The Adventures Continue: Oliver's birth story

With the adventures of the last few weeks of pregnancy, of course the birth had to be an adventure as well...

After almost 3 weeks of trying everything to induce labor naturally, the last thing I tried was acupuncture.

On Tuesday, July 9, I :

• had a breakfast of greek yogurt with strawberries, 
• turned in my 24-hr urine test, 
• got a second breakfast of an egg sandwich at Panera, 
• went to my 2nd acupuncture appointment, 
• went to my chiropractic appointment at Revolution, 
• had a snack of an orange and some granola, 
• went to hang out at Evan’s office while the house cooled back down,
• got home around 4, 
• took my homeopathics, 
• rubbed clary sage on my belly, 
• got the breastpump going, and 
• laid down, drifting in and out of sleep.

All of a sudden, I feel a pop that jarred me out of the semi-sleep I was in. I thought maybe that was water breaking, but no one ever mentioned feeling a pop! I sent Evan a message to tell him what I felt, and thankfully he was pulling into the neighborhood already (5:30pm). I waited for him to come help me off the couch, just in case my “water” gushed, but it was a just a trickle instead. I sent Susan a message just before 6pm letting her know what was going on. She called back to get some more info and remind me of when we were required to call her to come, but she would come earlier if I wanted her to. Contractions started during that phone call, but I could still breathe and talk to Susan through them.

I told Evan what Susan said and told him the plan for dinner—baked chicken. I told him I was going to the bathroom then I’d come back to help him…but I never came back. Meanwhile, I’m in the kitchen messing with raw chicken, getting it ready to be baked for dinner. Contractions really started coming on strong, and I had no problem starting to ‘vocalize’ through them. In addition to the contractions, I had tension in my lower back and belly that wasn’t subsiding between contractions. I tried to get up and go help Evan, but I made it as far as our entry way before I had to stop to lean on the wall and decided to go back to the bathroom. I went ahead and ran a warm bath and got in, but I couldn’t get comfortable. After about 25 minutes, I wonder, “where is my wife?” so I went to check on her. I was thinking “I don’t know if I can do this…but it hasn’t been that long since my water broke…this can’t possibly be transition already…what if gets worse…mind over matter…I can do this!”

Little side note here: I spent 24 hours in Bradley class, with my wife, training for this moment. We kept reading over this little chart that described the 5 stages of labor – Early First Stage, First State, Late First Stage, Transition, and Second Stage (or Pushing). There were different columns describing the Emotional, Physical, and Behavioral signposts associated with each stage. I was supposed to use that information to tell what stage Laura was currently in. The Emotional signpost for Transition is that the woman will be saying things like “I can’t do this anymore” and “It’s too hard”. I kept listening for her to express this level of doubt, but my brave wife kept these little feelings of doubt to herself. Unfortunately, this was one instance where I really needed her to mention her doubts out loud, so that I would know that she was already in Transition.  As it was, I didn’t figure that she had already reached Transition because it hadn’t been that long since her water broke and she wasn’t verbalizing her doubts.

Evan came to check on me while I was in the bath, and I told him I wanted him to call Susan. He suggested getting out and trying a few different positions first so he could time contractions (because, again, I just couldn’t believe that she might already be in Transition). I could tell when the contractions were coming on and peaking, but not necessarily when they ended because of the continuous tension in my belly and back. Evan did a great job encouraging me and rubbing my back through contractions. Again, I told Evan I wanted him to call Susan to at least bring the birth pool. So, he called (at 7:30 pm) and Susan and her assistant came over. By the time they got to our house, I was already in the zone and only vaguely aware of them arriving.

They set up the birth pool, which was a fiasco in and of itself… Erm, you see, we never really tested the faucet adapter for the birth pool hose to make sure that it would fit on one of our faucets. I guess I just sort of assumed that it would fit. Then soon after Susan and Elizabeth began setting up the pool, Susan came in to tell me that she couldn’t get the adapter to fit any of the faucets. I immediately started to panic. Hooking up the hose and filling up the birth pool was supposed to be my job. I had agreed to take care of that when we spoke to Susan weeks before and requested a birth pool. But in the craziness of the last 3.5 weeks leading up to the birth, I totally forgot about it. Then Elizabeth mentioned that it would probably be possible to hook the hose up directly to the hot water fill valve behind the washing machine. Eureka! I was elated. Of course, the elation quickly turned to despair as I realized that I didn’t have the proper tools to detach the washing machine’s existing fill lines to get at the valve. I needed channel locks and I didn’t have any. Once again, panic sets in. I tried concocting a solution with needle-nose pliers and a crescent wrench, but that wasn’t making any progress.

