How I met Charlie

I do apologize for the lack of posts. I feel very cliche, but most days I feel accomplished if I can shower and make my doctor appointments. But before I forget all the details, I wanted to record how I met Charlie. I apologize for the length, but there were so many important parts I wanted to (over) share.

On Monday, October 29th, I packed my bag for the hospital and Jim fit the car seat into the car. And as I was washing baby clothes so Charlie would have something to wear when he would arrive the following week, Moises sprayed on some boxes in Charlie's room while standing right next to me. There I was, 38 weeks pregnant, and dealing with cat pee. Again. I just cried. I knew I couldn't handle a newborn AND cat pee. I put Moises into the office to limit damage - it was a space he had never peed in before - and just sat down and cried. I reached out to my rescue friends and started to line up a place for him to go live for a while - the only option I felt I had. Jim and I had differing views on the matter, and it was a rough, emotional night. Neither of us wanted to let Moises go, but didn't know how to manage one cat (Roxy) living in one room, combined with a newborn and ANOTHER cat locked in a DIFFERENT room.

After much crying, I had crawled into bed around 1:30am. I got up to pee at 1:45 (what else is new), and had just crawled back into bed when my water broke. As soon as it happened, my first thought was - that's not pee! I just peed! - and then I leapt out of bed and ran to the shower, all the while telling Jim - "Clean it up! It stains!" - while Jim says - "its go time?" I then stood in the shower shivering while my water continued to "break" - every time I thought it had stopped, I would move and it would start up again. It was the weirdest damn thing to "pee" without any control over it for over 30 minutes. I showered to warm up while Jim threw his stuff together for the hospital. Even though I didn't feel any contractions, my doctor had wanted me to go the hospital as soon as my water broke because I had excess fluid, so away we went, with me wearing a towels between my legs while sitting on a plastic bag in Jim's car.

We got to the hospital around 2:30am on the 30th. The only thing eventful about the first few hours, were the number of nurses I went through. The duty nurse checked us in and first checked me while we waited for the on call nurse to come in. We had nurse #2 for about an hour, before we got nurse #3 + nursing student for a little over an hour. The nursing student was very nice and finishing up her internship in just a few weeks. My doula arrived around 6 (I think), when I was enjoying the giant bathtub in my room. I think the bath was my favorite part of the laboring process. I think I could have labored in there all day. I only got out because I was turning into a prune. I was only up and about until like 8 am, when I got the weird news that ruined my labor plan.

My pregnancy had been very healthy. I had weekly ultrasounds for the last 8 weeks because I was 35, but other than having excess fluid around the baby, everything looked great. So when the nurse - and nurse #4 was my LEAST favorite, I was VERY happy I didn't have her all day - came in and told us that I had severe preeclampsia and would have to go on immediate bed rest and meds, my first thought was that they had mixed up my blood work with someone else's. My blood pressure throughout my pregnancy had always been great. But nope. My body was freaking out and there was nothing I could do about it. My blood pressure was very high, my liver enzymes were elevated and my platelets were declining - all indicators of HELLP syndrome. I wasn't "full blown" HELLP syndrome yet, so they were able to treat me with magnesium and let me labor. But laboring in bed with only a choice of my left side or my right side, was not what I had hoped for.

Luckily, shortly after I got confined to bed, I got nurse #5 - Andrea - who I had for the rest of the day until my c-section. She was great even though we greeted her by telling her we weren't going to learn her name because she was nurse #5. But she laughed with us, and she instantly gave me a good feeling (compared to nurse #4, who gave me the impression she wasn't confident in herself). Andrea took the time to explain HELLP to me, and generally made the day better. Without my doula and Andrea, I don't know how we would have made it through the day. There were so many things we didn't know and weren't prepared for with the severe preeclampsia and HELLP, and they were amazing.

The day really ran together for me once I was confined to the bed. Because stroke is a possible complication with HELLP, the curtains had been closed and the lights turned down in my room since 8am, so I had no clue what time it was. Jim and my doula were great though. Although, at some point as Jim was trying to comfort me during a contraction, he said something to the effect of, "good girl," and I told him he couldn't say that anymore because all I could think of was that he was talking to a dog. Bless his heart, I think he only said it once more after that and caught himself that time anyway. Jim really was great that day. I really started to question myself as I was so frustrated by not being able to move out of bed. I think its a rule that everyone must tell a laboring woman that she is doing a good job, but I really didn't feel like I was. I just felt really defeated, and I cried on a couple of occasions - which really, just made the contractions worse. But when my doula followed up with me a couple of days later, she said that during those times when I was crying, and my back was to Jim, that he was crying too. And even now, 6 weeks later, picturing that brings tears to my eyes. He really was so supportive of me that day - my heart feels enormously grateful that I have such a great partner.

