It was about 2:30pm on Tuesday, October 30th and I was sitting in a board meeting at my client's office when the FIRST contraction hit....about 15 minutes later there was another...and another and another. I kept quiet and patiently waited for the meeting to end before I grabbed my keys and headed home.
It was 3:58pm and I called Rich to let him know that I had started having contractions and they were already ONLY about 9 minutes apart. I got in the car and headed home....
Upon arriving at home, the contractions were still about 9 minutes apart and we decided that we would take it easy and maybe watch an episode of Dexter to "distract" me and see how things would go.
It was now about 5pm and contractions were fluctuating from 8 to 12 minutes apart and we decided that it was maybe a false alarm...I chatted with a couple girlfriends who recently had babies (thanks Jen and Jenn) to see if this was the real thing or not...and how would I deal if it wasn't the real deal.
Contractions were getting a lot more intense in strength and the peaks were really causing me lots of pain in my low back...these feeling made me both nauseous and sick and caused me to be locked to the toilet to expunge all the bad stuff from inside (yes, I had diarrhea!!!). At about this time, I felt something else leave my body and looked down and I had lost a huge portion of my mucous plug. About 2 weeks before I thought that I had this happen, but this was either the remainder of what hadn't come out yet, or what I thought was the mucous plug earlier was just some form of pregnancy discharge (yes, this is so attractive...but the journey is amazing).
At this point, I decided that maybe it would be best if I tried to lay down and get some sleep because (1) maybe this was labor and (2) maybe this was going to be a long night?!?!?! After laying down for about 10 minutes...I got up and my water broke. Unlike the "gush" that I had always assumed...mine was more of a rapid leak followed my more leaking each contraction...It was time to call Overlake and see if it was "GO TIME". Rich called the hospital and they said to come on in....HOLY COW, WE ARE HAVING A BABY!
We started running around the house like chickens...packing up the dog, grabbing last minute stuff for the hospital bags, changing into "comfy" clothes and taking a few deep breathes and realizing that the next time we walked into the house we would potentially have a 4th member to our little family. (The picture at the start of this entry is right before we headed to the hospital...Chukar totally knows that something is up).
We headed out toward Bellevue at 6pm to drop Chukar at PetSmart and grab a quick bite before making it to Overlake at about 7pm. We checked in and were escorted to the "OASIS" to have some tests run and to verify that we were in labor and it was time to be admitted. After about 1 hour, we had confirmation that I was in labor, my water had broken and it was time to go to our labor and delivery room. During this time, my contractions had started to become about 4 minutes apart and I was having severe back labor. The intensity of the contractions was manageable without any drugs, however, the back labor was beginning to become unbearable.
I labored in the room from about 8pm to 11pm trying all the "tricks" we had learned in class...from the ball, to the tub, to hip circles, to laying on my side and just moaning. It was intense and I decided that I had hit the point that I couldn't manage the pain any longer and asked for an epidural. The anesthesiologist was in the room in about 5 minutes and my epidural was amazing... We were told that we could rest for a bit and once I progressed to 10 cm that I would start pushing, but that could be hours as I was only at 5cm. We assumed that we would get some rest and Baby Meyer would join us in the morning....
Insert about 5 nurses, 2 doctors and a hospitalist into the room and me being told to be get on all fours...I was oblivious and thought this was all normal. Within about 1 minute, I was being transfered to a new bed and moved into the operating room for an emergency C-Section. Rich went to tell my parents (who were in the lobby) that I was having a C-Section and then was heading to the operating room to be with me. Upon returning to the hallway, the nurses were waiting for him and getting him the sterile outfit to put on to be with me. He was rushed in to be with me.
Why was an emergency C-Section needed you ask? Up arriving at the hospital, Baby Meyer's heart beat had been low, ranging from 100-104, with brief peaks up to 140-145, but always going back down to low 100s. While going through the labor process, Monster's heart beat continued to decline and was less than 60 bpm after my epideral. Neither Rich or I know how low the heart beat got, but we know that it continued to drop over the next 15 minutes. Additionally, my placenta had begun to detach and was more than 50% detached at delivery. The risk to mama and baby was to high to try to deliver vaginally....hence, the need for the emergency C-Section.
Back to where we left off...
I was in a drug-induced state of euphoria...oblivious to the danger that Griffin and I were in. The good news is, all is well now and that is all that matters. The doctor gave to anesthesiologist 2 minutes to get me to the point that they could operate, otherwise, it would be time for general anesthesia. It was a blessing that I had the epideral when I did, as the doctors were able to expedite the increased level of drugs I needed to successly remove my pain and allow them to proceed.
It was less than 5 minutes and our little angel joined the world. He came out with a few squaks and immediately we were in love. Rich was able to see that he was a BOY right away, however, how I was postioned, I had to ask if our precious little one was a boy or a girl.
IT'S A BOY!
GRIFFIN CHARLES MEYER HAD JOINED OUR LITTLE FAMILY.
HE WEIGHED 7 LBS, 5 OZ AND WAS 19 INCHES.
BORN OCTOBER 31, 2012 AT 12:51 AM.
It took about 20 minutes to run tests on Griffin to make sure everything was great and to finish putting me back together....we were back in the room in less than 1 hour from the time we were rushed out to the operating room.
That's the story...it was an exciting way for Griffin to join the world and we are so thankful for the amazing doctors, nurses and everyone at Overlake Hospital who made sure that Mama and Baby were safe.
Whenever anyone asked Rich or I what our birth plan was...we said we would take it minute by minute and do what felt right with the end goal being Healthy Mama, Healthy Baby. Never did we dream that it would be such a struggle to have this be the ending there was, but obviously someone was looking out for us.
We love our little man more than we could imagine and feel so lucky, blessed, excited and giddy that he is now here with us.
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