After a few minutes (it’s now almost 8:30 pm), I began to accept the fact that I needed to call someone for help. My mind started racing through my options. I called my friend Nathan, who lives just a couple miles away, but he didn’t answer. Then I remembered that my coworker Rob had just moved and now lived only a couple blocks away, so I rang him up and he answered. The conversation went something like this: “Hey Rob, it’s Evan. Are you home? I have a weird question. I really badly need the sort of wrench (couldn’t even remember the name in the moment) that can detach the fill lines from the water valves behind the washing machine. Laura’s going into labor and I need to fill up the birth pool.” He said that he had them and that he’d have them ready when I came by. “Yeah, that’s the thing – I can’t really leave her right now. Is there any way you could bring them over?” Fortunately, Rob is amazing and said that he’d bring them over immediately. So I hung up, went back to check on Laura, and admitted that I had to call someone to bring the channel locks. Of course, she was in the zone and probably wasn’t even aware of what I said. Nope!

A few minutes later, Rob arrived and dropped off the channel locks. I thanked him profusely and rushed to work on the water valves. I detached the fill line from the red valve and hooked up the birth pool hose. Success! I told Elizabeth that the hose was connected and then ran back into the room to help Laura again. But just a minute later, Elizabeth came into the back room and told me there was a problem. The water coming out of the hose was cold. “How can that be? I hooked up the hose to the red valve.” Then I took a better look behind the washing machine, pushed the drain line out of the way, and realized that BOTH valves were red. Just my luck. So I detached the hose and switched it over to the other fill valve and turned it on. Mercifully, the water coming from the hose was hot. I informed Elizabeth and once again headed back to assist Laura as Elizabeth filled up the birth pool, mixing hot water from the hose with cold water poured in using buckets from the sink.

When I was finally able to get in the birth pool, every muscle relaxed for the first time since my water broke and I was able to breathe deep and recharge for about 2 minutes before contractions started coming again. It was a good thing I had those couple of minutes of relaxation because my vocalizations during contractions quickly turned into pushing sounds. Susan and Elizabeth were taking my and baby’s vitals while I was in the birth pool, and a point came when they said they were having trouble hearing baby’s heartbeat, so it was time to get out of the pool and go push my baby out.

Evan helped me onto the bed, and I started out pushing on my hands and knees. After a few pushes, with one of the midwives checking baby’s heartbeat after almost every contraction, Susan told me to hold my baby there and push him farther. Then they had me get into a squat, but our bed is so squishy that I just sank into the bed. They had me kneeling on the bed behind her, supporting her in the squat position, and my knees were killing me! Then we moved to the floor in a squat position for a few pushes, with the midwives still checking baby’s heartbeat after almost every contraction/push. For this, they asked me to sit in my computer chair and lay my arms out along my knees, so that Laura could place her underarm over my arms and hang down in the squat position. My forearms quickly went completely numb, but I kept telling myself that this was inconsequential compared to the pain Laura was experiencing. Then they had me lay on my back pulling my knees up to help baby get over my tailbone. Susan gradually got more and more firm with me saying “Even more…push even more…it’s time to push your baby out…even more.” I could sense the seriousness of her tone and was pushing as hard and long as I could only stopping to gasp for more breath before pushing again. Finally, his head came out! There was a loop of cord around his neck, but it had a good pulse. After a few more pushes, his shoulders came out (with the aid of Susan), and then the rest of this body!

The midwives laid him on my chest, and it took just a minute for his cry to grow to the full-bodied cry. Susan had me cough and push, and my placenta came out pretty quickly. However, even after the placenta came out, I kept bleeding. Susan and Elizabeth took turns rubbing my belly doing the ‘fundal massage’ and they gave me a shot of Pitocin, but I still kept bleeding. They cleared clots from my uterus a few times, continued the fundal massage, and gave me another shot of Pitocin (the maximum amount they could give me at home) but I still kept bleeding. So, they decided it was best for me to go into the hospital to find out exactly where the bleeding was coming from. They knew I had some tears, but they wanted to be sure there wasn’t bleeding coming from somewhere else.

After some discussion and a call to Dr. Lewis, an ambulance was called to our house. I had to get up from the floor where I was supporting Laura and start getting ready to go to the hospital. I started throwing on clean clothes, and then ran into the kitchen to grab some more bites of chicken and get some orange juice for Laura. Then Susan came into the kitchen and informed me that because she needed to ride in the ambulance with Laura, that I was going to have to drive myself there and bring Oliver in the car seat. My heart leapt into my throat for a second, as I tried to reconcile the necessity of the situation with the reality that I couldn’t stay with my wife in the ambulance. I calmed myself with the knowledge that we trusted Susan and she wouldn’t have made this decision unless it was absolutely necessary. Then I went back to the baby room to grab some supplies, because now I have to diaper and clothe my one hour old son. Since all I had on was a nursing sleeping bra, Elizabeth draped Evan’s Thunder shirt over me. The EMT’s came in, started an IV, hooked me up to the blood pressure cuff, then wrapped me up in the MegaMover, which was kinda like a cocoon in which they carried me to the stretcher, then wheeled the stretcher over the yard to the ambulance. Susan rode in the ambulance with me to continue pressure/massage on my belly, which meant Evan had to bring Oliver James to me at the hospital.

