Gene's Birth -- Part 2

Did you miss Part 1?  Click here to read it!

Holy cow.  It was time to have our baby

Since it was 4AM, my obstetrician was obviously at home.  He had mentioned the evening before that he could make it to the hospital in 10 minutes.  I felt reassured as the nurse went to call him.

In the meantime, my room came alive with a flurry of activity.  There were nurses everywhere, getting things ready for my delivery.  Michael was by my head to my left and I had one nurse on my right (the alarm for my IV kept going off, so she was there resetting it every minute or two).

I was in pretty serious pain by this point.  Not only did I have the constant severe pain in my lower back, but I was feeling every single one of my contractions in the front.  My epidural seemed to have stopped working, not that it ever really provided much relief in the first place.

Soon after Dr. M was called, I began to feel the urge to push.  I was ready to push.  I wanted to push.  The problem?  My doctor wasn't there yet.  So guess what?  I didn't get to push.  It was seriously the most difficult thing I have ever done.  I had my husband and one to two nurses reminding me with every contraction to not push and to breathe through it.  I'm surprised Michael's hand wasn't black and blue afterward from as hard as I was squeezing.

Michael tells me that this is around the time I began swearing.  I only remember asking where my doctor was, but with an F-bomb placed somewhere in the sentence.

By the time my doctor arrived at 4:45AM, I had been awake for nearly 27 hours.  I was exhausted.  I was falling asleep in the one-minute pause between contractions.  I had no idea where I was going to find the energy to push a tiny person out of my body.

Just before 5AM, I was finally able to start pushing. 

Pushing is hard.  My mind and my body were telling me to push, but I had no idea what I was doing.  It took a few contractions before I was able to effectively push.  In the meantime, my doctor had attached an internal monitor to the baby's scalp to track his heart rate.  During each contraction, his heart rate was dipping dangerously low and then going really high as soon as it ended.

 

 

I pushed for 20 minutes before my doctor said the words I had hoped not to hear.

"Marie-Etta, I think you should have a c-section.  We need to get this baby out."

To be continued...