01.06.2006 at 2:21 pm
memories...
t h e f e a r . . .
janie ann marie was born on monday, january 19th of 2004 which was twenty-five days before her first due date of february 12th. i don't know if i ever stated this before, but i was DEATHLY afraid of having a c-section. because i had always heard that it was so much more horrid for plus size women than it was for thinner women. and that made sense in my mind because a larger woman would have a larger stomach...right? right. and there would be more pressure on her incision, right? right. so here is my account of what happened between january 16th (day of decision) and january 19th (janie's birthday)...
i had an appointment with dr. cool-as-anything dawkins on the 16th at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. chris went with me (thank GOD). i had been having problems with my blood sugar for a while by then and my weight had dropped about 30 pounds or so, but we figured everything was okay. i had gestational diabetes and was on insulin (had been for about two months by this point) and between the insulin and my diet, janie was getting bigger and bigger and i was shrinking. what was so gut-wrenching was that i was always trying to lose weight before i was pregnant. weight watchers, l.a. weightloss, atkins, you name it, i had tried it. and i had never lost more than 10 or 12 pounds either. THEN came pregnancy. the one time in a woman's life that she doesn't need to lose an excessive amount of weight and there i was losing by the day. (when i went to dr. dawkins for my checkup AFTER janie was born, i had lost a total of 42 pounds). what has really scary was when i was spilling an enormous amount of ketones. it was alarming, but the doc said that it was okay, as long as it didn't get too out of hand.
i was working at the bank close to home. i can't remember where chris was working, but i know it was some place close (and by that, i mean within 90 miles of our house � it's odd how relative the word close can be...) chris and i were expecting to have a minimum of two more weeks before we would actually be having a baby. but the doc decided that maybe we shouldn't wait that long.
"according to the ultra-sound, your little girl weighs in at almost 11 pounds," she said. she had a concerned look on her face. i felt as though i was going to vomit all over her. then she said..."but ultrasounds can be up to 2 pounds off. so we are probably looking at a very healthy 9 pound baby girl." to which i replied, "or we could be looking at a very HUGE 13 pound baby girl!?"
i am sure my face showed the fear that was welling inside of me. the first thing that came to my mind was how large my precious baby was going to be. i was worried for her. was she going to be okay? had i done enough and tried hard enough with the gestational diabetes to make sure that she would enter this world healthy? would she be so big that i wouldn't be able to give birth to her vaginally? and then came my real fear.
there are not enough adjectives in the all the languages of all the world to express my terror of having to have a caesarian. the stories i had heard and the ones that i had dreamt up on my own were beginning to spin in my mind like a tornado. the infections, the breast feeding problems, the incision problems, the hideous scars, the bed-rest after delivery, every horrific thing i had ever heard was reverberating in my head.
when we left the doc's office, chris and i decided to go out to eat to celebrate (and because we had to drive all the way to mobile to go see the doc, we might as well go on and make a date of it anyway). this would be the last time we went out to eat as husband and wife before our beautiful baby girl was born. we went to outback steakhouse in mobile (which is TOTALLY our restaurant of choice � more on that later). we talked. we cried. we talked some more. we were ready.
or so we thought.
;)
t h e i n d u c t i o n . . .
for the next two days, chris and i cleaned house. and i mean CLEANED. we scrubbed the bathroom, did some finishing touches on the nursery, washed the curtains throughout the house. you name it, we cleaned it. we even thought about ripping up the carpet in the nursery because it had been down for so long. but we didn't end up going that far. i finished packing my bag for the hospital (actually i packed two...one for a regular delivery and one for a c-section � because we would have to stay in the hospital longer with a c-section) by saturday night, i was so exhausted that i fell asleep at about half past seven. the next day was almost BORING. because we were so jittery the day before we had done EVERYTHING we could think of to be ready for the new baby.
we had to be at the hospital on the 18th at 6 o'clock in the evening. we spent the whole day waiting for 4:30 (which is when we decided to leave for the hospital � it's about an hours drive). i have never watched so much television in one day as i did that day. i was sore from the day before (from over-exerting myself while cleaning) and all i wanted to do was lay in my new recliner that my parents had bought me for Christmas.
