Hellllooooo Baaaay-Bay

For some unknown reason I took a notebook with me on our trip to the hospital. Don’t know what made me do it, but I am glad I did… through out the day, whenever something would happen, I would note the time and jot it down. I have since read it over and over, and what follows is from that note book: (it was very hard for me to NOT do this Jack Bauer style – “the following takes place from 6:00am to 7:00am”)

March 16, 2007 – 5:30am Wake up and make waffles and orange juice with my beautiful bride and my daughter.

6:10 am – My mom arrives at the house. Bless her wonderful heart, got up way early and drove 30 miles to spend the day with my daughter.

6:30 am – My wife and I leave for the hospital. Man, there are a lot of people that go to work at 7am.

7:00 am – Check in with the Maternity Triage. They assign us to room 10 ( the same room we had for our first daughter).

7:45 am – Nurse puts the IV in.

8:15 am – Everything is hooked up and done. Heart rate monitor, contraction monitor, IV, Petocin Drip, big comfy chair for me.

9:00 am – And all is well. A nervous excitement fills the room, and we ( my wife, her mom, Papa Dan, and I) start a “Birth Time” pool. My wife takes 11:00, grandma takes 3:00, Papa Dan lays claim to 6:00, I call 1:40, the nurse throws her name in the hat with 12:00.

9:30 am – Doc comes in and checks on my beautiful bride, we tell him about the pool, (and the $100 entry fee) and he takes 7:00. In hindsight, not really fair, since he his in control of the petocin, and all the crew and equipment.

10:00 am – Everything still going good, Nurse boost the petocin drip a bit.

11:30 am – My wife is starting to feel the contractions a lot more, and getting very uncomfortable.

12:13 pm – 3 nurses BUST open the door, and unplug the “baby station” cords and tubes from the wall, and run out of the room, a lot of commotion coming from the room next door. We would later learn that it was an Amish woman, who had complications beyond what her midwife could handle, and had to be rushed to the hospital. She and the baby are fine.

12:40 pm – My wife finishes off her second cup of ice, and eats the first of sure to be many Popsicles.

1:15 pm – Grandma and Papa Dan leave to grab lunch and run some errands.

1:30 pm – My mom checks in with a report that they are doing great, watched spongebob, played play-doh, went shopping, and my daughter ate all her lunch. They seem to be having a great time together.

1:45 pm – Stadol given, loopy ensues.

2:15 pm – Not much progress, Doc calls checking in, and may come break the water after his clinical rounds are done. We are told that time frame is about a hour and a half, by the nurse.

3:00 pm – My beautiful bride is out like a light. She is very unresponsive, that Stadol is a powerful drug.

3:45 pm – The ghosts of ice chips and Popsicle past come back to visit us. My wife is sick and miserable.

5:00 pm – The worst contraction so far grips my wife. Lots of debate over whether or not she should get an epidural or not.

5:30 pm – Talked with the anesthesiologist for a while, and my beautiful bride and I decide that it would be a good idea.

6:15 pm – Epidural procedure is finished, but not without a few glitches. The anesthesiologist needed three tries before he was satisfied with the results. I sat in front of my wife this time and talked to her and tried to keep her calm through it, the Nurse was a lot better at it than I was. Especially after I caught a glimpse of the blood covered glove and equipment the anesthesiologist had after the 2nd attempt.

6:30 pm – Since my wife can no longer feel anything from the waist down, a catheter is employed to take care of any business it saw fit. Still waiting for Doc to come and break the water, thus setting a record for the longest hour and a half in recorded history.

7:00 pm – 12 hour mark. Shift change for the Nurses, Now playing the roll of Nurse is Julie.

7:30 pm – Doc shows up and breaks the water. I decide to go down to the cafeteria and grab a bite to eat.

7:55 pm – My mother in law finds me in the cafeteria, and briefly explains that there is a problem, and I need to come back up. She mentions dropping heart rates, C-Sections, and wrapped cords… my mind only grabs on to the big scary words for some reason.

8:02 pm – When I left for dinner everything was normal. I come back to my wife with an oxygen mask on, a new machine hooked to her, new monitors and sounds, a panicked Nurse, and a worried looking wife. My emotions are sent spinning. The Nurse explains that when my wife has a contraction, the baby's heart rate drops severely. The Doc thinks it may be a cord problem. It may be pinched or wrapped around the baby. A C-Section is becoming a high possibility. The petocin is stopped to slow the contractions.

