The never-ending birth story- part I, the hospital.

How do you describe the experience of having a child in a blogpost. The past month has felt like a year and yet a second all at the same time. How did we go from a couple to a family in a matter of minutes? I decided to write my birth story down so I would not forget the details someday, so forgive the length, but I wrote it more for my memory :).

The short version:

On Monday, Dec 3rd, 2012 we had an emergency c-section and welcomed our sweet baby Grace Mae Braker into the world. Words can't describe the emotions I/we felt as they held Gracie over the operating room drape and we got to see her for the first time. Those hands were the hands I felt in my womb and that little bottom was the one that would poke out my stomach so hard I thought she was going to break through at times. She was breathing her first air and she was officially here. The days and nights to follow were really difficult as complications arose with me (Ang) but God is faithful and is healing me day by day.

The loooooooong version:

It was supposed to be a normal Monday, just like any other. I would wake up, do a few things and go to bible study. I would come home from bible study and start on our "last minute to-do list before Gracie came"....which we thought was at least a week or two away at this point. I was going to clean the house, run errands, pack my hospital bag, Christmas shop, etc. Seth was going to call for a pediatrician, send our Christmas cards, etc. But the day did not go as planned...at all. I woke up- normal. Usually at this point I would start to feel Gracie move, but didn't feel anything. So I tried to eat some breakfast because that usually would get her moving. Nothing. I tried doing my bible study and getting my mind off of the looming fears of something being wrong but with all that was in me I could NOT concentrate. I texted Seth at this point and told him I wasn't feeling Gracie move at all. I tried lying on my left side and all the things they tell you to do if you don't feel your baby move. Nothing. We decided to call the Dr and after leaving a message and calling back again they asked if we could come in "right now". By then Seth was home from work and we had called my doula. I was drinking sprite and trying to get her to move, but still nothing. I was a wreck, I was so scared that something was wrong, so wrong that it may not be fixable. I couldn't understand, though, she was moving like crazy when we went to bed- what happened?! I couldn't stop the tears. I was so scared. So we left for the Dr's office fully expecting to return home later either way. The laundry was on the floor, dishes were dirty, bags not even packed yet for the hospital.

We got to the office and they hooked me up to an external monitor to measure her heart rate. I can't explain the feeling of relief that rushed over me when I heard that tiny heart beat. I was convinced deep down in my heart that something had happened overnight and she wasn't alive anymore. I was hooked up for about 40 minutes and the Dr came in off and on to check the readings. She was concerned because Gracie wasn't moving or responding to any stimuli. It was not normal for this girl at all- she was always active. My Dr sent us to labor and delivery to be monitored for longer and to have an ultrasound. As we were walking into the hospital we commented to each other that this was a good "test run" to see how to get to the labor and delivery unit so we would be prepared for when that time came (little did we know then). We arrived & were checked into the outpatient triage and hooked up to the monitor again. Our nurse was awesome. She helped ease the fear in the air with her sweet spirit and easy going personality. I was given a button that I was to press if I felt Gracie move. Our doula arrived shortly after we were checked in and helped to pass the time processing and talking and helping us laugh a little bit. But truthfully we were all nervous- why wasn't she moving? The ultrasound tech came to do an ultrasound and said everything looks good, she just isn't moving for some reason. She said sometimes babies just go into a really deep sleep before labor begins. They tried every trick in the book- shaking my stomach, using a loud vibrator on my stomach, agitating her, poking her, etc and we got maaaaybe a couple quick movements from her....but nothing on her own. However after hearing that everything looked good on the ultrasound (meaning nothing looked wrong with the cord, etc) and after being there for 3+ hours we figured the Dr would send us home that evening. We had no idea what was coming our way when the nurse came in the room and told me I had a phone call from my Dr.

