Today I'm 36 weeks pregnant... that makes this pregnancy with Jacob officially longer than RaeAnn's! To celebrate I decided it would be fun to share RaeAnn's birth story as we get ready to welcome our second baby into the world! I'm actually surprised by how much I remember 5 years later!!
RaeAnn's birth story started on July 14th. I was 34 Weeks and 3 days pregnant.That night I was working a night shift in the ER and started seeing spots and I already had a pretty bad headache...So I snuck into an empty patient room and took my blood pressure. I can't remember the #'s but it was high. A doctor caught me and sent me home from work and told me to call my OB. I did and they told me to run to Walgreens and buy a blood pressure cuff and to monitor my BP and call them in the morning. The next morning it was lower but it wasn't great, so they had me come in. Thurman kinda freaked out a little bit and spilled an entire gallon of of chocolate milk!! I can only imagine what would have happened had I actually been in labor!
I got to the hospital and my BP was still high and the nurse noted some pitting edema in my ankles. They decided to keep me for the night to do a 24 hour urine and monitor RaeAnn who by the way was doing just fine.
After a full day of bed rest my BP was better but my labs came back abnormal and I was "spilling protein" as they say. A bunch of residents came in and started talking about a C-Section that very day!! I had remained calm up to that point but when I heard the news I couldn't keep it together. They had done an U/S of RaeAnn that morning and she was barely measuring 5lbs I bawled my eyes out and said she wasn't ready and she was just too small. Thankfully the doctors agreed on sending me home on a strict low sodium diet and bed rest with a follow up NST Appointment for the end of the week.
Thurman took me home and made sure I stayed in bed. It was a long boring week but I enjoyed being pampered :)
Friday, July 20 was my NST and after only a couple minutes the nurses told me I failed. RaeAnn's heart rate was in the 180's and my blood pressure was back up, not good. So back to L & D for more monitoring we went. Luckily this time I was a little more prepared with my own pillows and my hospital bag was packed and in the car.
My last belly picture with RaeAnnSaturday morning I think I had dilated to only 1 or 2 cm. I didn't sleep well so early in the AM the nurse gave me 1/2 an ambien...horrible idea. It didn't put me to sleep it just made me stoned and incredibly confused! (I will never ever take it again!) I came to at about 11 when the doctor decided it would be a good idea to break my water and start pitocin instead of just trying more cervadil--I definitely wasn't ready, I never got to eat breakfast and I was STARVING! But once your water breaks you are NPO. Thurman wasn't even in the room when they did it. He came back from the cafeteria and "oh by the way they broke my water" If he had another gallon of chocolate milk he definitely would have spilt it!
When they broke my water they did an amnio to test RaeAnn's lungs and the #'s didn't come back good. I want to say they wanted the # to come back higher than a 50 and she was in the low 40's. No one ever directly talked to us about what to expect and how bad they really thought things were going to go, we were however introduced to the neonatologist who was going to be in the delivery room with us. At that point I still didn't catch on to how worried everyone seemed it was probably for the best because I would have been a mess.
Contractions finally started but they weren't too bad. They offered me an epidural right way because they didn't want the pain to raise my blood pressure but I didn't think I needed it right away. Fast forwarded about 4 hours when there were 5 other women in labor, actively pushing and I was begging for my epidural but no one could help me, it was very painful! A wonderful doula came in and tried to help me but I wasn't very willing to work with her at that point. After what seemed like forever the Anesthesiologist came in and started my epidural. It didn't work. My #1 fear about epidurals came true. & it took at least another hour for the nurses to believe me that I was really feeling the pain. They kept telling me it was OK to feel pressure I wanted to punch them in the face! & did I mention that no one had checked my cervix since they broke my water?!
The Anesthesiologist came back and tried again. This time it was instant relief. But a little too instant. The drugs dropped my blood pressure so fast that I literally felt like I was dying and I looked right at Thurman and told him I was dying. The machines started beeping and everyone quickly worked to get me stable again. That was the absolute scariest moment of my life.
Once I had a blood pressure again I got nice and comfortable. Before the nurse left she told me if I started feeling pressure down there to let them know about a 1/2 hour later I called them back in and told them I was feeling lots and lots of pressure...low and behold I was FULLY dilated!
RaeAnn was still high but they had me do some practice pushing while we waited for the doctors to wake up and get ready and RaeAnn came into position.
There were lots of doctors in the room and that put it all back into prospective that I was delivering a preemie. I hadn't told any of my doctors about my medical background so they didn't know that I understood what they were whispering about...but I knew they were expecting RaeAnn to come out not breathing or not breathing well and needing to be intubated. I said my prayers and pushed! I pushed for 2 1/2 hours!! and At 3:49 on Sunday morning, July 22 ( at only 35 weeks and 4 days and after 20 hours of active labor) RaeAnn was born...perfectly healthy & pink with great apgar scores even though they gave her oxygen as a precaution.
My little preemie was a whopping 6lbs 3oz and 20 inches long.
I only got to hold her for a couple minutes before they whisked her away to the NICU for more precautionary testing. I had to stay under the care of the L&D nurses for 24 hours since I was still on the magnesium and at risk for seizures. But I was doing a lot better. And soon RaeAnn was cleared by the neonatologist and able to come stay in my room. Everything was going good until RaeAnn started getting yellow. & then it was back to the NICU and under the bili lights she went. Her jaundice levels were high. My lack of breast milk and her inability to latch correctly was only making things worse so they decided to start supplementing her on formula. After two days in her "tanning bed" RaeAnn was finally healthy enough to come home with us (4 days after she was born)
Despite all the uncertainties, fears, and everything that could have gone wrong, giving birth to RaeAnn was the greatest experience of my life and I am very much looking forward to giving birth to our Son!
This is so beautiful and inspiring. Thank you so much for sharing such an intimate story. I think you've inspired me to share mine too :)
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