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Introduction
And now, for your reading pleasure, the birth story of Aidan Riley....
MONDAY, DECEMBER 15TH
It was a typical Monday with the exception that I was suffering from a nasty cold. I felt horrible but figured it would pass.
I left work about 5:30 and left a message for Steve that I was going home to lay down - I had suddenly gotten a really bad headache and thought that a few Tylenol and rest would get rid of it.
By the time I got home, my head was throbbing. I took a few Tylenol, turned out all of the lights, and laid down. My head throbbed worse. I called Steve to see where he was and asked him to come up as soon as possible. I thought that maybe I was getting a migraine - my head was hurting so bad at that point that it was hard for me not to cry.
Steve came up and we tried everything - I took more Tylenol, I put ice on my head, took a hot shower - none of it helped. Finally, I asked Steve to call the OB on call that night and ask what I should do. It felt like my head would split open at any moment and I couldn't handle it one more second.
To our surprise, the doctor said that I needed to go to the ER right away if we'd tried all of those avenues and nothing had worked.
Nervously, we headed over to the hospital. I was convinced that I'd go to the ER, they'd chastise me for doing something stupid, give me a shot and send me on my way. No such dice.
When we checked into the ER, they immediately checked my blood pressure, which was 200 over 131 - which is very high. They re-checked my blood pressure and it was a little higher, so they put me in a wheelchair and informed me that I was being admitted. They put in an IV and took blood and sent me up to labor & delivery. Now I was scared.
One of the OBs in my practice was at the hospital at that time and he came in to see me. He took a urine sample and checked my reflexes. After a few minutes, he came back and told me that I was a textbook case for pre-eclampsia. My blood pressure was high, there was protein in my urine and my reflexes were extreme. He told me then that they were putting me on magnesium, which is an anti-seizure medication since my blood pressure was so high. He also told me that he was going to induce me since that's the only "cure" for pre-eclampsia. He checked me and said that I was 2 cm dilated and 90% effaced, so "something was going on" - so maybe I wouldn't have to go c-section, although he did tell me at that time that it was a possibility. He started me on pitocin and we started making calls. Much to our surprise, it looked like we'd be having a baby in a matter of hours.
My parents, my sister and Steve's parents arrived shortly after and settled in for a long night.
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16TH
I was in labor almost 24 hours before the decision was made to take Aidan by c-section. I was dilating, but slowly. After all, my body wasn't ready to go into labor - the doctors were forcing it because of the pre-eclampsia. By noon on Tuesday, I was only 5 centimeters dilated.
At 3am, the doctor broke my water. The contractions started coming a little harder after that. Contractions weren't quite as bad as I had imagined. They were like very bad cramps but it wasn't the horrible, unbearable pain that I had imagined. Granted, it wasn't fun by any means, but breathing through the contractions did help.
The disadvantage I had was that with my hideous cold and congestion, I couldn't breathe through my nose, so I had to breathe through my mouth and that gave me SUCH dry mouth! I kept begging for water and since they had pumped me so full of fluids, they really only wanted to give me ice.
At 6pm, the OB checked me and said that I was 9 centimeters but that the baby's head was in a weird position. The decision was made then to do a c-section, which made me happy since I was exhausted and in no mood to push for hours.
At 9:00, we went into surgery and at 9:36pm Aidan was pulled out of me and into the world. At first, he was silent and the doctor told us that sometimes c-section babies don't cry right away, but it seemed like an eternity before we heard that little cry..........and then we both cried, partly out of relief and partly out of the sheer emotion of the moment. Our boy is finally here. We're parents. It was an incredible moment.
Steve took some video of the doctor cleaning him up and then the pediatrician came over and showed him to me and informed me that he needed to be taken to the neonatal nursery since his breathing was irregular. Apparently he was grunting when he breathed, which was a sign that he had some fluid in his lungs.
I started to feel like I was hanging upside down and all of the blood in my body was rushing to my head. I asked the anesthesiologist if that was normal and his response was "Oh, that's probably just the morphine kicking in". Morphine is NOT a good idea for me and I hadn't even thought to mention it before the c-section - I had no idea morphine was used. I asked the anesthiologist to cut it off but it was too late - I already had a good dose of it in me and the world went black. I could hear everything going on around me and could still feel everything.......ewwww, I hate narcotics. They just make me sick and don't do much in the way of pain relief.
I woke up next in a recovery room. My parents, Steve's parents and my sister came in to see me and to tell me good night. Then one of the nurseres asked me what my name was, where I was and what had just happened. Apparently I passed that test because I was then moved to maternity and told that Aidan was being moved from the neonatal nursery to my room shortly. Yay!