I answered the phone and she told me she was really concerned. She said it wasn't normal for Gracie to have no spontaneous movements on her own all day. She said there was no variability to her heart rate. Also the monitoring was picking up my contractions I was having. They were mild and about 6 minutes apart, but after most of them Gracie would have a late deceleration (meaning her heart rate would drop after I had a contraction). Dr said she was very concerned because these were just mild contractions and Gracie was not tolerating them well at all. If I went into full blown labor or was induced, chances were pretty positive Gracie would not do well and we would have to have a stat C-section. When she said these next words I felt like I went numb and my body went into shock..."Angela, we need to do a C-Section now, I'm on my way over and anesthesia is on their way to get you hooked up". By the tears on my face and my barely audible words, Seth & Teena knew it wasn't the good news we were hoping for. I hung up, told them what she had said and just cried. How could this be happening? Gracie had just turned head down a week before and we were getting all ready for a natural labor. She wasn't supposed to come this soon, she wasn't even 37 weeks yet. I'm not ready for this yet- I needed at least a few days to get ready- even just mentally. I wanted to be anywhere but in that moment. I asked the doctor several times "Are you sure this is the only option?" and the answer was always yes- we could not wait any longer- something was clearly wrong and we needed to get that baby out. Such mixed emotions- I mean yes, I wanted gracie to be safe with everything in me. I was terrified of a C-section. I didn't have time to tell anyone we are about to have a baby. I wanted to talk to my parents but anesthesia was on the way. Thousands of fears and thoughts flooded my mind and I once again couldn't stop the tears.

Seth made a comment that took me out of my reeling thoughts. He said, with tears in his eyes, "Baby, in less than an hour we will be holding our baby girl in our arms". I couldn't even fathom the reality of that. I was about to be a full blown mother in less than an hour and my husband was about to be a dad. Were we ready for this?!

Soon the anesthesiologist was in the room explaining the epidural to me and the staff began to prep me for the OR. I had a brief couple minutes where I was able to call my mom really quickly and hear her voice- I needed that. Before I knew it they were wheeling me down the hall to the OR to set up the epidural & prep for surgery. They told me Seth & Teena wouldn't be able to come back until we were all set up. To be honest, I was terrified to get an epidural. I know millions of women get them, but it's always been a huge fear of mine to have one. The epidural didn't feel terrible but it didn't feel great either...it was just so weird. Before I knew it my legs and abdomen were totally lifeless & heavy.

They started working quickly then. Setting up sterile field, doing supply count, etc. Seth and Teena came in- both covered in surgical gear- and sat next to me. Then my doctor came in and before I knew it the surgery had begun. I kept waiting for them to tell me they were going to make the cut but instead all I felt was INTENSE pushing/pulling on my abdomen. I kept thinking "I thought they gave me an epidural, why does this hurt SO badly?!". I honestly didn't think I was going to make it- it hurt SO bad and it felt like my whole abdomen had been run over 50 times by a semi truck. I vaguely remember hearing "suction" "quick" and then sensing they were working rather quickly to get this baby out...and in what seemed like years to me (but was most likely minutes in reality) I heard the cry. It was wet- as if her mouth was congested, but it was full and vibrant and it meant that my baby girl was here! My doctor said "Okay! ready to see her!?" and in a moment held our daughter over the drape for our first look- to anyone else she might have looked blue, bloody, and kinda weird, but to me she was so beautiful. It was sooo surreal.

Seth and I took one look at her and we both started bawling. I love this moment. So raw, so real, so intense. He just held his head to mine and our tears mixed together as we just bawled at what just happened. The nurse brought Gracie over to us and placed her in Seth's arms for the first time. The love on his face was beautiful. He was oozing with joy and awe at this tiny little 7lbs5oz baby girl. I loved watching him. Then it was my turn. Thankfully I could still move my arms so they placed her in my arms. She was a real little person, and she was part of me! This was the little one who kicked me in the middle of the night and who's hiccups I would feel. It was just so unreal - I had a hard time convincing myself that this was MY baby.

We moved back to our labor and delivery room as a family of 3. We were exhausted, on an emotional rush, scared, excited, overwhelmed thankful, and shocked. A. We did not think we were going to have a baby for another few weeks. B. I did NOT want a c-section, let alone an emergency c-section. C. All of a sudden there is this little baby in my arms that is completely dependent on us for everything.

They soon moved us to our post partum room and we began to get settled when the next problem happened...the nurse took my temp and it was 103. Surely that couldn't be right, I didn't feel bad- well I didn't really know what I was supposed to be feeling after abdominal surgery and an epidural, but I didn't think I felt bad, not that bad anyways. The nurse grabbed a different thermometer just to make sure, but it read the same thing. They told me not to nurse while I had such a high fever and they received tons of orders from my Dr, drew lots of blood, gave me lots of acetaminophen. It was really frightning to have such a high temp and not know why. Then it hit and I really started not feeling well- pain, aches, exhaustion all hitting at once. They took my temp at least once every hour, twice sometimes. We maaaybe averaged 20 minutes of sleep that night, maybe.

