VB Family Updates

posted by Katie

NICU Round Two

Well, the waiting is over. Baby Brother arrived at 2:28pm (ish) on Saturday afternoon, June 14th, just two days shy of 32 weeks old. As a good friend wrote to us, it’s hard to know if congratulations are in order because we have so many mixed feelings about this second tour of the NICU, but at the same time, we have so many things to be thankful for and if nothing else, we are so so glad to be done with the waiting game.

While Nathan’s birth was fast with no stalling and no time to think, the waiting and stalling of this one, while a great blessing health-wise, definitely took a toll on us. At full term, when the body goes into labor, my sense is, no matter how long and hard it is, there is the constant subconscious goal of just keep working to get the baby out into the world. Instead, each time contractions began I was mentally overriding that goal with KEEP THIS BABY IN – it was exhausting and stressful. And when I wasn’t having contractions, all I could do was wonder when they would begin again.

After spending Friday in Labor & Delivery getting pumped full of magnesium for the second time and not having a baby, they took me off the mag at 10:30pm and kept me in L&D for observation overnight. I understood why they didn’t immediately send me back to Antepartum once the magnesium stopped, but also knowing that I was only contraction-free for about 12 hours the last time I’d been taken off mag, I kinda wanted to get downstairs to the comfy bed and cooler temperature before contractions started up again – a good night’s sleep makes all the difference! We were back in Antepartum around 5am, which by my estimation (knowing of course that none of this can ever really be predicted) gave me 5-7 hours to sleep and get in a morning visit with Nathan before contractions were back. Poor Nathan showed up with Grammy at 10:30am with regular, if not too strong, contractions already underway and me hooked back up to a monitor, so it was not the visit I had hoped for. At noon my nurse agreed that things had changed enough that I should be checked by the doc and have a conversation about returning once again to L&D. When the doc stopped by around 1pm we learned that while contractions were closer together and stronger, my cervix hadn’t changed at all since the day before, and since my water hadn’t broken, they wanted me to stay put in my comfy room and just deal with the contractions the way one deals with contractions – which they then had to outline for me since we once again hadn’t taken a birth class and I didn’t really have painful contractions with Nathan - shower, walk around, nap. I didn’t have to be told twice to take a shower and am so glad that I did. The feeling was that if I dilated further, we’d talk about starting magnesium again, and if my water broke, they’d just let me give birth since we were almost at 32 week, baby was clearly healthy and a good size, and all possible drugs to improve our outcome were already on board.

Once I got out of the shower, maybe 1:30?, the contractions were unrelenting and continued to strengthen, but I guess I smiled or talked too much or have too high a pain tolerance because no one seemed worried by pain “between a 6 and an 8” and contractions that were “no more than three minutes apart.” Tim thinks everyone just thought I’d chug along and get to experience real labor this time and oh isn’t it sweet that we can help her through it. One of my nurses did stick around to watch me get through a contraction and pronounced it to indeed be early labor that could go on for a while (she also said Tim was doing a great job helping me) and then she left. And then my water broke.

As soon as my water broke, my body kicked into high gear, ready to get this baby into the world. As my nurses went to get a stretcher and call L&D to let them know we were coming up, another nurse who was there to help decided it was of the utmost importance that I get changed out of my tshirt and into a hospital gown – all while I’m telling her that I’m pushing out a baby. Oh well – I didn’t fight with her, but I also didn’t stop pushing. And then we flew to the elevator, up four floors, and in the four minutes and three pushes that it took to get to the doors of L&D, Baby Brother was born. At 2:28pm. We think. Because there aren’t clocks in the hallway. It was a relatively quiet afternoon in L&D, so when we came flying in with a baby born all on his own and mama on a stretcher, everyone got to work taking care of us, but also celebrating this healthy, exciting arrival. It was like being at a really weird, kinda gory, cast party, with everyone careening around this great big room (we ended up in the entirely empty Recovery room), excited, congratulating us and each other, reliving the experience, talking away. Tim got asked twice if he wanted to cut the cord (who knew that could even be part of the preterm birth experience) and I got to hold my little boy while it was casually discussed whether I needed stiches. They even asked if I wanted to keep holding him while I got stitched up. (I decided being stuck with a needle while holding my baby was not on my bucket list.) And that’s how it all happened. Those last four minutes were very painful and a ton of work and I have no idea how women who labor for hours do it. And I think had I been concerned for my own healthy or the baby’s, or if this had been my first pregnancy, it could have been pretty traumatizing, but thankfully for us, it just is a kinda ridiculous birth story.

And now we’re learning the new rhythm of being a NICU family with a preschooler at home. While we never wanted to be in the NICU again and I am grieving the dream of a full term pregnancy, it is impossible to miss the many ways this trip through the NICU will likely be easier because if our past history. Nathan’s old nurses and doctors are both sorry and excited to see us, and we share the same conflicted emotions. But at the end of the day, if we have to be somewhere other than home all together, this is the place to be.