My August baby became a July baby!

On Sunday morning I started having contractions every 4-6 minutes apart. I’m a FTM so we decided to head to the hospital just to be checked. They monitor me for 5 hours. Not many contractions are happening, but I’m having pain in my right side. They send me home.

I go home and take a nap. When I wake up the pain is solely on my right side and it HURTS so badly, every time I take a breath, I start to cry. I call L&D.; They tell me it sounds like gas pains and to try tums and gas-x. I do these things, but the pain doesn’t get better. I’m consistently crying at this point, it’s almost midnight. My fiancé tells me it’s time to go back to L&D; because clearly something is wrong.

We arrive back at L&D.; They immediately examine me. The doctor says he thinks it could be either an appendicitis or kidney stones. They admit me for lab work and observations. The pain continues and is unbearable, besides the pain meds I’m given.

Monday morning, they conclude that I have an appendicitis and baby needs to be delivered in order to have the appendectomy. They begin the process of inducing me. My body however, does not want to cooperate. In four hours I only dilate .5 a centimeter. Baby’s heart rate kept having dips. My pain was miserable and contractions hadn’t even started yet! They decide to give me the epidural, in hopes that it would ease the pain. It did not. Baby’s heart rate continues dipping.

Throughout the morning, they had mentioned the possibility of needing a c-section, depending on how baby was acting. At 3:20 p.m. they come in and talked to me about needing a c-section because of baby’s heart rate dipping. At this point I was scared, in pain, and ready to meet my baby as safely as possible.

At 4:20 p.m. my 6.6 pound baby boy Luca Nathaniel was born. Immediately following the c-section, a general surgeon removed my appendix. (If I had delivered naturally, I would have needed surgery immediately following his birth.) The anesthesiologist told me in his 20+ years he had never seen a c-section turn into an appendectomy. He was very intrigued.

Following surgery, I got have skin to skin time with Luca. Then they had to take him to the NICU. Luca is spending the night in the NICU tonight to monitor his breathing. I miss him so much. But I am so glad he is here. I definitely wasn’t expecting him this early. I read so many birth stories about how to plan for anything in labor. I thought I was prepared for anything. Boy was I wrong. 😰