The Birth of Ethan

            I awoke Saturday morning to painful, yet inconsistent contractions. Little did I know what was to come on Saturday night. At 36 weeks pregnant, I was uncomfortable and ready to be un-pregnant. I had been in prodromal labor since I was 31 weeks and it was time to stop taking the medicine to help reduce the contractions and have this baby, I had also been on bed rest for 3-4 weeks and I was bored. I needed to do something to get my mind off of labor and just relax. So when my mom called and asked if Doug and I wanted to go to see a movie, I was dressed and ready to go in less than 30 minutes.

            We arrived at the mall around 2:30pm to see Santa Claus 3. In the middle of the movie I had to go to the restroom, just like a lot of pregnant mommies and noticed that my contractions were getting stronger. I didn’t want to worry anyone so I made it back to my seat and quietly sat through the rest of the movie. On one of my pregnant mommy sites I read that walking could help labor progress so I asked Doug if he would like to go look around the mall and he agreed, knowing that I was ready to be done with this pregnancy and walking would hopefully help. We walked the Orange Park Mall for about an hour and decided we had seen all we could possibly see so we decided to go home.

            Once home, my contractions were getting stronger and closer together so we decided to start timing them. Around 6:45pm the contractions were 4 minutes apart and lasting between 45 seconds to a minute, so we decided to call into the obstetrician’s office. I got a hold of the on-call nurse who told us that we should go ahead and head into the hospital and that Dr. Chafin, my doctor, was on-call there and he would check me when we got there. I finished packing my overnight bag and we headed out the door to St. Vincent’s Medical Center.

            On the way to the hospital, I called everyone that wanted to be there with us and told them to get ready because I thought this was it. Almost everyone I called told me to call if they admitted me because this was my fourth trip to the labor and delivery ward. We arrived at the hospital around 8:00pm and I was put in the labor and delivery triage unit to await my doctor’s arrival. Dr. Chafin checked my cervix and I was 3 centimeters dilated and 90% effaced. He wanted me to stay in triage for an hour to see if I was progressing and if not I would be sent home yet again, disappointed. Around 9:00pm I was checked again and I was 4 centimeters dilated and 100% effaced and Dr. Chafin told us that I wasn’t going home without a baby this time! I was beyond excited and immediately got on the phone because the nurse said it could be 15-20 minutes before I was moved to a birthing suite.

            Fast forward to 5:00am, I was checked and was 6 centimeters dilated and had been fighting the contractions for almost 12 hours. I asked for my epidural and about 10 minutes later I was 10 centimeters dilated and ready to push. I pushed and pushed and pushed for 45 minutes but Ethan would not come. They did an ultrasound and it showed that he was sunny side up so they decided to use the vacuum to try and get him out. Well, it was determined that I was too small and he started to have some fetal distress so after an episiotomy to try and get him out we were rushed into the operating room for an emergency C-section.

            After being taken to the operating room, I don’t remember much of what happened but the rest of the story was filled in by my husband, Doug. They had to repair the damage done by the episiotomy before they could begin the C-section so they stitched me up and then let Doug back into the operating room. Ethan was born at 7:00am and he wasn’t crying so they took him away before I even got to see him. They needed to get him stable because of some fluid on his lungs so they rushed him away to the Special Care Nursery. I stayed in the operating room as the doctor stapled me back together.

            Once the doctor was finished operating, I was taken into the recovery room. All I remember from being in recovery was telling the nurse how much I wanted to see my mom and her telling me how I could spend all the time I wanted with her after I was taken back to my suite. In recovery, I started to have some massive bleeding and I passed out, a Code Blue was called and a team of doctors and nurses arrived to help revive me. They got me back to what they thought was stable so I was then taken back to one of the post partum suites.

            Well, everything was not right, I started bleeding very heavily again, was passing clots the size of grapefruits. Doug had just walked in to see all this and he almost passed out too. The doctors thought that something might have gone wrong when they were closing me back up from the C-section so they rushed me back to the operating room. I was so scared because the only thing I had heard the doctor say was that we might have to take everything out if something has gone this wrong, crushing any dreams I might have of more children.

When they reopened my incision they found that the C-section was fine but that while they were trying to get Ethan out vaginally his head had torn an artery. So they closed that off and I received 6 blood transfusions before I even left the operating room. After that I was taken to ICU. I still had not gotten to see my baby.

After I came out of all the anesthesia the only thing I could think about was seeing Ethan. He was in the Special Care Nursery because he was still having trouble breathing on his own and he was having a hard time regulating his body temperature. Well, around 5:30pm I insisted to my nurse that I be taken to see my son no matter what I had to see him on the day he was born. So they wheeled me over to see him.

Later that night I still had to have 2 more blood transfusions but on Monday evening I was well enough to be moved back to the Maternity ward. Ethan stayed in Special Care until Tuesday and then he was able to go to the regular nursery as well. He got to spend all of Wednesday with us in our room but Thursday his jaundice got really bad so they had him under the Phototherapy lights all Thanksgiving Day. It was a rough holiday for us but at least we were all still together. On Friday his jaundice levels went down enough for us to go home and we were the happiest little family ever to all be leaving together and all still pretty healthy!