Nolan’s Birth Story

Wow…has it already been over two three weeks since Nolan was born? I know I’ve been deep within the post-partum fog, but it seems that time has flown even faster with all the breast feeding, the bilirubin tests, matching Nolan to orange and yellow paint samples, and people in the house helping out.
Justin usually handled the posting of the birth stories, but since he’s not writing anymore, I got to do it. I wanted to get this written while I was still in the hospital, and then thought I’d get it up in time for Nolan’s one-week birthday. Obviously I’ve missed both those goals…but here it is, in all its glory (such as it is):
On Wednesday I woke up with a bad headache, feet that appeared more swollen than when I went to bed the night before, and stronger flu-like symptoms. I announced to Justin that we needed to go to the hospital again, and went downstairs to have some breakfast. After eating I felt a little better, and since I was still smarting from my last run to Labor & Delivery, I told Justin to go to his meeting and I would just take a sick day to try to relax and focus on whether we really needed to go back or just continue waiting at home.
I spent most of the day resting and wishing my headache would go away. As soon as Justin got home, I told him to pack whatever he thought he might want or need for the hospital, we made a few phone calls regarding the kids, and off we went to the hospital. We got there just before 5pm, and I went to the nurses station in Labor & Delivery and told her “I’m 38 weeks, I’m dilated 6cm as of my appointment on Monday, I’m not contracting regularly or anything, but I’ve got an awful headache, my feet have quickly swollen up and it won’t go down with ice or putting them up, and I feel like I have the worst case of the flu.” So she stuck me in an LDR room instead of a triage room, got me set up on the monitors to see if my blood pressure began rising, and called the doctor.

• 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