Labor of Love - Welcome Griffin

My labor and delivery experience was definitely a labor of love, but not a labor I loved...not even close.

Here's how it all went down

THE SHORT STORY (labor and delivery in a nutshell. See pics in LONG STORY)

Things that didn't go according to plan
Surprise! Signs of toxemia lead to getting induced 2 days (Thur Sept 29) before due date
Pitocin
Epidural that wore off 4 times
hours of nausea
19 hours of labor
hour and a half of pushing
Baby's head stuck at the tailbone
choice: forceps or c-section? we went with forceps. It worked
45 minutes to stitch me up
lots of blood lost
two units of blood needed for blood transfusion
blood clot in leg developing (but caught and treated)
Baby's jaundice lasting over a week

Things that went according to plan or better
My mom showed up a day early arriving 15 minutes before I got news I had to be induced
Brandon, Mom, and Kathy (mother in law) were all able to be with me for the entire time
I had great doctors and nurses
Mmm, pellet ice chips, not hard cubes 
Brandon was a great support through contractions and exhausting final stages
Baby's heart rate stayed strong through it all. No fetal distress
Baby born healthy at 2:40 Friday Sept 30 - 8.1 lbs, 20 inches.
Baby born on my dad's birthday
Baby named Griffin Brent Andrus
We got the medical attention needed and avoided future problems.
Great service in both hospital units we stayed in
Family, friend and ward support
Recovery going well


THE LONG STORY(for those who have more time and want more detail)

Wednesday September 28th
Go to the doctors office for a regular weekly check up. I had high blood pressure so they sent me in for an ultrasound, fetal monitoring, and a blood draw. Routine 10 minutes turned into a 3 hour ordeal. The ultrasound and fetal monitoring looked great so I wasn't worried. They'd call if the blood work showed anything sketchy. No call came.

Thursday September 29th
The doctor's office called me in the morning. I missed the call and forgot to listen to the voicemail
Mom was on her way into town so I cleaned the house and got ready for her. She wasn't originally planning on coming until Friday, but just decided she'd come Thursday for fun.

The doctor's office called again. I didn't hear my phone ring so I missed it. Mom showed up around 3:30pm. At 3:45 the doctor's office called again. I didn't answer because I was giving Mom the house tour (I didn't know it was the doctor's office because I didn't recognize the number). Mom said I should answer it. It was too late, I'd missed the call. I looked at my phone and realized that number had called me three times and left a message. So I listened to the message. Oops, my labs had come back with some concerning results and I was wanted in the doctor's office ASAP so they could check some things. I called back immediately and scheduled to be in at 4:00pm. My appointment didn't get communicated to whomever was trying to find me so the office called Brandon, my mother-in-law, and my mother-in-law's secretary trying to track me down. That worried everyone so Brandon left work and met me at the doctor's office. I thought it was unnecessary, but it turned out to be a great move.

Long story short, after discussing the lab results and the beginning signs of toxemia emerging,  I was given some options. The safest option was to get induced before anything had a chance to escalate and before my doctor left town for the weekend. So, I thought I was just going in to get my blood pressure checked, but I ended up being admitted and never made it home that night.

5:05 pm: I was in the hospital bed, gowned, and strapped to fetal monitors. This was not how I had expected to enter the hospital. I wasn't contracting or anything. I was in a great mood, but it was all kind of surreal and unexpected. This was it. In a matter of hours we'd have a baby boy in our arms. It was pretty exciting...and crazy. Plus, my mom made it just in time.

Before all the tubes and fun began.

7:30 pm: So I hadn't answered my phone that day to get me into the hospital and then I left the orders the office gave me to give the the labor and delivery unit in the car. The nurses couldn't act without the orders and they were having trouble reaching my doctor. Oops, I'd had them all along. Delay and craze about orders was my fault. But once we had the papers I was hooked up to a nasty, painful IV and the pitocin drip began. Immediately I felt nauseous.

Nausea pretty much stayed with me the rest of the labor. I had a few goals going into labor and the first one was to avoid nauseousness - it makes me panic. There isn't much I can do to control this so it's not a great goal, but it let the nursing staff know that I have a fear of nausea and puking so they were good to attend to it. It was a long night of almost puking, zophran, and benedryl. And cold washcloths for my head and neck. I hate being nauseous.

Some time later:
I'm not sure when the anesthesiologist came in to give me the epidural, but it was right before the doctor came in to break my water. Good timing. The epidural was supposed to be the end of all things painful and the beginning of watching movies and playing cards.

Wrong

I felt nauseous again once the epidural was put in (btw, with some strong breathing, the placement of the epidural wasn't bad. Great doctor). The contractions I was feeling did go away, but the numbness in my legs was awful. I hated it. I could still move them but it was so awkward. I was glad I couldn't feel the water breaking, though.

Then, not long later I felt contractions strong and intense. The epidural wore off. Oh, ouch! Brandon was awesome. He held my hand and talked me through the contractions when I couldn't talk through them. The doctor returned and adjusted the epidural concoction. Relief, until a little bit later when it wore off again. Doctor came back. This repeated a total of 4 times. Apparently I have a huge epidural space around my spinal cord. So I got a good taste of contractions, but I was lucky to be numb when some exams took place and in the end when the gruesome went down.


