Rowan's Birth Story

[Meghan]

Rowan was originally due June 5. I was supposed to be having a scheduled c-section on Tuesday, May 29.....the day after Memorial Day. My last day of work was supposed to be Friday, May 25. On Wednesday and Thursday, I had all-day workshops at work. On Friday, I didn't have much going on at work and was planning to spend the morning transferring some stuff to my boss for her to work on while I was on maternity leave, and then probably leaving early. I was looking forward to a Memorial Day weekend relaxing and enjoying our last weekend as a family of 3.

On Thursday, I left work around noon to go to my regular OB appointment. I was planning to be back within an hour and finish up the rest of the day's workshop. My pregnancy and the baby were the furthest things from my mind; I was consumed with work and was slightly annoyed that I had to leave for an hour to go to the doctor.

At the doctor's office, my blood pressure was high. Really high. They put me on the fetal monitor and the baby looked fine. They re-checked my BP after I'd had a chance to relax. Still high. My urine came back with trace proteins. My doctor came in and told me that he was waffling between letting me go home and sending me to the hospital for further testing. He finally decided to let me go, provided I promised to go straight home and do nothing but lay on the couch until my c-section on Tuesday. No more work for me. I was really annoyed by this - I felt perfectly fine - but I certainly didn't want to go to the hospital, so I agreed. He told me to go home and take an extra dose of my BP medicine, lay on the couch for awhile, and then re-check my BP. If it was still high, I was to call him back.

So I emailed my boss, explaining the situation. I went home and took my medicine. I laid on the couch and answered work email for a couple of hours. Around 4:30 I checked my BP. It had not gone down. It had gone up. I called Mike and told him to head home, since I was most likely going to the hospital and wouldn't be able to pick up Sydney. Then I called my doctor and of course was told to go straight to the hospital for monitoring.

So I drove myself to the hospital. At this point, I did not think this was anything serious. I thought I was going in for some monitoring and I'd be home in a couple of hours. I did not even bring an overnight bag. I brought my work laptop so I could be productive. When I arrived at the hospital, they put me in a labor room and had me change into a gown. They drew some blood and put me on a BP monitor and a fetal monitor. BP was still high but the baby looked fine. They told me the would monitor me for awhile and see how my bloodwork looked. I laid in bed and worked and watched Myth Busters on TV. I was bored and annoyed.

From time to time, a nurse would come in and tell me that everything looked great and 'Id be going home soon. But still I didn't get discharged. Finally, around 7pm, the on-call doctor came in and said, "You have high uric acid in your blood. We suspect pre-eclampsia, so given that you are already past 38 weeks, we are going to go ahead and do the section tonight."

I nearly fell off the bed. "Excuse me? You're going to do WHAT tonight?" I asked.

I went into total panic mode. I called Mike and we explained the situation to Sydney together over the phone. That was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. We had a plan for the day her brother was going to be born. She was going to go to school and I had already planned out how I was going to say good-bye to her and give her hugs and kisses, and then Mike would bring her to the hospital after I was out of surgery. Sydney was confused as to why this plan wasn't materializing. She kept saying, "But my brother is coming on Tuesday." I was in tears because I couldn't properly say good-bye to her.

After I got off the phone with her, I called Emily and had her go to our house to watch Sydney. Syd was already asleep by the time Em got there, so she mercifully slept through all the drama.

Mike got to the hospital around 9pm. He changed into scrubs and they started my IV. I was still in a daze, unable to believe this was really happening. I asked to meet with the anesthesiologist before the surgery, since the meds they had given me when Sydney was born made me very nauseas. I wanted to discuss my options with him. It was the same anesthesiologist that I'd had with Sydney and he was kind of a smart ass. He was not willing to do the spinal without opiates, which I knew made me sick. He didn't think it was the opiates that made me sick, though; he thought it was just the trauma of the birth overall. He said that 50% of women puke their guts out after giving birth, regardless of what meds they get. He did agree to give me anti-nausea meds in the OR so that we could stop the nausea before it started, and he also put a seasickness patch behind my ear.

We had to wait awhile for an OR to open up. Apparently they had a record number of c-sections (14) that night. Finally, they took me back to the OR around 10:15. I walked to the OR with the nurse holding my IV bag with one hand and holding my hospital gown closed in the back with the other. Mike had to wait in the labor room. They did my spinal; it didn't hurt as much as I remembered. Then Mike was brought into the OR and the surgery started.

Rowan's head was so big that they could not get him out of me. I don't really understand how that is possible with a c-section. Can't you just make the incision bigger? Well, I guess not. They tried getting him out with the vacuum extractor and that didn't work. Eventually they had to call in another doctor for some added muscle and that did the trick. The entire thing lasted for about 15 minutes with them pushing and pulling and stretching me. It was very uncomfortable and of course I couldn't see what was going on. I kept asking how things were going and they would always say, "Fine!"

When they finally got him out, he was blue, but he pinked right up and didn't even have to visit the NICU. It took them quite awhile to get me put back together and I was getting very antsy. I guess I interpret any kind of delay to mean there is a problem, but in the end, everything was ok.

They took us to Recovery and I was able to breastfeed. He latched right on to both sides.

And then the nausea started. Despite multiple doses of Reglan, Zofran, and a seasickness patch on my ear, I ended up doing the same thing I did when Sydney was born: puking my guts out.
It was worse this time than it was with Sydney, though. I lost count of the number of times I threw up. It got to the point that if I didn't lay perfectly still with my eyes closed, I'd start having vertigo and immediately throw up again. They managed to get me to my room (with my puking several times en route), and then I sent the baby to the nursery and sent Mike home. I spent a miserable night not sleeping, trying stay still so I wouldn't throw up again.

I finally felt better around 7am and was able to see Rowan again. I was able to sit up and call people to tell them that Rowan had been born. The pain was worse than it was with Sydney; the doctor attributes that to all the pushing and pulling and stretching they had to do. But 2 weeks later, I am pretty much back to normal.

[Mom&DadMulhern]

Meghan,
I'm so glad you posted the story of Rowan's birth. Although it may have been annoying to you in the beginning, I'm sure now that you would agree that taking Rowan earlier than planned was certainly for the best for you and for him. Pre-eclampsia is so dangerous. Mothers and babies both die from that if it isn't diagnosed early enough. As for the verigo, I certainly sympathize with that. I hope you don't ever experience that again, as that is just plain awful. It's amazing to me how a new mother bounces back after child birth. The recent pictures of you holding Rowan show you rosie cheeked, healthy and happy. We are truly so happy for you and can hardly wait to see you all again.
Love,
Mom & Dad