Owen’s Birth Story

On the evening of 12/11/12 I had one last appointment at the OB. I guess in my head, I was hoping they would tell me that I had progressed and that I could avoid the C-section. However, I hadn’t progressed and it was basically inevitable that I was heading in for major surgery the next morning…

On the morning of December 12, 2012 Paul and I woke up around 5am in the morning. The hospital had called the day before and told me that I needed to check in at Labor and Delivery by 7:30 a.m. After showering in my special anti bacterial soap that they require for surgery, I double checked all of my hospital bags and did some last minute repacking. I was not allowed to eat (or drink but nobody told me that), so by the time we were in the car I was starving! I knew it was going to be a long day without food, so that really sucked! Unfortunately, I told Paul we were supposed to be there around 7am. But in reality they had said 7:30 at the latest. Well, when you are as uncomfortable and as pregnant as I was….you never get anywhere on time, and we were running late. I realized that my clock in the car said 6:55am on our way to the hospital. Then I noticed Paul was speeding down Essington Rd. and I realized he thought we were going to be late. Oops! I had forgotten to tell him that by 7:30 was okay….Slooooow down hun! It is going to be okay! We arrived at the hospital right around 7:05. When we walked up to security to open the doors for us, they congratulated us and mentioned that baby was going to have a pretty cool birthday! I had to agree!

We headed up to labor and delivery and started the check in process. We had actually been here the week prior, which nobody really knew because we didn’t want to falsely alarm anyone, in order to be checked to see if I was actually leaking amniotic fluid. It turned out that I wasn’t…and we were sent on our way very quickly that morning. However, those same nurses were in the hallway when I was on my way to check in and welcomed us back for real this time. I thought it was kind of nice that they still recognized us. They settled us into our Post Partum room, and had me start getting prepared for the onslaught of tests and IVs that were about to come. They hooked me up to the monitors, which I always found hilarious because Owen hated that! His heart rate was great, but he ALWAYS kicked the monitor the entire time so we would hear “ka-thump ka-thump BAM BAM ka-thump.” This morning was no different, except they weren’t taking it off and he would get increasingly agitated with the loud noise.  They basically started coming in to take my blood and ask my medical history, it was all pretty surreal as I had never been in a hospital to stay, much less have a major surgery. The laboratory people are definitely my least favorite, because I have really difficult veins to find. This hospital stay didn’t prove to be any different. I am fairly certain that all the holes in my arms leaked anytime I drank water for days afterward. In fact the nurses had such a hard time starting my IV, that they had to call the anesthesiologist in to do the job. What a pain! Literally! Everything blood tests and IVs had to go in through my hand…OUUUCH! Since they had to call the anesthesiologist out of the OR, my Csection ended up being late…

Once my IV was placed, it was game time. I was surprised that they actually had me walk to the OR. I don’t know what I was imagining, but I wasn’t imagining having to waddle myself and all of my equipment down the hallway to the OR. But I did it. Once we walked through the hallway doors that are of course “restricted access” they told Paul to have a seat and gave him a big surgery jumpsuit to put on. In my head, I actually wondered if it would fit. Then I wondered, what would they do if it didn’t fit? That is where Paul and I parted ways, and I was escorted into the operating room. WoW! My brief description…this room is really freaking bright, and holy crap it’s SO COLD! First order of business was to jump up on the table (or in my case struggle my way onto the table) in order to get my spinal block. This was the part I was not looking forward to at all. Not being able to feel anything from my waist down was in one word frightening…but there was no turning back at that point. I had an awesome OR nurse who helped calm me down during the whole thing. Once the spinal block was placed, everything all of a sudden got really fast. I glanced out the doorway looking for Paul and instead saw two of the doctors from my OB office. Thank goodness two of my favorite doctors in the practice were doing the surgery, so that made me feel a lot better. The next thing I knew they were helping me lay down on the table (which is much smaller than I anticipated as well). Not being able to feel my lower half, left me with the sensation that I was indeed going to fall off the table at any moment, but they kept telling met that I was definitely not going to fall off the table (sure, whatever you say). They put the curtain up in front of me, and I could feel them prepping me for surgery, but I had no idea what they were actually doing. Before I knew it they called for Paul to come in and right about the same time the anesthesiologist told me that they had begun. What?! That fast!  Paul was a little bigger than they anticipated I think, because the area they had for him to sit in was not enough space for him to fit. So he actually got to see much more of the surgery than he anticipated I think. By this time, between the spinal block, the cold room, and my nerves I could barely contain the shivering that was taking over, and when people would ask me questions they could not understand a word I was saying because my teeth were chattering so loud!  The next thing I remember was the doctor saying , “This baby has a HUGE head.” Then I knew that we were about to meet our boy, and life would never be the same.