19 hours of labor:
The night dragged on. I had times of numbness and times of pain. Brandon, my mom, and Kathy (my mother-in-law) all stayed with me. Dwight, my father-in-law, made a brave appearance. He hates, hates hospitals, but he stayed for almost an hour! The nurses brought in mattresses so Brandon and the moms crashed on the floor around midnight. I was so jealous they could sleep. I never slept. Between the nausea, contractions, and blood pressure cuff expanding every 30 min I was unable to fall asleep.

Brandon and Kathy

Mom - with some crazy eyes from the flash

Friday September 30th (my Dad's birthday):
Labor continued through the night. Around 6:30am phone calls and texts started coming in asking if we had the baby. It had been almost 12 hours so the assumption was that we were done. Not so lucky. I figured we'd have a baby by lunch, but nope. Contractions started to slow and so did I. I hadn't slept all night. Around noon I was at a 10 so we started to push..and push...and push. Nothing was happening and I was already exhausted. We took a break to see if baby would change his position. An hour later baby had shifted so we pushed again. And again. And again. For over an hour we did this and baby was stuck at my tailbone. Contractions were close so I had little rest time in between efforts. I've done a lot of workouts in my time and this was by far one of the toughest. In fact, an Ironman doesn't take me near this long to complete and I never felt as completely exhausted at any one time during a race as I did several times during this process.

Gripping the sides of the bed, as if that helped

2:40 pm
After over an hour of pushing with no more progress, the doctor gives me a choice - forceps or c-section. Well, the whole team was already in the room and forceps could make it over with in a matter of minutes instead of surgery prep and execution so we went with forceps, as awful as it sounded. 2 minutes and a few last pushes later I had a purple and white screaming little boy on my chest with a really large cone head. It was over. He made it, healthy and strong.

I was really sick right after delivery so the doctor had Brandon hold the baby on his bare chest to get some skin-to-skin time before I was composed enough to hold him. But when I did get him, it was such a strange feeling. He was ours. He was what was in me for all those months. That moment we had been waiting for was happening. Happy.

Baby's first picture and three generations in one shot (that's my mom in the back)

After that I don't remember much. They stitched me up and moved me to another floor for recovery. My legs were still completely numb. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck.

Meeting Baby
Once in the new room Brandon was next to me and a baby bassinet with our baby in it was next to the bed. The nurse asked us if we needed anything and started walking out. I actually stopped her and asked her what we were supposed to do now. She told us to rest and enjoy. So Brandon and I were left alone in the room looking at each other and looking at this brand new little baby with no idea what to do with him or what to name him. We took turns holding him and just sitting quietly in awe. That and I was too exhausted to speak.

First visitors
Brandon's sister Jaime came by Saturday morning with her son, who brought his water gun to show his new cousin

More complications
Baby was born on Friday. We planned to leave the hospital Saturday afternoon. Hospital staff told us we could stay until Sunday if we wanted. We didn't want to, but as the day went on I felt worse and worse. I wasn't sure going home without a staff of extra hands to help while I got energy back was a good idea. We had family so we thought we'd try to go home until the color left my lips and I turned pale all over. An observant nurse questioned the change and ordered blood work. My hematocrit count was 18, about half of what they considered usual for postpartum moms. That explained how I felt. I lost too much blood during deliver and my body couldn't produce enough red blood cells to replace the lost ones fast enough. So I earned two units of someone else's blood. Never thought I'd have a blood transfusion, but it wasn't so bad. Halfway through the first unit I started feeling better. By the end of the second unit I was almost peppy. Thanks so much to the person who donated that blood.

My legs and feet also continued to swell. I got a nasty pain in my right calf that was a red flag for possible blood clots. The ultrasound showed beginning stages of a clot. Luckily we caught it at an early enough stage to treat it with just moist heat and movement. Eventually, and thankfully, the pain and swelling disappeared.

Those are my feet. So awesome

Once home our little guy turned more yellow and ended up with increasing biliruben counts leading to Jaundice. He had to go get his little foot pricked at the lab for 7 days in a row and sleep on a light bed to help clear the blood. It took about a week for numbers to start going down. He's great now.

Naming baby

Griffin Brent Andrus. Griffin came from a list on an iPhone app. We liked it and it made the final cut after he was born. It just seemed to fit. Brent is my dad's name. It worked out well considering it Griff was born on my dad's birthday.


I'm in Love all over again
I had no idea this small little guy could capture such a huge part of my heart. He is SO sweet and cuddly. Sure he cries a lot and keeps me up at night, but I just adore him. He has Brandon wrapped around his finger, too. And I'm even more in love with Brandon than before. I've always said Brandon is an amazing husband, but he outdid himself in the delivery room. I couldn't have asked for a more supportive, understanding, involved, loving and humorous person to be by my side helping me through the delivery battle (actually I could say that about pregnancy too). I'm in awe of his giving and his relentless love. I feel adored. And he's continued to adore me through recovery and adjustment to motherhood too. He's a great dad and takes seriously his responsibility as a partner in parenthood. He makes my job so much easier. I am so lucky.  I love him and I love him even more today than yesterday. Thanks for being there for me B.