Since Kaylynn turned 6 months the other day I got a few more requests from some pregnant friends for the "Birth Story" because as I keep being told "you promised!" When I first came home I said that I would post her birth story "in a few days". Well, there is a few reasons for my delay. First, it is looooooong and complicated, and I had little time to sit down and type it up until rather recently. And two, quite honestly, I don't want to scare all of my friends from getting pregnant (although I did tell my close friends the story in person because it sounds less traumatic, I think?) and scare the already pregnant, because they are scared enough as it is. I know I was prior to Kaylynn. My labor, delivery and recovery were no fairytale and were a far cry from a "normal" or textbook story.
So this is my disclaimer, please don't read on if you are pregnant and scared already, or plan or getting pregnant anytime soon. Please remember every delivery is different! I know a ton of women who have been induced and had wonderful birthing experiences. This is not one of those stories...I copy and pasted this from a message I sent a friend awhile back. I've added some more details and edited. And yes, I shared the story with her because she had just had her 4th baby, and I knew she could handle it! I must add that she is one of those women who have those fabulous textbook deliveries with 2 hour labors and 1 push. You can send hate mail to Courtnie, if like me, you are NOT one of those women :)
I went in to be induced at 38 weeks, 5 days, on October 26th at 4 am. I didn't need to go in the night before for cervical ripening since I was already dilated to 1. I got all hooked up to the pitocin, monitors, and iv's. Pitocin was going by 7:00 am. Once they started the pitocin my blood pressure shot up to 160/100. It was super low the whole pregnancy, usually 115-110/65-70. So they thought it was labor induced Preeclampsia. The the doctor came in at 8 am to check on me and he broke my water. He decided to put me on Magnesium to try and regulate my BP and to keep me from having seizures. At that point because of the Mag I needed a catheter and a blood pressure cuff, as well as stockings that blow up every 10 minutes to keep you from getting blood clots. Off to a great start! Not really...I should have asked at this point for a C-Section. At 10:00 am they said the anesthesiologist was on the floor and if I wanted an epidural I should get it now so that when I really needed it I wouldn't have to wait. I had also been told that it would help me relax and maybe I would dilate faster. I didn't feel like I needed it, but got it anyway.
They started the epidural and because of the Mag, I was kinda loopy. A couple of minutes in, I heard from behind me, "Please get Dr. So and So". I looked up at my mom who was in the chair across from me and she had this scared look on her face. Basically, I knew something was up but not what. Turns out, he went too far and got spinal fluid back in the needle, so he could have paralyzed me. Dr. So and So came in (the anesthesiologists boss) and said in his thick accent "Oh, it's ok, you're just going to have a spinal block instead of an epidural so you really wont feel a thing"... Famous last words. In reality, I will say, I didn't feel a thing during this time. I was so uncomfortable from the contractions, dripping "water" on the nurses shoes, trying to keep all of the iv's and tubes untangled, and so preoccupied with staying still, I felt NOTHING. Not a needle or even the numbing. All of that worry about the "huuuuge needle" being painful was for nothing.
About 15 minutes later, I am feeling everything and its only getting worse. Since I was on pitocin, and those of you that have been induced know, labor progresses quickly. Not necessarily the dilating, but the labor gets hard, fast. The contractions were on top of each other and only getting stronger. I NEEDED the epidural. Or so I was thinking. To top it off, since the epidural, my right leg is tingly/numb. I told the nurse to call the anesthesiologist back and tell him something wasn't right. Where was my spinal block he spoke of? I knew I didn't have it! By the time he comes back it is 12:30ish. He says he is going to give me a "boost" which is more epidural meds mixed with morphine. I was so loopy I was like, "ok"...In my clear mind now I think, why would I let him do that? But ok, they know best, right? He does it and all the boost does is make the other leg the same tingly/numb. At this point, i'm really really in pain, feeling everything on top of the annoying leg sensations, and i'm pretty irritated. I call him back again after 20 minutes of feeling my legs in and out of numbness. The tingling was the last thing I needed on top of the contractions.
