Benjamin Jon - Part 1

Name: Benjamin Jon

Birth date: 2/9/13

Time: 7:26am

Weight: 6lb 13.5oz

Length: 17 inches

Gestational Age: 34w 3d

I realize that you don't chronicle a pregnancy for 34 weeks, take a break for a couple of weeks, then show back up with newborn pictures and say, "Surprise! Look at how cute my baby is!!" There is usually a step in the middle where the woman details out her birth story. I struggled with how much to write because there are parts of this story that are just graphic and if this week has taught me anything it's how messy labor, delivery, and post partum really are. So, consider this your warning. This story is not one of the pretty, cute stories that you see on TV. It's also written in two parts because of how long it is.

It all started with an ear ache. On Friday, February 1st I went in for my second gestational diabetes test. It's the one that takes three hours and usually ends with my puking. It was awful. I was miserable and felt really sick. To make matters worse, I was convinced that I had an ear infection or an abscess tooth. So after my test I went to see the dentist. There are things pregnancy books don't tell you about dentistry. Like that you need a permission slip from your Ob Gyn to actually be seen by a dentist. I procured one of those and then waited for an hour and a half in the dentist's office to be seen. The dentist poked hard on my back teeth, then on my front teeth, then had me open and shut my mouth and pronounced that I had pregnancy-induced TMJ (Note: I don't really). After securing another OK from my Ob Gyn, she prescribed anti inflammatory steroids and codeine. I got about three days into the steroid regime and my ear still hurt and I was feeling more and more sick. On Tuesday, February 5th. I stopped at what I thought was an urgent care facility (it was really a freestanding ER, but no one without access to my checking account would know that) so they could look at my ear. They thought I was ridiculous but since I had paid the ridiculous amount of money they asked, they humored me and looked in my ear. No infection. They thought maybe I had a sinus infection (because really, I wasn't leaving there without antibiotics) and prescribed a round of antibiotics for my sinuses.

By Wednesday, February 6th, I was just out and out sick. I couldn't drink enough water, I was going pee every 20 minutes, my glucose levels were high and I couldn't focus. All of my medically inclined friends said that I needed to go to the hospital for insulin because my blood sugar was too high. I had been diagnosed with gestational diabetes, but was told to just monitor my levels at home and wasn't given any insulin. Unfortunately, I was so sick that I had been fasting for 9 hours, but nevertheless, KGII and I went to the hospital in Houston. They put a fetal monitor and contraction monitor on me and tested my blood sugar. It was 94 (Not high at all, but slightly elevated for a fasting condition). But the nurses noticed that I was contracting every four minutes like clockwork. Contracting so much that they wouldn't let me go home. I noticed that the contractions started to hurt and KGII and I had never gone to a labor class because we assumed I'd have a C section. I told him to hold my hand and talk to me and he started talking about the stock market. I wish I was joking, but I'm not. I told him to stop talking then and just watch the contraction monitor and tell me when it was over. They gave me three doses of an intradermal medication to try and stop the contractions. It didn't help. It did make my heart race however. Finally they put in an IV and gave me two bags of saline and my contractions went from every four minutes to every seven then finally every nine minutes. They checked my cervix twice and I was high and closed. They sent me home, exhausted after five hours of non productive contractions.

On Saturday, February 9th, I woke up at 4am. I just felt uncomfortable, but that wasn't unusual for me in my third trimester (or really my first or second). KGII had stayed up all night watching movies and was awake. I took a bath and read the first book of the Game of Thrones series. I went back to bed, trying to sleep, and ultimately deciding to read more. At 6am, I stood up to go to the bathroom and felt a pop and a gush of fluid. I thought I had peed myself and hurried to the bathroom, except when I went to wipe my legs, all I saw was blood. More and more blood kept pouring out of me. Now I didn't watch my water being broken with Zac, but I knew this was not just a bloody show. I thought maybe that my water had broken and there was blood in there, but something was wrong. Unfortunately, you can't sit on the toilet in my bathroom and scream to someone in the living room, so I tried to stand up, but every time I stood up, more came out. I ended wrapping a towel around me and screaming to KGII that we had to go the hospital immediately. He called the hospital in Houston and waited for the on-call doctor to call us back. They asked how much blood we saw and there was really no way to describe it other than, "A LOT" so they told us to go to the closest Emergency Room.

So there are bloody towels everywhere, blood on the floor, I'm looking around for pads, but I don't have any, KGII comes back from the nursery brandishing three newborn diapers and tells me to put them in my pants and I do because I didn't have any better ideas. We pack the car with more towels for me to sit on and we take off. KGII is running red lights and going extremely fast. I'm screaming, "I can't make the blood stop, It just keeps coming out" and he's telling me it's goingt to be ok and not to worry, while speeding up. I call my Mom because I'm scared. We get to an intersection and we see the arms of a train crossing coming down and (this part has been supplied to me because I don't remember anything other than screaming), I turned to KGII and screamed, "Turn on the service road before the road! We can outrun the train if we get ahead of it". Apparently, KGII took my advice and we ended up driving parallel to the train. At some point, we see a small crossing and he brakes. I yell at him to go, he pauses for a moment, and then floors the gas pedal. The train starts honking and all I can see is the train light and I don't think we're going to make it, but we do and we end up in the ER five minutes later, somewhere around 6:30am.

They brought out a stretcher for me and take me to Labor and Delivery on the third floor. I'm still gushing blood. The nurses start working on me immediately, but I've started contracting again, this time it's every 1-2 minutes and it's extremely painful. They take off my clothes and I remember one nurse turning to a head nurse asking if she was going to check my cervix to see how dialated I was and the nurse looked at my bloody mess and said, "No, no I won't be checking her. Call the doctor for an emergency C-section". My Mom comes in and holds my hands through the contractions while we wait for the on-call Ob Gyn.

To be continued...