When I looked over at Paul, he was just staring at what was going on. I can only imagine what it looked like. The doctor said, “Dad, get your camera ready” and I had to nudge him as well and remind him to take a picture! Good thing we did, because he caught the most beautiful picture of Owen second after he was born. Once they pulled Owen out, he immediately started screaming. The staff in the OR, almost completely stopped and then started commenting on how huge he was. The doctor stated, “you are going to have to enroll that one in kindergarten tomorrow!” and Paul replied with, “he is requesting a steak and beer for dinner tonight.” Of course I am stuck seeing nothing, and only hearing how gigantic my kid is. The anesthesiologist came over and said to me, I am fairly certain that kid is going to tip the scales at 11lbs easily! At that point, I could only imagine what he looked like…which in my head was a pile of chub rolls! Paul disappeared off to cut the umbilical cord and watch them check the baby over, while they finished up my surgery. While they were doing all of Owen’s measurements I heard the neonatal nurse say, “Well, the plumbing definitely works on this one” I later learned the Owen hosed her down pretty good. Mr. Owen Spencer Brown weighed in at a whopping 10lbs 5ounces and measured 21.5 inches long. One of the other nurses also commented that we wouldn’t need a monitor for this kiddo, I can only assume that was because he had some power house lungs in the operating room. While they were finishing up my surgery I unfortunately started to feel really nauseous. I knew that this could happen from what I had read about C-Sections, but I foolishly thought that I could just talk myself out of feeling sick like I usually do. However, let me tell you that does not work! I finally spoke up and told the anesthesiologist that I felt sort of sick, and she said right away she could give me something for that. Unfortunately, right around the same time is when they brought Owen over for me to see. There stood Paul, a nurse, and our dear little Owen… I was shocked to see what looked like a normal sized baby. I was anticipating a big, chubby baby….but he was not that at all! Sadly, as the nurse was about to hand him over for me to hold, the nausea took over and I started getting sick. I dwelled on this moment for a long time, because it was supposed to be this amazing life changing moment where I first get to meet my son, and here I was dry heaving! I was needless to say even more upset, because they had to take Owen off to the NICU to observe him and Paul left with him. Luckily, I didn’t actually get sick…and the medication the anesthesiologist gave me helped pretty quickly. But what a helpless feeling! I should have spoken up sooner, lesson learned!

Once I was all put back together, they wheeled me into recovery where I was still shivering like a maniac. Thank god at that point they could pile tons of blankets on me…which helped some! All in all the C-section went really well. My doctor came back to sign my orders and asked if Owen was in the nursery beating up all the other babies (haha!). I must have stayed there for about an hour, when Paul and the neonatal nurse returned to let me know that they were going to have to keep Mr. Owen for observation because they believed he had swallowed some fluid during delivery and it was affecting his breathing. She assured me that this was pretty normal with C-section babies and that it wasn’t super serious, they just wanted to make sure the fluid absorbed back into his system and didn’t continue to cause him problems. We ended up back in our post-partum room shortly after that, and Owen joined us a few hours later. Overall, I am happy I chose to go with the C-section. Based on Owen’s size and the fact that he was wedged in pretty good (indicative by his bent little ear when he came out) I don’t think he was going anywhere on his own. Although it was really tough not being able to immediately hold him, or immediately see him….I think this was the best route for all of us.

Why the C-Section?

We had a good idea since my 16 week ultrasound with the maternal fetal medicine specialist that we were having a boy. That was confirmed at our 22 week ultrasound with the same doctor. At that appointment, the MFM doctor also stated that this baby was going to be BIG. In fact he became so concerned about Owen’s size that he continued to send me for gestational diabetes testing, even after I passed the first few rounds. He was determined that Owen must be big for a medical reason, and would not really factor in that Paul is a huge guy and I was fairly certain that my due date was a little off anyway. So as time went on, our MFM doctor eventually dismissed me back to my regular OB, and our regular OB was also concerned about Owen’s size. At 35 weeks we were sent for another ultrasound to determine just how big this kiddo was getting, and to our surprise at that ultrasound Owen was already measuring 8lbs 7oz!!!!! In fact, he was so big that the tech was having a hard time measuring him accurately, because the machine only measures up to a 41 week baby, and Owen was registering larger than that! When we were done with that ultrasound, the machine actually estimated my due date to be two days later! HAHA! Little did that machine know that I technically had a whole month left! Unfortunately, there was nothing the doctors could do to get Owen out before he got so big that he couldn’t come out on his own. The discussion at many of my weekly appointments turned to discussion of opting for a Csection for Owen’s safety and my safety, since he was measuring so large in so many ultrasounds. I have to admit that I was very hesitant at first, because I was really not fond of the idea of having a major surgery. However, as time went by and I became increasingly uncomfortable, I started to realize that this kid was HUGE and was not budging on his own. On 12/12/12 at 9:15 in the morning I walked myself into the operating room, knowing that I would be leaving no longer pregnant and with a little (giant sized) bundle of joy! Many people told me toward the end of my pregnancy not to rely on the ultrasounds as an estimate of Owen’s size. However, I must say that those measurements ended up being spot on, and I am glad that I listened to my doctors and opted for the C-section. I think it would have ended up there either way.

 

The morning of my C-Section