The First Week of the Best Years of Our Lives - part one

(I chose the title of this entry from one of the Facebook comments that a friend, Greg Saturday, left us. I truly believe what it says but this has been a scary crash course and the hardest thing we've ever been through to get to the best years, but we are on our way.)

So now we believe the first rule of parenting is expect the unexpected. Because two Saturdays ago (3-29), when Ben and I went to bed, we had plans for the next day of sleeping in a little and then starting early on a day of yardwork and nursery decorating.

Then about 1am Sunday, my water decided to break early. Waking up to this was shocking and I couldn't even really consider that it could be my water breaking. I thought I had just peeded on myself; not that I'm in the habit of this but pregnancy does weird things to your body. We called my doctor just to be sure and she said to come into the hospital to check things out. Still, Ben and I really thought and hoped it was nothing. But once at the hospital, my test said it was amniotic fluid. It was just over 8 weeks to my due date of May 27th so we were scared beyond belief of what this meant for our baby.

Our plans had definitely changed, I was in the hospital until the baby arrived. Thankfully, I didn't have any major contractions yet so with medicine over the next twelve or so hours, the doctor was able to stop labor. Through a sonogram they also determined that I still had enough amniotic fluid and the baby wasn't in distress. At this point I was just shy of 32 weeks by two days. I was given two steroid injections to help the baby's lungs develop quicker and if we could get through the first 48 hours after my water broke the medicine would have time to help. After that, the goal was to get to 34 weeks but if labor started again they said we would let it progress.

I moved into a private room on the high risk floor on Sunday night and we settled in for a wait. The big concern during this time would be for me to stay laying flat as much as possible and for the baby and I to stay infection free since I had an opening in the amniotic sac that could let an infection get to the baby. Ben and I both went into overdrive on germ protection, suddenly every visitor, cough, unwashed hand and sniffle were a possible threat to our child.
Ben stayed with me all day on Monday and finally made himself go to work on Tuesday while his mom kept me company. I quickly got stocked up with magazines, crossword puzzles, snacks and flowers thanks to family, friends and co-workers. The therapy dog from the hospital even stopped by to say hi. I missed our dogs and cats terribly so it helped seeing a four-legged friend.

Ben and I were so scared about what lay ahead for our baby during this waiting period. A neonatologist from the NICU had visited us on Sunday to prepare us for some of the complications we might face with the baby and it was one of the scariest conversations I've ever had. I can't even imagine it without Ben. Thankfully, we felt our doctors and nurses were excellent and we knew our baby would be in good care whenever the time came to deliver.
Tuesday night, I began having a lot of cramps in the middle of the night. I say cramps and not contractions because I was really hoping that they were only cramps. Dr. Nokleberg had said I would have some contractions off and on while on bed rest that wouldn't signal labor so I chaulked these up to that. Eventually, I woke Ben up though and told him I was concerned. He was the same way I was and just wanted to assume they weren't anything. I requested some Tylenol from the nurse and just kept trying to go back to sleep. Eventually, I couldn't ignore them anymore so we requested a belly monitor and Ben laid next to me and started timing them. They started showing up on the monitor and Ben timed them to be about five minutes apart. The nurses called the on-call doctor and he said for us to head to labor and delivery. Again, Ben and I thought surely this can't be it. Just like with when my water broke, we wanted more time but it wasn't up to us.
We made it down to labor and delivery (longest ride of my life) with me looking at Ben and following his breathing. Even though we had started LaMaze two weeks before, we had two classes to still take - including the breathing one! We had watched a short video compilation of various couples breathing so that is what we both fell back on and it helped! I was pretty worked up at this point and ready to see our doctor. He wasn't there yet but in my mind the baby could come at any moment. They checked to make sure I was dilated and I was already at a ten. But the doctor still hadn't made an appearance! I was still considering trying to have a natural birth but was afraid that I would have to stay in that state until the doctor got there and I just couldn't do it any longer and be ready to start pushing. So they ordered the epidural. Wow, that helped! I got pretty instant relief from the contractions with a little time to recover before we started pushing. The doctor had made it by this time but... wait there was a shift change so we had to take a little pause -yes, mid-labor - as a new doctor and nurse team got set-up.
My doctor wasn't on-call but the new doctor, Dr. Richards, was from her practice and we'd met him once before at least. We know him better now! I pushed for about 45 minutes with Ben and our nurse, Adora, coaching me through most of it. Ben became an expert quickly at how to coach, he was so good. When we finally got to the very end, Dr. Richards returned and a NICU team came in to be able to assess the baby right away.
One last push and Ben said, "It's a boy!!!!!" This moment was priceless. I heard Ben and then could see our real, living, breathing, crying baby boy. Yes, this is one of those moments everyone says is unexplainable because it is. We had been warned I probably wouldn't be able hold him after he was born because the NICU team would need him. We knew if this was what he needed it would have to be this way but it made me cry every time I thought about it. Ben was wonderful about continuing to remind them that I wanted to have skin-to-skin time if at all possible. I had to wait a few minutes before I could hold him so the NICU team could quickly assess him but then I got to hold our son. This was the second unexplainably amazing moment.
Ben also got to cut the cord which we weren't sure would be able to happen. Speaking of the umbilical cord, after the doctors saw it, we may have a clue why Charlie wanted to arrive early. There was a seriously big knot tied in the middle of the cord. (I have pics of the knot but thought it might be TMI for the blog!) The doctors and nurses were all staring at the knot in surprise and said it was really rare to see. They said it wasn't tight enough yet to cause problems but it could have gotten tighter with time and cut off Charlie's food supply. Dr. Edwards didn't say he thought this was directly related to the early labor but Ben and I can't help thinking it could be the reason that Charlie, my body and God knew it was time for him to be born.

Our first meeting (Charlie was wrapped up by NICU team to stay warm)

Our labor and delivery nurse with us after Charlie has arrived.

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