I’ve been meaning to get around to sharing our birth story and a few details leading up to delivery, but the truth is I still feel a lot of emotions thinking and talking about it all. As someone who HATES asking for help or showing signs of “weakness”, it’s not an easy topic for me.
So here we go.
With some past history, I was induced with Bentley at 38 weeks. I had high blood pressure and symptoms of preeclampsia that kept me going into the doctors every other day for NST tests until finally, the doctors said enough it’s time to get the baby out!
With this pregnancy I was exhausted and sick ALL the time, right around the beginning of May my blood pressure started to get high and I knew to continue to coach at the gym and work a lot of hours with Vital while trying to grow a healthy baby would be too much so at the end of May I had to swallow my pride and quit coaching. With a lot of time spent working from bed I was doing a great job managing my blood pressure. You all saw I did get cleared to attend Wheel Wod very last minute which was great! A week after we got home I felt like I had to flu all the time I could feel the waves of high blood pressure and low pressure. I started tracking my blood pressure a few times a day.
At 37 weeks at my checkup I told the dr that I had had a headache for a week with holes in my vision and was just feeling horrible. The night before the appointment I woke up with a racing heartbeat, like I had just done a CrossFit wod, I was concerned things weren’t going too well. Matt was in Texas and Boo was just trying to take care of me. For a little history again my blood pressure is usually 120/58 with a resting heart rate of 48bpm and when I was suddenly woken up that evening I put on my monitor and had a 136/94 with a heart rate of 97. While at the doctor’s office I had numbers of 138/104 and 130/110, once I heard this I was sure I was going to get sent to red deer for induction immediately.
So it began! I was sent to olds to be monitored and then transferred to red deer for 24-hour observation. Because of the headaches and vision loss, the Drs were concerned about seizure and stroke. I called Matt and he started his stretch home. The next day at red deer hospital I was told I would be having an ultrasound and a few more tests and then would decide what to do. As the 24 hours progressed my pressure was up and down and Bauer seemed happy as pie so we set the date for the following Thursday with the instructions to come back to red deer for tests every other day.
Thursday morning arrived and we called to make sure it was still set to go. We went in and the induction started around 9 am! I was started on cervidil and within 10-15 minutes I was having a lot of contractions and horrific back pain. I had back labor with Bentley so I was not surprised, the major difference this time was I lost a lot of feeling down my right leg because of nerve pain, the pain was so strong I couldn’t walk around I just needed to lay down. The pain was so overwhelming that I wasn’t even focused on the contrActions. At about 11 am my deliver nurse went over my pain options and we decided to try the gas however I forgot I don’t like snorkeling so that really wasn’t working! Next option a shot of morphine! Give me all the drugs! So the shot was delivered and nope nothing! So next up the epidural! At about noon the anesthesiologist came in to get me going! I was happy to have any relief! Once It started up it was quick to work but unfortunately only on the one side, the side with the leg pain! A few minutes later I started to taste metal in my mouth, Nicole went running out to get the anesthesiologist and she came back in saying that we needed to keep it on the lower side! Honestly, I was fine with that because like I said something is better than nothing. At about 1 o’clock the cervidil was removed the dr broke my water and started me on an aggressive dosage on the drip! Things got real spicy real fast! From hot flashes to cold chills that was a whole new level of pain. At about 4 o’clock a second anesthesiologist came in and asked if we should remove the first one and try again, like I said give me all the drugs so I was fine with that plan! Shift change had happened and my new girl Heidi was taking good care of me and the Baby! At about 4:30 I was ready for the second epidural, I assumed the position with Heidi and Matt helping hold steady while I started to feel the pressure!! I yelled “umm Heidi, something changing, I feel a ton of pressure” she’s like “hold still do not move” the contractions were INTENSE!!! The anesthesiologist was working as fast as he could while I contributed to yell at everyone telling them that I was sure I was now sitting on Bauer’s head… the baby was coming… the epidural was in and the Dr appeared out of nowhere and was ready to go. I yelled a few times that I refused to push I refused to have the baby right now but Heidi told me to stop in and focus on my breathing! The dr told me to stop wasting the good contractions, Matt was Matt! Cheering me on with all the excitement! 8 Minutes or pushing and yelling I can’t do this and he was out! Pure joy… I was so excited to see his hairy tiny body, Matt looked so proud. Then the chaos started,
He started to turn blue. I said to Heidi what’s happening he is turned blue I turned to look at Matt and by the time I looked back at Heidi the room was full of dr and nurses. There was a lot of LOUD chatter about oxygen and breathing. I told Matt to get me a picture and follow our little baby. The room became silent with just myself Heidi and Dr. Casis. They did their best to comfort me but no body knew what was going on. The anesthesiologist came back in and told me he was impressed with how still I sat and I said “you had a fucking needle in my back” a little Abby humor of course. A couple of hours flew by as I was moved to another room, Matt came back I think but honestly, it was such a blur.
Once I was finally able to go to the NICU I was told that Bauer was having trouble breathing on his own. He never went without oxygen he just had to work very hard. At this point he was hooked up to a CPAP to help with breathing, he had a feeding tube, monitors for heart and oxygen and an IV.
Now one fact I had left out was I tested positive for step B, I’m deathly allergic to penicillin so they had to go with the second option of clindamycin but the catch is you need two doses but they need to be 8 hours apart, so b cause they don’t give the antibiotics until active labor I only received one dose. With Bauer symptoms they were concerned he was septic on top of the breathing so they needed to complete 48 hours of antibiotics while we waited on his test results to come back.
Okay so we are in the NICU seeing our baby but not being able to hold him, just looking at him, talk about torture. Every decision I made about my body about everything I started going over and over. I felt so helpless. I was told to get some rest but if things changed they would come and get us.
We slept for a couple of hours but at 3 am I wanted to go back. As we entered we saw the nurses trying to get another IV in him. They told us his IV has blown and they needed to get one in ASAP. The dr decided to go in through the umbilical cord. The first attempt we watched and it was no successful, they asked us to go rest. So we went back and were woken up at 6 am by the Dr saying that they were transferring us to Calgary we just didn’t know if it was by ambulance or chopper yet. They told us on the second attempt it looked like the line was in the liver and the dr in Calgary wouldn’t recommend using it or not using it by only the scans and at this point he had not had fluids or meds for awhile because of the blown IV.
I went into full meltdown mode. My poor nurse tried to comfort me while Matt filled out the paperwork and packed the truck. As we headed back to the NICU to wait we walked in a new dr came on shift and they managed to get the IV in Bauer’s head, and the peds team showed up to take us to the children’s hospital. At this point, Bauer was breathing on his own but had oxygen just in case. His color was much better and he really looked a lot better. The peds unto let me come to their work station and rub his little face and hold his tiny hands.
We arrived at children’s hospital and with the new Xrays they saw that there was water in his lungs, they think because he came so fast he didn’t get the squeeze he needed, he had some air around his lungs that was much less than the scan in red deer. At 3:30 pm we finally got to hold our little man and Matt got to give him his first bottle. Everything just kept getting better. Boo was able to come in and meet her brother and stay with us. His tests kept coming back clear of infection, it was such a huge relief. After we received the news at 48 hours that he, in fact, was not septic they were able to take the IV out. Our little man was tube free and ready to come home and be cuddled.
We are so thankful for all the amazing Drs and nurses specialists and peds team. I counted over 38 medical staff and I’m not even sure I remembered them all. Things could have been much worse and our little man is doing really well!
If you have made it this far you now know all the details. Thank you to everyone who respected our time and our privacy! Now we are onto the fun part, bottle feeding, getting peed on and allllll the baby cuddles.