9 months had never been longer.
It was July 6th.
With only days until my baby’s due date, we had everything ready. A duffel bag sat in the trunk of our car complete with our detailed birth plan and everything we could possibly need or want for those hours at the hospital.
Our birth plan had been carefully planned out with a lot of research put in to every inquiry.
Here’s a summary:
We didn’t want to be induced, we wanted the room lights dimmed, we didn’t want an episiotomy, and definitely not a C-section.
We had been meeting with a doctor that agreed with us and knew our plan.
Now, back to July 6th.
After helping my wife to the car, I drove to the doctor’s office for her weekly check up.
The ever increasing-frequency appointments had become pointless in my mind. Without seeing the baby every time, the checkups became mundane, inconvenient, and dare I say, boring.
Until July 6th that is.
You could tell something was wrong after the nurse took my wife’s blood pressure.
She didn’t say anything to us, and left to get the doctor. A few seconds later, the doctor broke the news that her blood pressure was 180/120. That’s high.
With a smile on his face the doctor explained that we should head over to the hospital and have the baby today.
Wait. What?
Then he left.
We pieced together that my wife had pre-clampsia. I had watched enough Downton Abbey to know that wasn’t good.
We drove to the hospital and arrived. After being checked in, we sat in a room wondering if we were simply getting her blood pressure re-checked or if my frightened wife was going to be induced.
After the third nurse came and left our room, I stopped her and asked if we were being induced.
“Yes.” She said.
Well there it is.
Things are about to get real.
After I.V’s pumping Pitocin and Magnesium, vital monitors, and a tube in my wife’s spine, the contractions came.
And my wife slept through them.
A calm before the storm is a real thing.
Remembering the advice my dad gave me, I walked to the cafeteria to eat before what I was sure was going to be a busy night.
With the room-temperature, cardboard fajitas in my stomach, I grabbed a sugarful can of Barq’s root beer and sat down in the dark room.
With magnesium coursing through her body, my wife was in and out and not completely there. Her blood pressure was dropping dramatically, accompanied with vomiting and extreme nausea, and then rising with a growing headache and increased swelling.
She may not have been feeling the contractions because of the miracle of an epidural, but emotional pain and panic ran rampant.
After many violating checks, the nurse told us it was time to push. These next two hours are some of the scariest I have ever experienced.
It was a rollercoaster of emotion as Jess’s blood pressure flew up and fell down while My soon-to-be-born daughter Winnie’s heartbeat dropped dangerously low with every push.
At one point, with Winnie’s heartbeat low and not rising, the nurses quickly helped my wife on her knees in an attempt to relieve the pressure on the baby. Normally getting on your knees wouldn’t be hard, but when you don’t have any feeling below the waist, it’s pretty close to impossible.
The doctor was called in (along with the 8 other nurses and the newborn specialist on skype) as the nurses announced that our baby girl was soon to be in our arms. We were told throughout the process that Winnie could have a lot of problems.
My wife finally was able to lay on her back once again and I saw Winnie’s head for the first time.
“Does she have hair?” My wife asked amongst pushing. I couldn’t have heard her right. Is that what she’s worrying about?
Yes.
She did have hair.
With Winnie’s heart rollercoastering through each push, the doctor ordered for the operating room to be prepped for a c-section.
At this point I really started to panic. Everything came down to this moment. Winnie had to come out in the next push. With her heart rate dropping and the danger of my wife having a seizure rising, we hit the point of no return.
Nothing had gone according to our plan. My wife was induced, she now was getting an episiotomy, and we were probably going to have a c-section.
Then, as usually happens in these points of life, a miracle happened.
With the help of a suction cup on a string, the doctor pulled Winnie out on the last possible push and her beautiful scream rang through the air.
We were told she would be silent and limp. With so much magnesium in the mom’s blood, it often adversely affects the baby.
She came out, in every meaning of the phrase, kicking and screaming.
The room went from 12 nurses to 3. Everything was going to be okay.
It was over, Winnie was born.
After everything was cleaned up and my wife was put back together (figuratively and literally), it was just her, me, and our baby.
I have a family.
I finally met my baby girl.
We slept for the next few days. The nurses in the nursery were a godsend.
My wife’s recovery was rough. We avoided a seizure during birth but she had one afterwards.
Finally she was off the magnesium with her blood pressure in control and ready to head home.
Finally it was over.
On the drive home I couldn’t help but think that God knew us. I couldn’t include everything that went wrong, but in the end everything worked out.
God brings us to the point of no return, just to show us He is guiding us.
It doesn’t always end with a healthy baby, or a recovered wife, but it does always end with His loving hand guiding us.
I smiled at these thoughts as I turned our little Honda Civic into our welcoming apartment complex. Things were going to be okay, it was over.
Then I got home.
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