They couldn't figure out why my temp was so high- it stayed high all night and into the next day. It wasn't until after they removed my epidural that the fever started declining= so we all assumed that it was some type of reaction to the medication from the epidural. Once the fever started going down, we tried to get into the groove of nursing and taking care of a new baby. I was in soo much pain and taking pain killers around the clock- which is hard for me because I usually try not taking medicine- but you literally have no choice- you won't make it without some help.

I decided I neeeeeded a shower. This also was my first time getting up since before surgery. I had no idea how much it would hurt to stand up. Teena, my nurse, and my cna all gathered round and helped me stand. It. was. terrible. I had tears streaming down my face as I managed to hunch-over-stand-up. I took one step and started bawling and had to stop- I kept telling myself "It's just a few more steps to the bathroom and then I can sit." We made it to the shower and during the shower I began to feel faint. I know when I am going to faint and this was one of those times- I told Teena and my nurse "I'm going to faint" and to spare the details- I fainted, but no harm done.

That night we were exhausted and so excited to get some sleep. The past two days had been a total whirlwind and we were running on adrenaline. We had just layed down to go to bed (me on my hospital bed and seth on his oh-so-comfy-dad-sofa/bed-thing) and seth had been out maybe 10 minutes when I woke him up saying that I did not feel good and needed him to call the nurse. So he called the nurse and a few moments later I told him I was going to get sick and did not feel good AT ALL and he needed to get the nurse in this room now.

The next few hours were a blur. After we called the nurse she came in the room, assessed me and then called in a few others. All of a sudden there were tons of people in our room. They called the Rapid Response Team because my blood pressure was so low and my pulse was so high. I was in and out of it and only remember certain things. I remember they took Gracie to the nursery at some point. They drew tons of blood, took a chest xray, and rattled off things you don't want to hear when you are the patient. I remember that whenever I would come to again, seth was right by my side holding my hand and telling me it was okay and I was doing great. I would just nod and go to sleep again. I was crashing and they didn't know why, I didn't know why, and my poor husband didn't know why. They told us I had a critical magnesium level and my platelets were low & I might need blood. They said were going to move me to the ICU.  On the way to the ICU they did a stat abdominal CT scan to check for bleeding or other problems.

When we arrived at the ICU they told Seth he needed to stay out of the room while they got me settled. That man had been my rock and the last thing I wanted was to go to the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT by myself. I didn't want to be strong anymore, I wanted to have him there. It was so weird being on this side of things. I've been the nurse in the ICU, I've been the one to hook up the patient, take their vitals, draw their blood, give their meds....but never before had I been the patient. It's a whole lot different on this side of things.

Finally, after what seemed hours (it was really only a half hour), they let Seth back in. The moment I saw him I fell apart. His eyes were red and swollen and his face was tear stained. He had been so strong through all of this, I hadn't seem him cry yet. But the moment I saw those tears in his eyes, I knew things were not good. We just hugged for a while and cried. We were both so scared- we didn't know what was going on and what was going to happen. No one knew. Everyone kept telling us they didn't know but they didn't like what they saw. I remember looking at the monitor and seeing that my resting heart rate wouldn't fall below 120bpm, they set the alarm to go off it it went about 140- which it often did. What was happening?! No one had an answer but they just kept testing- more xrays, ct scans, blood draws. All of this and my new little girl was on a completely different floor in a nursery without us. To be honest, I felt numb- how was I supposed to feel excited about a new baby when I felt terrible and didn't have a clue what was happening to my body.

(On a side note- our amazing doula, Teena, drove up to the hospital that night and spent the night in our post partum room just so she could be there for us, pray for us, and be near to Gracie. She was a rock for us!)

All night they would come in, give me meds, change my IV antibiotics around the clock, and bolus me with some more fluids. The next morning they called an Infectious disease Dr on my case to see if she could offer another perspective since my WBC count was really high. She ran some more blood work and added a couple more antibiotics (I was on a continuous cycle of 4 different antibiotics- to hopefully kill off whatever this problem was). We were hopeful she would have some answers for us as to why this was happening- or at least WHAT was happening.

My nurse that day was awesome- even though she had other patients, she took me down to the nursery twice so I could see Gracie and try to nurse her. I needed that- to be able to hold my little girl that I barely even knew yet. And my amazing nurses on post partum came and visited me in the ICU to give me reports on how Gracie was doing- these women were the best nurses I could have ever imagined.

