fully aware, just for the heck of it? Not for me!

With both kids I told my doctors and the LDR nurses that I was more interested in trying all other tactics, like the salad tongs, the vacuum-plunger, implementing the use of feet braced against my exposed back-side, and even bringing in the maintenance staff for ideas, and just saving the c-section as the absolute last resort. I just never told them I was so against it because I was scared of it. And I just realized recently where the fear is stemming from: my vagus nerve.

I’ve got a bit of a tricky vagus nerve. When I get really upset, I can’t eat and I feel faint. Nearly every time I have to get my blood drawn, despite how comfortable I am with blood, needles, and medical staff and procedures (thanks to my mom, the nurse), I nearly black-out. And I’ve tried looking away from the needle/syringe, I’ve had a lovely and well-meaning phlebotomist put some numbing creme on my arm so I wouldn’t feel the needle stick, I’ve tried diversionary tactics like eating or drinking or talking, but in all cases, my dang vagus nerve detects some “danger” and I start sweating, getting clammy, feel my heart pound in my chest and hear the blood rushing in my ears, and stuff starts getting dark. I have a similar response when that vagus nerve gets pressed on by the baby if I find myself on my back for more than a few moments. Or even if it gets pressed on by a cat sitting on the left-side of my lap “just right”. And now if I eat quickly, like breakfast on a weekday morning (despite the size of the meal), it seems to overstimulate my vagus nerve and I get the same symptoms…thankfully I figured out if I follow that meal with a quick dose of caffeine, it seems to get my blood pressure back up a bit (because even 7 months pregnant, I’m still sporting my 100/65 BP…don’t be jealous, unless you like fainting, of course). The only time I’ve not had this response is when I’ve been sedated, even mildly sedated (as in sleepy codeine sedated…haha).

So how does this correspond to my fear of a c-section? Because I’d be on my back and getting, not a needle-stick, but a full-blown incision while awake. I am absolutely certain that I would pass out entirely, send the medical staff into a crazed frenzy thinking they nicked an important artery (as opposed to somehow realizing my vagus nerve hates me) and would completely miss the birth of my child. And I don’t want to miss that for anything in the world.

I really and truly have been meaning to post these. But I really and truly did have an issue with my scanner. I would attempt to scan the images and it would say “uh, I’m sorry, which computer would you like these sent to?” and I’d remind it nicely that it would be for my cute little laptop. Then the scanner was all “whatever,” and wouldn’t send the images to my laptop. So I tried to dupe it by triggering the scanner remotely from my laptop (instead of the scanner itself), and I’ll be darned if the thing didn’t holler out at me “B**** please! I can see you in there!” and wouldn’t send me the images. So I was forced to ask Justin a few times to scan the sonogram images for me. I think I literally heard the scanner purr “oh, the Apple wants some images scanned? Sure! Whatever you want, sweetie!”
Good thing Justin brought that rotten Apple with him to MacWorld or else I’d be interrogating it right now to find out what it’s slipping to my scanner.

I see you!

Little Man #3 showing off his stuff

Yay! He has at least 5 toes!

We're not quite sure what the heck he's doing there.

Classic profile

From what I can tell, with all my layman’s knowledge of radiology, the baby seems healthy. I’m also basing that assumption on the fact that I did NOT hear any “hmmmm’s” or “uh-oh’s” or sucking in of breath that might indicate the sonographer saw something bad or unusual. Of course, we’ll find out for certain after the radiologist looks at all the images, and my OB looks at them all and they make their final educated guess. The sonographer did mention the baby was measuring bigger than my current due date of May 23rd, and that the measurements were suggesting a due date of May 17th (a mere two days prior to my original due date of the 19th). However, again, the doctor will need to decide if they will move my date back now that this little boy is measuring 2 days bigger than the calendar-calculated due date like his older brothers did. I sure hope she does decide to push back the due date because this kid appears to be on-track to be another 8+ pounder.

Meanwhile, I’m thinking of soothing my mild disappointment with a little retail therapy. Considering how many hand-me-downs this boy is destined to get, I’d like for him to have a few new items bought just for him.

p.s. I promise to add in scans of the sonogram pictures as soon as I can get my scanner to cooperate.