I was really hoping to try to labor without an epidural, but between my lack of options for movement during labor and the possibility that my platelets would get too low and I might have to have an emergency c-section, I did opt for an epidural - I think it was late afternoon or early evening. Luckily, I got a great anesthesiologist who was willing to do one even though my platelets were in the 80s (they fell into the 60s eventually I think) - if the platelet count is below 100, they don't usually do epidurals.

Actually the anesthesiologist was a riot. Even in my stupor from the meds - the magnesium made it hard to keep my eyes open - I remember telling him I liked him. He was joking and made me feel so at ease, even given the seriousness of the situation. He was teasing my nurse about having seen her naked, and Andrea was laughing and scolding him for the joke, but I loved every minute of it, and it took me away from the pain for the time being. (Andrea had to have some emergency surgery earlier in the year, and he was her anesthesiologist. She said she actually asked for him, that he was the best, which made me feel even better.) He asked me afterward how I was feeling, and I told him it was like I had carpal tunnel in my ass, which made him laugh. "I have never heard that before. I will have to remember that," he said. Having a numb ass is a very ODD sensation, let me tell you.

At some point, I started to have nausea, and Andrea got me a bucket to hold. I named it Bob the Bucket. He stayed with me most of the afternoon/evening. I am not sure I actually needed to use one until the operating room, but it made me feel better to hold it. Although I think my doctor thought I was crazy when I told her I had named it Bob the Bucket.

I never did dilate past 8 cm. (The pitocin tells the muscles to contract, but the magnesium tells them to relax. No wonder my body was all WTF.) And around 8cm, my cervix started to swell - the opposite of what you want to be happening at this time. So around 7:30 in the evening, everything started to turn downward - I wasn't dilating, my BP was still high, my platelets were lower - so it was decided to move forward with an urgent c-section rather than wait and potentially end up with an emergency c-section. (With the urgent, I could be awake and Jim could be in the room, the emergency meant I would be asleep and Jim couldn't be there.) I definitely wanted the urgent and NOT the emergency.

But I was mourning the loss of the opportunity to have my son laid on my chest right after he was born. If you know me, and read this blog, you know that I struggle with depression. While I appreciate my anti-depressants for keeping me stable, it is at the cost of muted feelings. And I was looking forward to that iconic moment of birth with hopes of my hormones overriding my muted feelings. I was hoping it would give me that intense moment of connection I felt I didn't get during pregnancy, and was worried I wouldn't get at birth.

Once they decide to do the c-section, it moves fast. Jim and my doula were gowned up before I knew it, and I was being wheeled to surgery. I was so tired at this point, and the meds making me so loopy, that it all runs together. I remember falling backward onto the table as the block took effect, and feeling like the table wasn't wide enough. (I also remember vomiting repeatedly. Not cool.) I remember someone asking if a nursing student could watch the procedure, and them telling Jim he could watch too if he wanted. (He declined.) My doula did watch the procedure, and told me later how careful my doctor was and how impressed she was by her. I remember someone telling me that I was going to feel someone pressing on me to get the baby out, and I remember looking to my left as Charlie was screaming his little head off and waving his arms and legs around as the nurse looked him over at the baby station, but I don't remember the time between those events. I remember tiredly thinking, "Oh, look. A baby," and barely being able to keep my eyes open. When they brought Charlie over to me, I remember smelling him and thinking, "He smells good. That's weird. He was just inside me. How does he smell good?" And kissing his cheek.

(I love that in the first picture I actually look coherent. The rest of the pictures of me I look completely out of it. This picture reassures me that the birth of my child did break through my muted emotions, even if all the meds I was on made me barely conscious.)

I somehow ended up in the recovery room, and sadly, we were stuck in this room for several hours. Mostly this sucked for Jim as there was only one chair with no arms and he had to hold Charlie almost the whole time. (We were there from around 9:30 to 2am - they didn't have enough staff to move me to my post-partum room. And by this point, we had been awake for over 24 hours.) My arms were shaking from the meds/hormones, and when they stopped shaking, my arm was numb from my carpal tunnel and I was afraid to hold Charlie. I was able to at one point lay him on my chest, and I was still amazed that he smelled good. It wasn't until around 2:30 that I was finally able to feed him, and then shortly thereafter, he fell asleep and we sent him to the nursery to sleep - sleep for both him and us. But first, I made Jim lay in bed with me for a few minutes and we chatted softly about the day. I don't remember what we talked about, but I appreciated the opportunity for it be "us" for a few minutes.

(The next day or so Jim ran into Nurse Andrea in the hallway, and she expressed to him that she was so worried about me and that she really wanted to stay with us past her shift to see us through and she asked about Charlie. Jim invited her to my room and I got to show off Charlie. She was very excited to meet him and to see that I was better. I was grateful to be able to express how awesome she was for us.)