Our Experience in the Hospital

I thought, now that I'm feeling relatively ok and have nothing better to do that it would be a good time to summarize our actual experience for posterity's sake. So we started our drive to the hospital at 8 am June 26. We called as soon as we were on our way, as per instructions, and were surprised to hear that they were swamped and may not be able to take us. They told us to call back in ten minutes, at which point they said they would be able to take us if we didn't mind waiting in the lobby awhile. So we continued on. Upon arrival, we stopped to ask for directions to labor and delivery at the transplant clinic. You would think they would have just pointed us in the right direction, but they checked their records, didn't find us there, and called my OB clinic (at a different hospital) to confirm that we weren't lying to them and trying to get a free induction. 20 min later, they finally pointed us in the direction of labor and delivery, where we ended up waiting in the lobby for about 2 hrs for another patient to vacate the room. They finally took us back around 10 am but did not start our pitocin drip until around 1:30 pm. A few hours later I felt like I was going into active labor, but the pain amazingly wore off without the aid of drugs. finally around 6 pm, a not so people friendly doctor came in for a check up and then proceeded to break my water bag. When I asked what she was doing, she said we're breaking your water bag. When I mentioned that we hadn't been informed that that was going to happen right then, she very condescendingly told me that I was here for an induction and that the water bag had to be broken because I wasn't progressing. Fine with me if they had just informed me that that's what they were going to do. Especially since immediately after I went into strong, regular contractions. It was all they could do to get the anesthesiologist there in time to give me an epidural. The nurse (who was fabulous) was my biggest advocate in making things as painless as possible for me. She informed me that the doctor I had had the bad experience with was not the most sympathetic - most of them would make sure you got the epidural first and then break your bag. Those 30-45 min or so between the bag breaking and the epidural were the most painful of my life. Derek was the best support person, helping me to remember my breathing and letting me break his hand during the contractions. Unfortunately the epidural was not completely effective because of the positioning of the baby and reduced my pain level from a 10+ to a 7. As I progressed, however, it went back up to an 8-9. It wasn't long before I had transitioned and started getting bearing down pains. Once again nurse Lisa came to my rescue and delivered the baby almost single-handedly. She did a fantastic job. I still ended up pushing for 1.5 hrs, but it wasn't as painful as the contractions were. I did end up tearing quite a bit which led to an hour and a half long stitch up session after baby was born. What a special moment when her head finally popped out, followed shortly by the rest of her body and then the placenta. She was beautiful in her newborn alien way and I couldn't help but smile and laugh in spite of the pain. They took her almost immediately to the NICU and Derek and the grandmas followed her up. I wasn't able to see her again until the next day, but they actually allowed us to hold her for awhile before she went in to surgery. Actually she might not have gone into surgery yet, as they haven't notified us, but we were told she would go in today or tomorrow. The good news is that they said her omphalocele was very tiny and so prospects were good. She looks like a beautiful baby and has very long fingers and toes (typical of 9p-), but other than that, no physical manifestations of her genetic disorder that we know of. We'll know more soon, I think we're going to see a genetic counselor. So there will be a lot more news coming soon, but that about summarizes our experience so far. I definitely am less inclined to have another baby soon, but I'm sure that goes away with the pain. I still have a great deal of pain in my crotch and rear(scientifically speaking) because of the many, many stitches I have in them. We'll be here for at least another day or two for me to recover and then we'll hopefully move to the Ronald McDonald house. We'll keep everybody updated!