Emergency csection!!

Just thought I’d share my crazy story! The night before my 37 week check up, I started having regular contractions that were getting really uncomfortable. I decided to wait it out until my appointment in the morning.

On February 22,

When I finally made it to my 37 week check up, I was contracting 5 minutes apart and they were getting more and more uncomfortable. I was checked and was 3 cm dilated and completely thinned out. I hadn’t met with anesthesiologist yet or toured labor and delivery, so I went ahead and did that: I was told I could stay at labor and delivery for monitoring or go home and come back later if things got more intense, so I decided to head home and see what happened since I had my toddler alone with me.

Once I got home I bounced on my ball and contractions and pain picked up. Little guy was getting extremely restless and was non stop moving which I thought was strange since my first wasn’t this active in labor. I just had a feeling to go back in, so we woke the toddler from his nap and headed back to the hospital with my hubby. He was trying to convince me to wait it out longer since he didn’t want to wait in the hospital a long time. I got hooked up to the monitor, contractions 5 minutes apart still, and I had made no change with my cervix. I was extremely disappointed.

After being on the monitor half an hour, a bunch of nurses and my doctor rushed in and said that my baby’s heart rate had gone into a sinusoidal pattern and they needed to get him out NOW. I live on a small island in Alaska with no NICU, so they were scrambling to call the hospital on the mainland to get a meds flight thinking baby may come out anemic or having problems. Luckily in this time his heart went back to normal, but they still needed him out. I was rushed back to get a spinal and they had the general anesthesia ready to put me under in case things got bad. A couple times they lost his heart rate and panicked, but my spinal finally took and they started cutting him out.

I didn’t know if he was going to come out okay, but he let out a loud and beautiful cry the second they pulled him out. They got him cleaned up and handed him to my hubby, who noticed a grunting sound in his breathing and the nurses went ahead and took him. Since he was having breathing issues, the Nicu team that flew out here decided to take him.

Baby boy stayed in the nicu for 6 days, and I didn’t get to see him until 2 days after birth. He was on cpap for a few days and had surfactant put into his lungs. Eventually his oxygen stayed more stable and breathing got better and we finally got to bring him home. We aren’t sure still what caused his heart rate to go into that sinusoidal pattern, but reading about it online was frightening. Apparently that pattern is an ominous sign of impending fetal demise. It’s crazy to think if I had waited a little longer to go in, my baby may have passed away inside me that day. It’s a good thing to listen to your instincts!