Once in maternity, I got violently sick, throwing up no matter what the nurses gave me. I got a shot for nausea, which made me throw up. I got a pill that I had to hold under my tongue, which made me throw up. They put some medication through my IV, which made me throw up. I know from experience that anesthesia and especially morphine make me vomit and so I wasn't horribly surprised. I was surprised when I was told that I was being moved to the ICU. Apparently there was fluid in my lungs and around my heart and they were afraid that my heart was enlarged. I was out of it when they took me down to ICU - I don't even remember the trip.
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17th
I woke up in the ICU completely confused on Wednesday morning. A nurse came into my room and I said, "Where am I at? Where's Steve? Does my mom know I'm in here?" The nurse told me that Steve had been in my room a few hours earlier and that he went home to get some sleep, but he'd be back. I asked to call him and my mom but she informed me that it was 6:00am so I decided to chill.
About 8:00am, the cardiologist came to visit me. He was very nice and very thorough. He told me that I had gone into congestive heart failure in delivery and asked if I had any previous heart problems. That freaked me out a bit. Then he said that they were going to do a sonogram on my heart to be sure that everything looked normal. Right after that, the sonogram tech came in and checked me out. The cardiologist came in to take a look and said that my heart looked fine and he concluded that the problems I had in delivery were due to the stress my body was under and not due to a weak heart.
I got a call from Steve a few hours later. He said, "I'm so happy to hear the sound of your voice" and I could hear that he was on the brink of crying. He felt bad for leaving to get some sleep at home, but I told him he didn't really have a choice - he had been up for 48 hours straight waiting for Aidan to arrive. He said that he had visited me in ICU before he left and that I was completely out of it, which freaked him out. He said the nurses said I was stabilized and that they'd call if anything changed. I thought it was a bit of an over-reaciton to send me down to ICU just over a bit of vomiting, but he said that I had gotten very pale and looked really bad, so I guess they knew what they were doing....
I spent the majority of the day in ICU with a bitchy nurse that I was on the verge of smacking. In the afternoon, I was moved to the Cardiac Care Unit, which was DEPRESSING. I just wanted to be in maternity, with Aidan, but the cardiologist wanted to keep an eye on me.
Another fun development came about on Wednesday - my white blood cell count was VERY high at 34,000, indicating a very bad infection of some sort(normal is below 10,000; a person with pneumonia usually has a count of 20,000). The cardiologist was very concerned about this - he said, "Every other piece of the equation makes sense, but I can't figure out what that's about". By the end of the day Wednesday, the lab had determined that I had some sort of bacterial blood infection, but they didn't know what it was yet.
I saw my OB that day while he was on rounds as well as the infectious diseases doctor, the maternity ward OB, the cardiologist and the pulmonary doctor. Every one of them came into the room with a BINDER with my name on it. I wondered how fat the binder was going to get by the end of the week! Scary!!!
Wednesday afternoon, I finally got to hold Aidan for the first time. I felt so disconnected from him after the c-section. When I held him, it was weird - we were supposed to have this moment 24 hours ago......I felt like I had abandoned him, knowing he was upstairs in the nursery without me. I knew the nurses were taking good care of him but they're not me - and I'm his mom.
Wednesday night was hard. I couldn't sleep and I just cried and cried about being separated from Aidan. I felt like I was failing him already, just one day into my new role as a parent. One of the nurses asked if I wanted a mild sleeping pill and I took it, knowing that there was no way I'd sleep otherwise.
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 18TH
I woke up on Thursday to the lab tech coming in asking for blood - a routine event I'd learned to tolerate. I HATE needles so I have to say that I did really well with the whole poking and prodding. I had 2 IVs in - one in each arm - and got daily visits from the lab, wanting to drain another vein to figure out what was going on with me.
Steve arrived in the morning and spent some time with me - I kept sending him up to the nursery, though, to spend some bonding time with Aidan. I told him I'd rather have him and our family up there holding him than strangers as much as possible.
By this point, I was starting to get a bit restless about getting up to maternity. It had been 2 days since Aidan was born and I'd gotten to hold him ONCE.
That afternoon, I finally got moved to maternity and Aidan got to join me - but I had to wear a mask when holding him or being close to him since they still hadn't figured out what was wrong with me to be causing such high white blood cell counts.
But at least I was in the same room with my boy - and Steve stayed with me too. At least I had that.........
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19th
Finally, the mystery of my diseased blood is figured out - I have Group B Strep, which isn't infectious to Aidan except through delivery, which he managed to escape. Typically the Group B Strep test is done at 37 weeks - I was due to be tested at my next appointment. I was given antibiotics for Group B during the C-section, just in case, but apparently I had a good case of it. I was put on IV antibiotics to get rid of it and could actually hold Aidan without the mask.
