On Tuesday April 9, I was 39 weeks and 4 days pregnant. Needless to say, I was feeling extremely tired and went to bed early. I awoke at 1:30 in the morning on Wednesday April 10 to the feeling of a light trickle runnimg down my leg, and I thought to myself, this is strange... It wasn't until I felt a second trickle that I thought, hmm...I better get out of bed. When I stood up, the flood began and I realized that my water had broke! I immediately woke up Jared and we spent the next couple of minutes calling the doctor and adding last minute items to my overnight bag. Since my water broke before the contractions started, it was a relatively easy ride to the hospital. I felt a little crampy but nothing like what I was going to experience later =)
At the hospital, I worked through the contractions until 9am, when the doctor said we needed to get the show going a little faster. She administered Petosin to get the contractions going stronger, and I also received an epidural. The doctor told us that I would dilate 1 cm per hour, so we should expect her by 6pm. Since I had an epidural, I was fine with the waiting and spent the rest of the morning lightly resting. Around 2pm, the nurse came to tell Jared to go and get something to eat. He was resistant to leave, but he finally did. The doctor came to check on me 10 minutes later and said that she could actually feel the head! I told her that we couldn't have the baby without my husband, so we had to wait. I texted Jared and told him to come back immediately!
Within 10 minutes of Jared's return, the doctor was back and the room was ready for delivery. I didn't realize it at the time, but looking back, there were a couple of signs that the baby was in distress. The nurses and doctors were so calm though that I didn't realize anything was wrong until after she was born. The pushing was relatively easy and only took about 5 minutes for her to be born. This is when I realized that something was very wrong. All day, we heard babies being born and you could hear the loud crying. When Sara entered the world, she was not crying. Jared didn't even get the chance to cut the cord because the doctors and nurses were working in lightning speed. Sara was a tiny baby (only 5 pounds and 13 oz) and had the cord wrapped lightly around her neck. She also came out face up (as opposed to face down the way babies are supposed to come out). The combination of these items made her entry into the world a little more shocking than usual and it took her awhile to recover.
Sara was immediately taken to another bed within the room and administered oxygen and other necessities to get her awake and responsive. I spent the time panicking and yelling at Jared to take pictures and show me what was going on. The doctors and nurses were very reassuring telling me everything was going to be fine, but looking at Jared (who was white as a ghost and also freaking out) scared me. Luckily she seemed to take a turn and everyone thought she was going to be fine. So, they let me hold her and attempt to breast-feed.
After 30 minutes or so, they took her away again to get a bath and said they would bring her back to my room upstairs. However, she never came back. After several minutes in the nursery, Sara was unable to keep her temperature up and her blood sugars were dropping. Instead of bringing my baby back, the nurses brought me papers to have her admitted to the NICU that I had to sign (my first job as a mother).
Sara spent 4 days in the NICU. The first night was hard, because they had her hooked up to a warmer bed and Jared and I weren't allowed to hold her. She had cords and IVs going everywhere, because they were administering sugar water to keep her sugars up. Thursday was better, because they allowed us to take her off the warmer bed to hold her and try to feed her. This is when the fun began. Since they were concerned with her sugars, Jared and I were a two man team trying to make sure she had enough food intake. I would try to breast-feed, then I would spend 20 minutes on the breast pump while Jared supplemented with formula. Meanwhile, all Sara wanted to do was sleep, so we had to constantly wake her up and try to get her to eat. It was a process that took an hour an half to complete every time. Then, we would return an hour and half later to start the process again, since the NICU required a feeding every 3 hours. We spent Thursday, Friday, and Saturday administering these feedings. We never complained though because we were just thrilled to spend time with her and gave us an excuse to hold her. I would tell Jared to give me a couple of minutes to just hold her at the end of the feedings, because they would take her away as soon as we were done (we joked through the couple of days that they had to "plug her back in" when we were done with the feedings). The hardest part of the experience is when I was discharged on Friday night. Never did I expect to have to go home without a baby! Bryn Mawr Hospital was great though and let me stay in my room until 1030pm on Friday night so we could administer the 11pm feeding before we left.
By Saturday, we were seeing a whole new Sara. She was eating better and more alert. They had even stopped the sugar water, and she was keeping her temperature and sugars up. Jared and I were excited and thought they may let us take her home. However, the doctor wanted to give her one more night of observation. The NICU was great and let Jared and I spend the night on Saturday night to see how she ate without the formula supplement. Jared wasn't too thrilled about the bed we were offered (we called it an adult crib since it was so hard!), but we were both more than willing to do whatever it took to get her home. On Sunday morning, the doctor gave us her discharge papers and we were thrilled!!
Needless to say, our experience is one that we will never forget and hope that no one that we know will have to go through. In the grand scheme of things though, we are just happy that our baby girl is home and thriving and if this is the worst of it, then we are truly blessed!
Below are some pictures of our experience:
Headed to the hospital after my water broke.
Sara getting oxygen right after her birth.
Jared holding her hand while they were "waking her up" after birth.
Awake!
I finally got to hold her =)
First family photo (kinda blurry!)
Sara on the warmer bed in the NICU.
So excited to hold her and feed her!
We are ready to go home!!!
