This may be pretty long and it was by far the most terrifying experience of my life, but my beautiful baby boy wanted to make a grand entrance. So from the start of my pregnancy I had always measured ahead. I didn’t have GD, just a big ol baby. Well my due date came and went and my OB decided that I needed to be induced at 41 weeks if he didn’t come on his own. I was set to get induced November 20th, November 19th I got a call asking if I would like to come in that night and get a foley bulb placed. I went in and they hooked me up to the monitors, I was having steady contractions 4 minutes apart but was only dilated 1cm and 60% effaced. They placed the bulb and immediately the contractions strengthened and I got the worst period like cramps I had ever had in my life. I had diarrhea within 5 minutes of them placing the bulb and vomited 3 times but they sent me home to labor until the catheter fell out. 4 1/2 hours later the bulb falls out and I get instant relief from the cramps but the contractions are still going. I called in and they told me not to come in until I couldn’t talk through the contractions or at 6 am on the 20th whichever came first. I go to sleep and wake up the next morning, shower, eat, then head in. They hook me up to the monitors and track what my body is doing on its own for about an hour and a half. They start me on the lowest dose of pitocin, here’s where things start to go wrong. Once every 90 minutes or so I have a mega contraction that lasts upwards of six minutes. Every time I have one my son’s heart rate would drop. The first time in the 90’s, the nurses rush in, give me oxygen flip me on my side and check my cervix. I had dialated a full cm due to the contraction. They stop the pitocin and monitor me. This same thing happens 2 more times and my water breaks so I get an epidural. Well 2 1/2 hours pass and no contractions have slowed and I hadn’t had a mega contraction, they come in the room to start the pitocin again and I have a long contraction. This one is 10 minutes long. My son crashes in the womb. His heart rate plummets down to 50 they tell me hands and knees, I get there even being fully numb from the waist down. I start to cry because I know this is a true emergency and all I can think about is I need to stay calm to give my son a chance. I manage to keep it somewhat together as they wheel me out and tell my husband to stay put, someone will get him scrubs and bring him to the OR. I’m wheeled through the hall trying my hardest to keep calm for my boy. We get to the OR and I climb onto the table by myself while they lock my bed down (all of the nurses said they have never seen a woman do that with an epidural in) and they put the curtain up. I hear them say they’re putting morphine in my epidural and the anesthesiologist talks to me for a while I can’t remember what about, my husband comes in and stands by me, comforts me. I hear someone say baby is out, I immediately start crying harder asking if he’s okay. He was screaming, my husband told me he saw his feet moving and they shortly called him over to see our son. My husband is yelling above everyone telling me how big and beautiful our boy is and that he peed all over the doctors attending to him. My husband was my life line at that moment. The terror of feeling someone tugging on my insides went away every time my husband told me how our son was doing. Eventually my husband brought the baby down to my head and I got to see him for the first time. I can’t describe that feeling. They took my husband to go get some skin to skin time while I was x rayed and sewn up. I fell asleep on the table waiting. They put me back in my bed and I was eye level with the operating table for a while. I saw all the blood and placenta and iodine everywhere and I think that’s when I understood what I had just been through. They wheel me to my room and clean off the iodine and blood from my stomach and chest and I get to hold my boy for the first time. I had the shakes for about 3 hours but finally stopped. I didn’t sleep at all that night and I held my sweet boy the entire time unless he was getting checked by the nurses or had to get changed, anything I couldn’t do myself. I still have a hard time putting him down. I think about how close I was to losing him and all I want to do is hold him. The reason his heart rate dropped was because he was stuck in the birth canal and those long contractions put too much pressure on his head. The medical staff at our hospital were more than amazing throughout it all. I can’t get enough of my sweet baby.

Jameson Cain Dailey

20 November 2018

2:54 pm 9lbs 8oz 22in