8:06 pm - I step outside the room when my mom calls in the middle of all of this and lets me know that my daughter wants to talk to me. I hear my favorite sound. I lose it. My emotions get the best of me. I fall against the wall outside the delivery room. I can't talk, I can barely breathe. Some how I manage a "Goodnight, tiny, I love you." My mom then gets on the phone, and some how talks me down from a couple of minutes of being a sobering mess. I start to settle down, and realize that everyone will be ok. C-Sections are a normal thing, and Doc has done 2 of them today. No big deal. Still scares the crap out of me, though.

9:15 pm - Petocin drip is restarted to see how the baby will react, and to determine if a C-Section is necessary. If not, it looks like it is going to be a long night, as my beautiful bride isn't progressing very fast in the dilation department.

10:00 pm - My wife is asleep. I need to but I can't think about anything but the heart rate/contraction monitor. 3 minutes apart, and the baby's heart rate drops from 130 to 80 during each. I hold my breath each time waiting for it to go back up. I cannot move my focus from those monitors.
Pretty sure Doc has gone home for some rest, so the situation must not be as bad as I pictured it in my head when I came back from dinner.

10:43 ( My first daughter's birth time) The baby's heart rate drops below 60 on a couple of contractions. Doc calls from home (he can monitor patients from his computer at home, how freakin' Awesome is that!) and recommends an Amnio Infusion. Which instantly becomes the name of my new ABBA cover band.

RANDOM THOUGHT: When did "Crocs" become standard hospital attire. EVERY nurse that comes in has them on.

11:10 pm - Getting exhausted, mentally, physically, and emotionally. I don't know how my beautiful bride is going to have the energy to push when the time comes.

11:30 pm - Things are getting back to normal. The Amnio Infusion has "lifted" the baby off the cord and lots of big contractions are happening. The baby's heart rate is dipping a bit,
nothing as severe as before, but she is recovering well from them. Nurse encouraged both of us to try and sleep a bit.

March 16th, 2007
12:10 am - I can't sleep. My legs ache to the point of tingling. Mostly from standing for the past 18 hours. I still cannot look away from the HR/Contraction monitor. 3 minutes apart. Heart rate still dipping, but nothing to near what it was before.

12:15 am - Nurse checks the cervix, and my beautiful bride is nearly fully dilated. We may be getting close. The baby has moved down quite a bit. Nurse gives the dilation a 9. ( Russian judge only gave it a 8.5)

12:30 am - 9.5 cm! Baby's irregular heart rate brought Nurse back in to recheck. My wife is starting to feel more pressure.

1:15 am - Lots of people (with Crocs) move equipment into the room, and start laying out various tables full of tools and instruments. Nurse pushes a couple of buttons and the bed goes from happy mode, to prepare for battle mode. She checks the dilation again and says to push a couple of times, and one big Stop pushing. She hustles out of the room quickly.

1:20 am - 2 1000 watt lights focus their power on my baby's front door, and Doc strolls in. They gown him up, and he takes a look. He pulls back my wife's gown and says, " Wow, Look at all that hair." I immediately think, "That was inappropriate! That's my wife, you sonofabitch!", then I look where he was looking and see the top of my baby's head, and I think "Wow! Look at all that hair!"

1:33 am - After what could have only been about 10 pushes by my beautiful bride, Baby Violet is born. She is beautiful, and covered in cottage cheese. They towel her off a bit, and Doc clears her mouth and nose out a bit. A couple of clamps go on the cord, and they hand me some scissors. I make the same joke I did last time, asking "if there is anyone more qualified than me to do this?" I get a big poke in the ribs from my wife. I cut the cord. Which has a lot more resistance than I was expecting. My wife gets the rest of the business done, and baby is taken to a cleaning station across the room. I proceed to Brag about my 1:40 prediction. But am quickly met with some "am/pm" scandal talk.

1:48 am - Violet weighs 8 lbs. 5 oz. I smile and comment that 8/5 is my birthday. I love number coincidence. Our first daughter was 7 lbs. 7 oz. My wife's, mom's, mom in-law's birthdays, and our anniversary are all on the 7th.

1:52 am - I hold my new daughter for the first time. Her face is nearly a perfect circle. She has the cutest little nose, and a sweet pout on her face.

2:05 am - Everything is cleaned and removed from the room. Baby and Mom celebrate with some breast milk for about 30 minutes. Baby is whisked away to the nursery for a bath, and stuff.

3:30 am - My beautiful bride is moved to a recovery room. I give her a big kiss, and thank her for such wonderful family. I drive home.

4:00 am - I get home, and kiss my other daughter on the forehead and tuck her in. I check on my parents who have taken over my bed, and are sound asleep from a day of chasing a 3 year old. I grab a pillow, and a blanket, and pass out on the couch.

Violet Louise
8 lbs. 5 oz. - 21 inches
Born March 16th 1:33am.