j a n u a r y 1 9 , 2 0 0 4
j a n i e ' s b i r t h d a y !
hospital time! we got to mobile infirmary WAY before we were scheduled to be there, but i figured it was better to be early than late. right? the first thing i remember is being taken back to the labor and delivery ward of the hospital. they kept asking me if i needed a wheelchair (with which i eventually got VERY annoyed because i hadn't been treated like an invalid so far during my pregnancy � so why start now?). when we got to my room it looked like a hotel room. there was a huge television set and a couch and a couple of chairs. the only thing different was the bed (of course it was a hospital-style bed) and the bathroom didn't have a tub � only a strange looking shower with a chair in it.
anyway. i had to change into one of those beautiful hospital gowns and take my place on the bed. the nurse inserted cervidil to ripen my cervix (because at this point i was not dilated AT ALL). the contractions started IMMEDIATELY thereafter. at first they were only mildly uncomfortable. but it did not take long for them to become harshly unbearable. for the first twelve hours, i went without any pain medication. about every hour the nurse would come in a check me. i was in too much pain to sleep. chris couldn't sleep because i couldn't sleep.
around six in the morning on the 19th i was started on pitocin through my IV. the contractions became so strong that i relented and asked for nubain. this helped me for the next 6 hours or so. the contractions were getting stronger and stronger, but i wasn't dilating hardly at all. i ended up only getting to 2 centimeters in 18 hours of labor. at 11:30 that morning, my nurse (who had spent the past 10 hours with me and was becoming my best friend at that moment) took my hand and said, "darlyn...i know you want to put off having the epidural as long as possible....but you really need to have it done. your contractions are getting harder and harder because of the pitocin and seeing your eyes roll back in your head like that every minute or so is really starting to freak out your husband."
so i relented again and said okay to the epidural. it took about 20 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get to my room and perform the epidural. it didn't hurt. amazingly. but i think i was in so much paid with the contractions that it didn't matter i was having a 20 gauge needle stuck into my spine. it took within minutes and it made ALL THE DIFFERENCE IN THE WORLD. no more pain. i could actually have conversations with people that lasted longer than 30 seconds. it was WONDERFUL.
there was a fetal monitor on janie's head the whole time i was in labor and delivery. they were keeping track of her heart rate, during labor, a baby's heart rate drops during contractions and then recovers back to the normal rate. at 12:26 the fetal heart monitor showed that janie was in distress. i had a contraction (which i couldn't even feel then because of the epidural) and janie's heart rate dropped, but did not recover. (by recover, i mean come back all the way up � her heart was still beating, but at a much slower rate). by the next contraction, her heart rate dropped even lower.
in that moment, i was told that it was time for an emergency c-section.
tears started to flood my eyes. even chris was crying � because he knew how scared i was. i was so glad that i had already had the epidural. because it took about 10 minutes for it to take effect, and now we didn't have to wait that extra time. janie needed to come out AS SOON AS POSSIBLE. chris and i decided that my mom could be in the operating room with us � for which i am very grateful. because of my mom, i have some wonderful candid photos of janie's birth (not the surgery) and they turned out beautifully.
janie ann marie was born at 12:36 p.m. on january 19, 2004. she weighed exactly 8 pounds and was 21 inches long. her eyes were dark blue and she didn't really have that much hair. she mostly looked like a cute little sumo wrestler (i'm sure she will really appreciate that one day). her head was perfectly shaped (since she was born by a c-section, there was no need for forceps or that vacuum-thingy).
because of my gestational diabetes and the insulin dependency, she was born with very low blood sugar. she was kept in the nicu for the first 12 hours of her life on a glucose-iv. that was the ONLY problem with her. actually, that wasn't even a problem. she was PERFECT.
and most times, she still is,
p.s. the recovery from the c-section wasn't as bad as i had thought it would be. it wasn't exactly FUN, but if i have another child, i plan on having another c-section. i promise.
xoxo
tell me i'm beautiful...
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