It's been a rather long week. The hospital phoned on Saturday
morning and asked us to come in so Tamara could be induced. Induction
is not really what we wanted to do, since one intervention is likely
to lead to another and another, which is exactly what happened in our
case. The clinic that Tamara was going to for her pregnancy care has a
policy of not allowing a pregnancy to go more than ten days overdue,
so the doctors were fairly insistent. Tamara's gut instinct was that
he wasn't overdue, partly since the dates used to estimate the due
date were a bit messed up, and because the ultrasound showed that
there was still plenty of fluid around the baby. The doctor had also
sent us for a stress test the previous Wednesday, which showed he was
fine.
The doctor explained the first step to us, which was something to
ripen the cervix, but which wasn't really supposed to cause
contractions. I go the distinct impression that we could choose to
stop the induction if nothing was really happening after a couple of
days. Unfortunately, the medication didn't do a lot to ripen the
cervix, but it did bring on contractions that were two minutes
apart. At this point we proceeded to the next step, breaking the
waters, followed by oxytocin. Tamara asked for an epidural, which was
not something she wanted, but apparently the artificial hormones used
to induce labour make it hard for the body to go to it's own medicine
cabinet for pain relief.
Eventually the contractions got to the point where the baby was
getting stressed, and Tamara's mom and I were getting pretty
worried. I had been watching the monitoring strips for the last few
days, and knew that his heart rate should be around 120 to 150, with
brief excursions to 110 or 160. So when the heart rate was hitting 70,
it was a little scary. The nurse had Tamara rolling around, this side,
that side, on hands and knees, to try to find a position where the
heart rate would come back up. C-Section time.
I was in the OR with Tamara at the time of the surgery, and
Tamara's mom watched form the observation room. Before it started, we
were both in the observation room, and there was quite a delay because
the OB had to deliver another baby. It was about 10am by this time,
and I hadn't had coffee or anything to eat for quite a while, and very
little sleep. So I was sitting there eating life savers to get my
blood sugar up and trying not to think about the worst possible
outcome. The nurse that visited us at home mentioned that Tamara had
lost about 800 ml of blood, a little more than normal, but not
excessive, and not enough to require a transfusion. I'm kind of glad
they didn't tell us that right away.
Ultimately he came out covered in vernix, suggesting that he wasn't
yet overdue. Tamara is consoled by the fact that she probably won't be
pushed to be induced again, since it is apparently more dangerous once
you've already had a c-section. I held him by Tamara's head while they
sewed her up and while we waited for the pediatricians to drop in a
take a look at his colour and breathing. We spent a little time in
recovery, where Tamara wanted to breastfeed him right away, but both
mom and baby were a bit dopey, so it didn't work out. I then followed
him to NICU where he was going to have his breathing monitored.
For the first few days feeding wasn't going well, and the nurses
were giving us lots of pressure to give him formula, and lots of
it. We didn't want any nipple confusion so we tried to avoid giving
him bottles. I spent a lot of time syringe and cup feeding him. After
a days or two through, we finally let them give him a bottle, just
because they seemed so concerned about him losing weight and we were
too tired and it seemed like he was using more energy cup feeding than
he was getting from what little formula I was able to get in him (most
of it was on him).
The day after we let them give him a bottle, Tamara met a lactation
consultant who was finally able to help her. In the days previous
there had been a few other LC's and their assistants/students
through. Four people giving you conflicting advice on how to
breastfeed is pretty frustrating, but this one got things going. We
explained that we were getting pressured to give him formula, and when
she left, we heard her tell the nurses to back off on the formula. She
wrote out a feeding plan, and we work him up and rubbed him with a
cold washcloth to keep him awake and feeding. He was a pretty sleepy
baby. Tamara punned Silence
of the Lambs: "It sucks or else it gets the washcloth again!" She
didn't know it though, and had to ask me where that was from ("It rubs
the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again."), so I forgive
her for being creepy.
Eventually everything looked good, and both Tamara and Wil were to
be discharged. However, Wil hadn't pooped for two days, so the doctor
wanted to see some poop before he went home. On Friday, the doctor
said that if he hadn't pooped by 1500, the nurses should give him a
glycerin suppository to help things along. He finally got the
suppository at 1700, and had a big poop by 1800! I'd never been so
happy to see poop, let me tell you. We could finally go home!