He comes back and does all of these tests. After I show him I can lift up my legs and still have feeling below the waist, he gets a clue that nothing has worked. He is really perplexed. So he calls in a woman anesthesiologist and she comes to evaluate me. She says she is going to pull everything (the epidural catheter) out and redo it. Again, loopy me says "ok". I really wish I had never let the nurse talk me into the epidural in the first place, although, everyone told me "Get the drugs". I wasn't planning on a drug-free birth but knowing what I know now and my true pain tolerance level, I would have skipped it. But, what was done was done, she rips it out and redoes it. SUCCESS! At 2 pm, I was feeling nothing...life was great. I was watching the monstrous contractions on the monitor and relaxing. The joy was short lived. I got 2 hours of rest. At 4 pm, the contractions were back, in full force and there was nothing that they could do. The epidural meds were no longer working. No boosts helped. And so labor continued...
From 4 pm until 2 am on the 27th was pretty uneventful. I kept dilating, very slowly, but I was dilating. My family went home to rest and told Kevin to call them when I finally reached 10. Finally at 2 am, Kevin and the nurses made the calls to my family and the Doctor, "She's at 10, its time to push!" I will say, even in hard labor, I still wasn't feeling the need to push at this point, but they told me to. My parents arrived, the doctor came and at 2:30 am I started pushing. I saw Kaylynn's heart rate go from normal to high when I started my first push. On the 2nd push the Doc said "please prepare me an operating room just in case", he told me to push and on my 3rd push, I heard the heart rate monitors long beep and I looked over just in time to see her heart rate plummet to the bottom of the screen.
At that point the Doctor said, "that's it, we're done"...He said, "Get her to the OR now!" and he left. The nurses started unplugging me from everything and they gave Kevin scrubs. It felt like everything was going really fast, but still to me not fast enough. In my loopy Mag state, and maybe it was mixed with shock, I knew the baby was in trouble and I was thinking "We need to go faster" but I just couldn't express my fears vocally. Weirdest feeling ever. The other nurse that had left with the Doctor ran into the room and said "HE SAID NOW! LETS GO!!!". The nurse with me snapped back "I'M GOING AS FAST AS I CAN!", and to me, she wasn't going fast enough, but again, I think I was just in shock. I knew it was serious and that freaked me out. Next thing I know, i'm being wheeled to the OR and they were running fast...Kev says this was at 3:30 am.
I got to the OR and my Doctor came over to my side, grabbed my hand and said, "Are you ok?". I said, "yeah, I guess". What a loopy answer! Then he told me, they were going to have to put me completely under for the C-section. They were not sure how much pain medication it would take to get me numb enough to not feel anything and they didn't have time to experiment. The same anesthesiologist from earlier was back on, and he put a mask over my face. He said to take 3 deep breaths. After what was like 10, he came back over and I was still awake. He adjusted the levels because he couldn't believe I was still awake. What a winner he was!
I don't remember anything after that....
Kevin wasn't allowed in the room since it was surgery, so he went to the waiting room with my parents and sister. She was born at 3:40 am. From what they say, a nurse came out and said there wont be any time for pictures and that the nurses will be running out with the baby. Kevin said as soon as she went back through the doors, they came running out, and running by with Kaylynn, there were so many nurses they could barely see her. He said they could see someone doing chest compressions, a little blue feet and head. They said her apgar score was a 2.
At about 4:30 am they took Kev back to see her. They had started an IV, and she got some color. Her Doctor (now her pediatrician) said the Mag makes babies slow to breathe coming out, but with all the other drugs in my system she was having a hard time. He said as soon as the IV started going and the antibiotics were in, she perked right up. Her new apgar score was a 9. My parents and sister saw her through the window.
I woke up at 5:30 am and was supposed to go to ICU for 2 days. Luckily, my doctor said I could just stay in labor and delivery and then I could go to post pardom after the 48 hrs off of the Mag. I went to my L&D room at 5:40 am and Kev was waiting for me. He said Kaylynn was fine, beautiful, he said she weighed 7 lbs 13 oz and was 20.5 inches long. I saw Kaylynn's pic on his phone. That's all I needed. He left to go home and sleep. I fell asleep in between all of the nurses coming in and out for tests in 15 minute intervals. I didn't see her in person until 1:30 pm on the 27th. Recovery in the hospital was awful. I was on a liquid diet, and barely walking, but the Doctor let me go home on the evening of the 30th. I went into the hospital on Monday at 4 am, had her on Tuesday at 3:40 am and was home at 6:30 pm on Friday.
