Better Late Than Never

Tuesday, March 24, 2017 was a relatively normal day. I got up, went to work, waddled around the building… Except that my left eye was watering far more than usual. It normally does if it’s too windy or too bright, but neither of these conditions existed. I figured I must have got some dust in it or something.

Wednesday and Thursday passed much the same, though for the life of me I couldn’t figure out what the hell had made my eye so irritated. My boss asked me if I was alright, as I kept a tissue with me, always wiping at it. I told her that if it was still annoying me on Friday, I’d call out of work and go see a doctor.

Friday arrived and my eye was still driving me insane, so I called my doctor, who had suggested that I simply was suffering from allergies, which of course can be exacerbated by pregnancy. She said to stay home and relax, take a couple showers and let it pass. I’m not sure why it took so long, or why no one else had observed it, but I noticed that night that the left side of my face wasn’t moving. In fairness to me at least, I don’t look in the mirror but once, MAYBE twice a day.

By Saturday evening, I had done a fair bit of research online and come to the conclusion that I likely had Bells Palsy due to a spike in blood pressure due to pregnancy. I called my obstetrician’s office and the doctor on call instructed me to go to either Urgent Care or the Emergency Room.

Well. Clear Choice MD is WORTHLESS. Don’t ever bother going there for anything more than a sprain. They referred me to the Emergency Room where the doctors agreed that yes; I had Bells Palsy. They sent me up to Labor & Delivery for monitoring because well, the E.R. doesn’t really do much with pregnancy.

The nurse and doctor who monitored me were very nice. They gave me crackers to nibble on, as I’d missed dinner entirely; and my favorite pregnancy drink – cranberry juice mixed with seltzer. My blood pressure had been quite high in the E.R. and when I first arrived in Labor and Delivery, but it came back down after a couple hours, and my blood work didn’t seem to concern the doctor, so they sent me home with an antiviral (in case the Bells Palsy WASN’T due to high blood pressure, but some virus I might have contracted) and steroids.

The rest of the weekend passed fairly uneventfully. I visited my dad and his family and we all had a number of good guffaws over my harmless and temporary facial paralysis. Until late Sunday night. From 10:00 PM through the morning, I did not feel Alex kick once. It was, needless to say, a sleepless night. Husbeast assured me that all was well, but something just felt WRONG. I was due for follow-up blood work Monday morning, so I decided I would contact the OB’s afterward.

Monday, January 30, 2017. Blood work went fine, but Alex still wasn’t moving. I went to the hospital café and bought a bagel with cream cheese and some orange juice, thinking that if I ate something, maybe he’d move. No dice. I called OB and they recommended I go up to Labor and Delivery. It was Alex’s lack of movement that concerned them most.

My nurse in L&D was, as with pretty much everyone up there, very nice. She apologized at the end of her shift, amusingly enough, for being curt with me, but that she had a horrible headache. If she considered herself curt while I was there, I’m almost afraid to imagine how chipper and bouncy she’d be without a headache! I was subjected to an ultrasound that confirmed that Alex was just fine; he had just gotten sort of stuck on my hip. Once he dislodged himself, much movement ensued.

The attending physician that day – I’ll call her Dr. Stern because she was pleasant, but was absolutely a no nonsense practitioner – came in after several hours of waiting for blood work results and announced that I was getting an IV because the blood work that was ordered on Saturday was insufficient to give her the information she REALLY needed. She also stated unequivocally that she would not have released me over the weekend – she’d have induced me right then and there, because she “did not like” my blood pressure coupled with the blood work results from Saturday night.

Three nurses and six big-ass needles later, I had an IV in the crook of my right arm. Guess what? The junctions in the blood vessels in my arm are VERY close together, and do not allow for intravenous needles or tubes anywhere but in the crooks of my arms. No hands, no wrists, no forearms. Just don’t try it. The bruises on my left forearm were truly impressive. I think the doctor at Alex’s first pediatric visit was concerned for my well being until I showed him the punctures from the IV’s.

Dr. Stern returned around noon and informed me that I was going to have a baby that day, and so I should contact whoever I needed to, to make arrangements. She said that it would be a little while before they even got the Misoprostol from the pharmacy, so nobody needed to rush. I texted Husbeast and relayed the information. He left work and headed home to take a short nap; anticipating a long, hard labor.

Around 1:00 PM, Dr. Stern returned and administered Misoprostol – a suppository (not in the bum) that’s meant to soften and efface the cervix. Depending on how well mine responded, I’d either receive another dose or would be hooked up to a Pitocin drip. (Reminder: Pitocin is the manmade version of Oxytocin, which is the hormone that the body releases to induce labor.)

Guess what? My body doesn’t need much of a reminder to get labor moving. The “Miso” did its job and did it well, and I was on Pitocin by 3:00 PM. Husbeast arrived basically in time for me to have a couple contractions and decide that, based on the doctor’s declaration that it was unlikely I’d have the baby before the following day, maybe I should get an epidural. HA. I waited too long. It worked on my right side but not my left. As usual. But it did take the edge off, and I found that humming worked well.

I haven’t told anyone this next bit, so bear with me. Strange though it sounds, when I hummed through the contractions, my mind went back to when I was a little girl and I would curl up on one cushion of this big, ugly brown couch with a weird sort of tartan design. Ugly the couch was, but comfortable too – and as I hummed through my contractions, I felt as though I was lying on that couch again; comfortable and warm and happy.

I had never tried to hum during labor before. It wasn’t musical; just a single, low note way down in my chest. Previously I had groaned loudly or moaned at the top of my lungs. This was quiet – almost subdued by comparison – maybe that’s why it felt different. Don’t get me wrong, the whole experience was just as intense, but it was far less unpleasant.

Around 8:30 PM the residents came in to check me and found me dilating nicely, but the amniotic sac still hadn’t ruptured. They said that if it didn’t happen on its own within the next 45 minutes to an hour, they’d have to do it for me. They put a giant, peanut-shaped yoga ball between my legs and asked me to relax that way. In short order, SOMETHING broke and I called for the nurse.

It wasn’t amniotic fluid. The running theory is that the placenta detached a little early – something I’ve since been told is not absolutely uncommon in an early induction. Nobody seemed concerned, but they did choose to go ahead and break my water to speed things along.

Well. Let me tell you. Within SECONDS of breaking my water, that overwhelming primal urge to just PUSH overtook me and I started hollering for the nurse to take out the catheter. As soon as she did, I bore down. There was no intelligent thought anywhere in my being – I just PUSHED. I vaguely remember the nurse hollering for “W” and the residents telling me “just small pushes” but nothing mattered but getting that pressure OUT OF MY BODY.

Needless to say, one massive push later, the residents were muttering in surprise and holding a six pound, thirteen-point-nine ounce baby boy. They set him on my chest and the world came back into pinpoint focus. Husbeast and I stared at our newborn son, trying to wrap our minds around everything that had just happened as we fell in love with our second baby.

“W” hadn’t made it in for the birth. I hadn’t given her time. She allowed the residents to continue their work as I put my new baby to breast and he latched on with the abandon of the just-born.

Update:

Alex is eleven weeks old today and weighs a solid fourteen pounds. His once saggy skin has filled in with “just the right amount” of chub, according to his pediatrician. He’s a greedy little savage who’s got nursing down to an art form, and we all love him more than words.