So while I was picking out a onesie to put on Oliver, I managed to select one of those wrap-around ones with all the snaps.  Supposedly, these are easier to get on babies than the traditional onesie that you pull on over their head. LIES. Elizabeth and I must have snapped and unsnapped that thing on him 3 times, and each time we ended up with leftover snaps that didn’t have a match. Anyway, we got the onesie on him (sort of) and then I grabbed the baby bag and Laura’s wallet and made my way to the garage to put him in her car so I could drive to the hospital.  Unfortunately, once I opened the garage, I saw that Susan’s car was parked behind Laura’s and Susan’s keys were still with her in the ambulance, so there was no way to move it.  This meant that I was going to try to fit his car seat into my little car.

I moved the car seat over to my back seat, but I was having the hardest time getting the latches hooked to the safety bars, because they were buried way down in the seat. Of course, I soon realized that the reason I was having so much trouble was because I still had the carrier attached to the base. Once I removed the carrier, I was able to get it attached. So I pulled the carrier out and placed Ollie inside, when I quickly discovered that even at 1 hour old he was already too big for the default strap setting. I had to lift him back out, hand him to Elizabeth, and adjust the straps. I placed him back in and the straps fit, but his head stabilizer had pulled away and there was no way to get it back in place without lifting him out of the seat again. Once more I adjusted the carrier and then placed him in and fortunately, the third time was the charm. Amazingly, this entire time he was just squeaking and squawking but never crying. I hopped in the car and slowly made my way to the hospital, while quickly phoning both new Grandmas to tell them the good news and the scary news.

When we got to the ER, the EMT’s asked how to get to Labor & Delivery Triage, where Dr. Lewis was meeting us, and I heard a familiar voice say he would show us the way—it was Ryan Schroeder. It was nice to see a familiar face and he lightened the mood a bit as he led us up 2 elevators and through many halls. I asked him to watch for Evan and to help him find me.

On my way, I received a text from Ryan Schroeder telling me that he knew Laura’s room number and that I could ask for him at the hospital. When I arrived at Mercy with Oliver, I started to panic because I’d never been to the ER, so I had no idea which entrance to use. I decided to pull into the Patient’s Entrance thinking that they could direct me to the right place. So I parked the car, carefully lifted Ollie out in his carrier and walked across the lot to the Patient’s entrance, where I was greeted by a locked door. I had chosen poorly. I walked back across the parking lot, muttering to Ollie about his clueless daddy, and put him back in the car. I decided to just call Ryan and ask him where to go. Thankfully, he answered his cell phone and directed me to the ER entrance.

I found a parking spot right up front and soon I was inside at the desk waiting for Ryan to come get me. One of the nurses caught a glimpse of Ollie in his carrier and asked me how old he was. When I told her “about 2 hours” she gave me a look like “What are you doing leaving this hospital with a 2 hour old baby?!?” Desperately wanting to avoid a Pink Alert, I quickly explained that he was born at home and that my wife needed to be taken to the hospital afterwards so we were coming to see her. Ryan came out soon after and escorted me up to Laura’s room.

We got to the room, and Dr. Lewis came in soon after. She cleared clots, as Susan held my hand, and determined the bleeding was coming from 2 tears in the vaginal wall and 1 perineal tear, so she stitched me up. As she was doing so, the nurses asked about Oliver and how big he was, but we didn’t know because Susan and Elizabeth had been working on me since he was born. Evan soon got to the room with Oliver, and I took him as soon as I could, took off his onesie, and held him on my chest, covered by Evan’s Thunder shirt (his first ‘blanket’). He nursed, which was a great distraction from everything else going on. Susan and the nurses even commented on how good he was at breastfeeding already.

When Dr. Lewis finished stitching me up, she said I just had to finish the bag of IV fluids/Pitocin, and then I would be free to go. Then, one of the nurses brought in a scale, a clean hat, and some blankets. Susan and Elizabeth were able to weigh him and do their checks of him there in the hospital room. Oliver weighed in at 8 lbs 14 oz, 21 inches long, and 24.5 cm head! My big boy! After doing Oliver’s measurements, they went back to our house to start cleaning up. We were at the hospital for a little longer, when Evan called the new grandparents to give them the news of Oliver’s name and stats, and that we were both doing good.

We left the hospital around 2:30am, and both Evan and I were starving, but of course, nothing was open…nothing at the hospital…nothing on our way home. Thankfully, we had some leftover grilled sweet potatoes in the fridge that sounded heavenly to me. Evan heated that up for me as I slowly made my way in the house and into bed. Susan checked on Oliver again and gave him a Vitamin K shot for some bruising, then they both headed home around 3:30am. After a few bites of sweet potato and some orange juice, I fed Oliver again and went to sleep. However, Oliver wasn’t quite ready to sleep yet, so Evan took him, soothed him, and finally got in bed around 4:30am. The adventure of Oliver’s birth-day was complete, but it’s just the beginning of our adventure as a new little family.