I had Hormonal Breakdown #1 on Friday afternoon when they came to take Aidan for his circumcision. The photographer had just been in to take his picture - a nurse popped her head in and said, "The doctor wants to see Aidan in the nursery right away for his circumcision". I had him in his going-home outfit, a little blue velvety number with little trains on it. I changed him back into the hospital garb and sent my boy off to have his little weiner cut on. And then I sat in my room and cried about it. Steve had gone to work for a few hours, so I called him to see if he was on his way back. Steve had talked about accompanying Aidan to the circ, but I kept telling him he might not be able to see them hurting our boy. At that point, though, I wanted him to go - I felt so bad sending Aidan but also knew that this was best........it was just hard knowing that he was somewhere else in the hospital in pain.
It started snowing in the morning and kept on through the evening, which at least gave me a good view! I had Hormonal Moment #2 that night - Steve woke me up from a bad dream. I had been dreaming that the nurses were taking Aidan out of my room for whatever reason and not bringing him back. I was shaking, crying, just inconsolable. I kept saying, "I just want to go home - I feel like a prisoner in here. I just want to be home". Steve talked me down, telling me that the whole experience of being separated from Aidan had just messed with my head and that all was well - that he was there, that he wasn't leaving and that nobody was taking Aidan. I finally calmed down and we got some sleep - until 6am when the x-ray tech came in to x-ray my chest again - and made Steve leave the room. He was less than enthused...........LOL
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20TH
After the aforementioned x-ray, we got a little more sleep before I was taken down to X-ray for another chest x-ray. My OB came in to check on me and said that if my chest x-ray was clear and my white blood cell count had dropped, she'd discharge me. The lab came by for more blood (I was sure by this point I'd be dry, but they managed to find some!) and then we waited.
By 2pm, I was restless and asked the nurse if I would be going home. My white blood cell count had dropped 2 days in a row - now down to 17,000 and my chest X-rays were clear. The nurse came back and said that my OB wanted to keep me another night, just to check my blood count again. Trying not to kill the messenger, I let her know that I wanted out TODAY and that I'd like to talk to the doctor. She said she'd let the OB know and have her call me. At that moment, I informed Steve that I would be throwing a holy fit if they didn't let me leave. I had endured the 6am blood draws, the shots, the changing of the IVs, the separatation from Aidan...........and I was done being the good patient. I just wanted to be home - to resume some sort of normal life. If there's anything that will drive me straight to insanity, it's feeling helpless - and being forced to stay in the hospital is about as helpless as it gets.
I was discharged about 4:30 that afternoon - no tantrum required. I was SO happy to just get home, to my home - where I could actually relax and officially start living as a family........
And that's the long version of the story! Ha!!
Aidan is an incredibly good baby. He eats, he sleeps, he dirties diapers and he spends some time awake, just staring at everything. He's a pretty quiet baby and he seems to know both me and Steve. There's nothing quite so sweet as the little contented noises he makes when one of us is holding him.........he'll make squeaky little noises or sigh. A few people have caught him laughing when he's sleeping - who knows WHAT he's laughing at, but he seems to giggle a little bit. He's got a full head of dark hair and big, dark blue eyes. He's already holding his head up pretty good - Steve's been calling him Turtle because he'll hold his head up and look around and it looks HILARIOUS.
I'm a bit whipped over the boy. Actually I'm a lot whipped over the boy. Being separated from him the first 2 days of his life have left me feeling like I have lost time to make up for.
A few things have surprised me about motherhood so far. The first is just how much I love Aidan. I knew I'd love him - but it's such a different kind of love from anything I've known before - it has such an incredible depth. I know without a doubt that I'd do absolutely anything for him - go through any pain, suffer any consequence, make any sacrifice just to be sure he's safe and happy.
The other thing that's surprised me is just how exhausting it is to be a parent. I knew it took work, but I didn't realize how throwing a baby into the mix would actually be. Steve and I are so far 0 for 3 - over Christmas, we've been significantly late everywhere we've gone, just because we have to not only get ourselves ready, but also get Aidan together. It never looked that difficult to me - and it's not difficult, just an added person to get ready and out the door.
I didn't realize how incredible it would be to see Steve become a dad. Through the 24 hours of labor, he didn't leave my side. He was there to tell me to breathe through the contractions, to sit with me and hold my hand through the epidurals, to reassure me through the c-section. He was, in short, incredible........and everyone from the labor nurses to my family commented on it. Now that we're home, it just melts my heart to see him laying with Aidan on his chest.
I'll end this long, long entry with some lyrics from a Lauryn Hill song called "To Zion". A song always says it better than I can.......
"Unsure of what the balance held
I touched my belly overwhelmed
By what I had been chosen to perform
But then an angel came one day
Told me to kneel down and pray
For unto me a man child would be born
Woe this crazy circumstance
I knew his life deserved a chance
I've never been in love like this before
Now let me pray to keep you from
The perils that will surely come
See life for you my prince has just begun
And I thank you for choosing me
To come through unto life to be
A beautiful reflection of His grace
For I know that a gift so great
Is only one God could create
And I'm reminded every time I see your face"
Happy New Year!!!
Heather, mom to Aidan Riley, born 12/16/03
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