They did some more testing that day- to see if I had a pulmonary embolism or blood clot- thankfully I did not. By late that afternoon I was moved back to my post partum room!! We still didn't know what was wrong- but I was stable and my blood work looked much better! Both my doctor and the infectious disease doctor were still stumped by what was causing this, so I continued on the antibiotics around the clock. Teena's husband brought us up some Olive Garden that night and we all just sort of took a deep breath that things were getting "better".

Throughout all of this Gracie was being a little champ- this is where she was dubbed the nickname "champ" from Seth. She had some jaundice that they were watching, but nothing critical. She did look like a little pumpkin for a while, though :).

My parents arrived the next day (Thursday). Before they arrived I decided to take a shower and put real clothes on versus the hospital gown I had been living in. As I attempted to put on my maternity sweatpants and tshirt, I realized they didn't fit- they were too tight. I burst into tears- how could I be bigger after having Gracie than I was before? I was so swollen of fluid and edematous that it hurt to lift my leg from the bed because it was so heavy. Everything hurt- my incision, my body, and now my self esteem was pretty deflated. I didn't think I would ever feel good again, physically or emotionally.

I managed to wipe away my tears before my parents walked in- I wanted to be happy in the moment when I first got to introduce them to Gracie, not sad about how I looked & felt. It was so fun to watch the joy on their faces as they met her- sometimes the things that bring the most joy to me are watching other people be happy- this was one of those moments. It was healing for my heart. We spent the afternoon hanging out in the hospital room and I would off and on cry to them about how hard the week had been. I think by that night we managed to get a little more sleep.

The next day, Friday, the pediatrician came in and discharged Gracie first thing in the morning. What we didn't know was if I would have to stay or if I would get discharged. It pended on blood work and what the doctors were thinking. At this point we still had no idea what caused all the complications, since nothing was growing on the blood cultures. My infectious disease Dr came in and said "To be honest, I don't know what is/was going on in your body, but you are getting better so let's go with that." She said as long as I was getting better I could go home. Later in the afternoon my doctor came in to talk to us and said they aren't positive, but they think the possible cause of everything, or at least most of the problems- was an infection in my amniotic sac called Chorioamnionitis. She said that if we hadn't delivered Gracie when we did, she could have been greatly affected by this- even to the point of brain damage. That made my heart pound in thanks that our girl was perfectly healthy and not affected in any way. They have no idea how it happened- since my membranes never ruptured, but were pretty sure it was the culprit of Gracie not moving and some of the later issues after delivery. But whatever the problem was- they thought antibiotics and other medications had cleared it up and she was letting us go home that night!!

We were soo ready to go home...after 5 days in the hospital we couldn't wait for real food and a real bed. We spent the rest of the day filling out discharge papers, getting my staples removed and steri-strips applied, getting discharge instructions and packing up all of our stuff. We dressed Gracie up in her "going home" outfit and said our goodbyes to the nurses.

[As I mentioned earlier- the nurses and my doctor were incredible. I could not have asked for better care. They all went above and beyond to make sure we felt cared for and safe. I am so grateful for all they did and we truly felt like we had made friends with them by the time we left, after having the same couple nurses a few days and scaring them with fainting and a trip to the ICU- we became really close, really quickly :).]

It was surreal- leaving with a baby- when 5 days earlier we just came in for a "simple check up". As we loaded Gracie into our car and headed home, we just looked at each other in disbelief & complete thankfulness that we had a HEALTHY baby- OUR baby= in the backseat. But we also looked at each other with a new depth and love- because those 5 days strengthened our relationship at it's core.

I'll write PART TWO- Coming Home- next.

Here's a few pictures from the week:

               Right after finding out we are having an emergency c-section & right before taking me to the OR to get my epidural

                                                      Awesome husband and awesome doula, Teena!

                                                         Getting to talk to my mom before surgery!

                                                                Our first look at her!!

                                                   Us bawling at the reality of what just happened!

                                            A dad's first moment with his girl

                                                          Our first family photo

                                                                 I love her sweet little eyes here

                                                 Time with my girl- this was the evening before going to the ICU

                              She was always posed like this in the ultrasounds and still does it now :)

                               One of my favorite pictures- the emotion in his eyes captures the love he has for his girl!

                                                       Her going home outfit, she was such a peanut!

                                                            Going home with our baby!