Disclaimer #2: Quit reading at this point if you have a weak stomach!!!!By Monday morning it felt like someone was ripping my incision on the right side. I started to leak a foul smelling liquid from it around 10 am...So much so, I had to put a towel on it to absorb everything. I was in horrible pain and the pain meds were not helping at all. So, off to the Doctor I go. Yep, my luck! I had an infection. The doctor ripped open my incision, and that was the worst part of everything...worse than everything I had already experienced. He drained what ended up being puss and blood mixed. So gross!!! We were told we had to have home health care come and show Kevin how to pack "the wound" to keep it open so it could heal. Kevin spent the next 2 months packing it with gauze twice a day to keep it open and draining. It was very painful every time and it was a nightmare. By the third month it was just open and healing on its own, no packing needed. After 3 months, it was finally closed on its own. The doctor said infections are not common (25% nationally, but I was only his 3rd ever) but when they happen there is nothing you can do, or nothing done wrong to cause them. He said that usually they come from being in labor so long, and then pushing, which pushes bacteria up and into your incision. I had the classic "why women with C-sections get infections" story...
In the end, i'm glad I was put out because when she was born not breathing and blue, I probably would have freaked. I am very sad at times that I missed all of the right after feelings of your baby just coming into the world... seeing them all fresh and new. It was not how I had pictured it, no tears of joy, no doctor holding up a crying baby and hearing the loud crying. I'm sad that I missed the feeling of them pulling her out and them showing her to me. Our meeting was a lot less dramatic. The climax to the story never came. I was so medicated, it was hard to really "feel" what I felt like I should have been feeling when I did see her for the first time. It wasn't any less special, but I had to come to terms with having what I had always waited for, not come. I did not have a birth plan or go to Lamaze. I am by no means a naturalist or a hippy. I believe in hospitals, drugs and doing whatever you have to in order to get a baby...the ultimate goal. But what I went through, even pushed the limits for me.
The whole time in the hospital and a couple of weeks after, I could not care for her, or get up to get her when she cried. It was an awful feeling. I do know my recovery was much harder and longer because of the infection and most c-section mommies are "playing mommy" after a couple days. I'm sad I missed so many valuable first moments. I want that first week back. I thank God Kevin was home and did not have to go back to Iraq and that my mom stayed as long as she did. Without them, I could not have done it. My milk never came in, so we were formula feeding which helped me rest and allowed others to feed her. I gave up the breastfeeding idea quickly, since I had such trauma, I wasn't going to let myself get depressed about yet another thing, "being less than ideal" or "not as we would have hoped". Other than leaving with a healthy baby, which I am soooo thankful for, it was a horrible experience. My scar went from looking like a small pen line to a huge uneven line a good centimeter thick.
I love you Kaylynn Marie, and yes, you were worth it. You are a miracle in EVERY sense of the word.
And there it is...My birthing experience, in all of it's glory.
Aren't they funny and amazing at the same time?
I was just going through email, deleting and moving, and I found this picture that was just come across when the slide show was being prepared for Kevin's father Mike's service. We are often asked where Kaylynn gets her round face, since Kevin's and mine are so long. And now, we know. Kevin as an adult, is almost the spitting image of his father at his age, but as a baby, not as much. Kaylynn was practically the spitting image of Kevin at birth, now, not as much. She is very much a Walter, in fact, I am not quite sure if any of my genes really made it into her. If it weren't for her tiny nose and brown hair, I don't think people would believe she is mine. She is the female version of Mike Walter, and undeniably her father's daughter. Mike was claiming she has ears so proudly to everyone. If only he had seen this picture! I can see his beaming face now :) That face shape, hairline, ears, forehead (thank goodness), those eyebrows and eyes...She is a living piece of Mike Walter. Life goes on through our children and this picture is living proof. I just had to share where Kaylynn gets her adorable little face shape...her Papa!
It is so hard to believe that 6 months ago today, Kaylynn Marie came into our lives. It has been the fastest 6 months of our lives! The past 6 months has been full of more love and joy than we ever could have imagined possible. At this point last year, we were still just praying that our "little bean" would be ok and that the pregnancy would result in our miracle, a healthy beautiful baby. We never could have imagined after many hard times in the past year (A deployment, a sometimes very difficult pregnancy, a rocky delivery, and a miserable, and yes, I said MISERABLE recovery), that we could be this blessed. We have an amazingly perfect (maybe we are a little bias, but she is pretty darn amazing to us) darling daughter. She has definitely made this crazy ride we call life all worthwhile. We just can't wait to see what the future has in store for this little person we created. Happy half birthday Kaylynn Marie!
