i wrote this a while ago on the preemie parenting forum im a part of. uugghhhh its so depressing, so im very sorry to anyone whos bored enough and decides to read my novel of a birth story and walks away feeling slightly suicidal :) (that was a joke).
to sum it up and i HATE saying this and feeling this way, but the day devin was born was the worst day of my life. i'll try to make this as short as possible and i apologize if it gets rambly. and it will!
this is my last pregnant picture before his birthday (2 days before he was born).
my water broke at 22 weeks and i was told i had less than a 10% chance of bringing my baby home alive, i would most likely deliver within 48 hours. i lasted almost 5 weeks after that on hospital bedrest with 0-2 cm. of amniotic fluid the whole time. on june 23rd i started feeling contractions and they brought me down to L and D to prep me for my c-section (he was breech the whole time) i was scheduled for 9 am. they gave me the epidural at 8 and as soon as the needle was in my back a nurse came in and said they had to push it back until 10. the epidural made me shake and feel horrible and they ended up having to give me magnesium (i think) to help stabilize my blood pressure. i was already terrified, this just added to it. when i finally got into the o.r. one of the nurses was trying to find devins heartbeat with a doppler because the monitor wasnt picking it up (because they didnt have it in the right spot even though i was telling them where to put it they didnt listen, i KNEW exactly where you could find his heart beat, it was always in the same spot). so she started freaking me out saying she couldnt find it and that made everything move 100x faster. by the time they were in the middle of cutting me open i was in full on panic mode, almost hyperventilating shaking like crazy from the epi and my husband was so scared. i could barely tell what was going on. its such a mess of horribleness in my memory i cant even put it into words. i finally saw devin being carried across the room . he didnt cry and he looked so small and wasnt moving much. i was screaming the whole time "is he breathing? is he ok? is he alive?!!!"... no answer. not once during the whole time they were working on him and i was begging my questions did one person say anything to me or my husband. the most i got (at least i think this happened) is one of the drs. working on him looked at me and gave a little wink.
oh and before they took him out, apparently the dr. said to go get the hysterectomy kit and my hubby heard that and had to sit down on the floor. i had no idea that even happened. the dr. didnt have to use it, but he thought he might at one point!
so while they were doing their stuff with devin, the anesthesiologist finally gave me something that knocked me out and i woke up 20 minutes later in the corner of the recovery room with about 5 other women holding their newly born full term babies! i was in so much pain and was so scared and still didnt even know if my baby was alive. they didnt let my hubby go to the nicu with devin and there had been no word yet as to how things were going. we had a nurse contact the nicu and finally found out that devin was doing ok, but thats pretty much all the info we got at that point. it took about 2 hours of my husband begging that nurse to let me recover in my normal hospital room because i was uncontrollably upset about where i was at that point. the last thing i wanted was to be staring at happy new families.
once i was back in my room the nurse i had, told me it was hospital policy for moms who had a csection to wait 12 hours before going to the nicu to see their baby! and we were told that a neo would be up within the hour to let us know details on our son. my husband finally got to go see him for a minute and brought back a pic for me.
ok this is getting too long, basically, it was 9 hours before we talked to a dr. and by that time i had been in sooo much pain and was bleeding pretty heavily and my nurse told me i would have to wait past the 12 hour time period. but the neo that finally came disagreed because she wanted us to be able to see devin asap, he wasnt doing very well and she wasnt sure if he would make it through the night. his blood pressure was very low and he was on the max amount of meds for it at the time. (and by the way my recovery nurse was awful and didnt believe i was in as much pain as i said) at one point while my husband was with devin and i was alone, i started having heavy bleeding and called the nurses station and said im bleeding heavily , please send someone. when she got there she yelled at me and told me never to call saying something like that "because you know what happens when you tell the nurses station youre bleeding? everyone panics and has to come running!" WHAT???? are you kidding me? I was panicking you bitch! and it took you 10 minutes to get here BY yourself!
so i was finally able to see him at about 12 am. he was born at 10:51 am. and you know what KILLS me to this day? he was breathing on his own for 1 hour when he was born! he needed cpap after that and the next day required the vent for 3 days, but why couldnt they tell me he was alive and breathing? it infuriates me!
im beyond grateful that he DID make it through that night and that hes happy and healthy today, but man was that the worst day ever! if only one aspect or moment of my sons birthday could have resembled joy, maybe i wouldnt break down and cry randomly because it traumatized me for life.
but everytime i look at my happy little baby cakes, it doesnt matter at all how he got here, just that he IS here.
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