An Early Entrance - Part 1

I know not everyone wants to read birth stories, but as an expecting mom I did enjoy reading other mom's experiences and wanted to share mine.  I might need to break it into a couple of posts because our experience was not your typical birth story.

You know what they say about best laid plans! Turns out you can start to prepare and plan to the best of your ability for your first child, but that child may have plans of his own.

A little bit of background
My due date with baby boy was April 26/27 - the 26th based on my charting and the 27th was what the OB went by due to my last period. I have a family history of diabetes (both grandmothers had it and my dad has it as well), so my OB did a glucose test in the first trimester (via blood draw and the 1 hour drink that I passed) as well as in the third trimester (1 hour glucose which I failed, and then the 3 hour glucose which I passed).

I also have a family history of high blood pressure (both parents take meds for it) so my OB was keeping an eye on it. When we got back from our babymoon cruise, my OB was concerned with my blood pressure (BP), so he had me admitted to the hospital for monitoring.  That was back on January 13th, and I was very nervous that it would result in early bed rest.  Thankfully after a sonogram visit with the high risk OB in the hospital, and 7 hours of monitoring in Labor and Delivery, my OB decided it was OK for me to finish my 24 hour collection at home.  All blood results came back good as did the protein results from the 24 hour collection so my OB and I made a plan to start weekly visits in addition to me tracking my BP at home on a daily basis.

Everything seemed to be going well.  Every week I would go in to have my amniotic fluids checked as well as my BP taken and then talk with the OB on how I was feeling.  We started taking measurements of baby boy every 3 weeks and he was measuring on the larger side, but since I passed my glucose test (did not have gestational diabetes which could result in a larger baby) my OB attributed it to family history on Chris' side since he and his siblings were larger babies.  We also did a BPP test on 3/7, where our son scored an 8 out of 8 (I think this measured the amniotic fluid, heart rate, breathing and something else).

Ultrasound 32w5d, that large foot was the source of some strong kicks

Thursday 3/13 into early Friday 3/14
Thursday was another normal day for me, I worked from home, took a nice afternoon walk with the dog due to the great weather and made dinner in time for when Chris got off work.  I was working on a big project at work and I planned to go into the office on Friday to lead a meeting after my weekly OB appointment. For the past couple of days I had been feeling super heavy whenever I stand up from the sitting position. It would take a moment or so to feel normal again, which I mentioned to my mom.  She said it could be that baby boy was getting bigger or just maybe getting into position early.

That night Chris and I watched TV on the couch, I feel asleep and woke up around 11:30.  I did my usual trip to the bathroom and then took Heisenberg out for one last pee break before going to bed.  While out with Heisenberg, I felt like I was peeing my pants and I couldn't control it.  I thought it was really weird, but maybe just a pregnancy incontinence symptom. Little did I know that in actuality, it was my water breaking in the trickle method which occurred at 11:55.  With it trickling, it took me a moment to really put 2 and 2 together.  I really didn't think that it could be (or should be) happening this soon.  I yelled for Chris who came running from upstairs, told him my thoughts and made the call to the after hours line with my OB.  We also called the labor and delivery who told us it sounded like my water did indeed break and that they would be seeing us soon.  Chris threw things in a bag, grabbed the car seat and was ready to go.  I on the other hand was trying to hold off until the trickle effect stopped so I wouldn't have to go in wet clothes (with it only being 33w5d, there was a lot of little but important things that I had not yet picked up - among them nursing tanks or bras, yoga pants and pads).  We used an old towel on my seat just in case and hit the tollway for the hospital.  Even with everything that was going on, I still mentioned and pointed out the cop car on the side of the tollway...no clue why I was worried because I'm sure the cop would have understood our circumstance like they do in the movies ;).  Chris continued at his higher than posted speed and the cop never started after us.

We arrived at the hospital a little before 1 am, and knew that we had to enter through the emergency room.  After giving our information again (which I'm sure was in the system since we pre-registered and I registered again when I was admitted in January), we were told that someone would push me to L&D shortly. Well that turned out to be a joke!  After waiting 15 mins for someone (I probably could have walked there and back in that time) there was still no one to push us.  I asked the lady behind the desk what was taking so long, so she finally called L&D to come and get us (why not do this in the first place?).  By the time L&D arrived for pick up there were 3 people sitting behind the ER desk playing on their phones and talking about dreams of eating rolls of pennies.  Chris was just a bit peeved, as was L&D who did not understand why none of them could have done the drop off instead of making us wait 30 mins.  Thinking back on it now, I can only imagine what could have happened in that wasted time with baby boy and it makes me livid.

Thankfully once we made it to L&D they were ready and waiting.  Our nursing team for the night started tests which proved that my water did break, also took blood draws, hooked me up to monitors for the baby's heartbeat and my contractions (which were very mild and spaced out), and begun my IV with fluids and antibiotics. After talking with my OB, the nurse also gave me my first of 2 steroid shots to help with the development of baby's lungs.  Those things burn like no other!

A little Iron Man 3 on TV to keep us company

Since this is getting a little wordy, I'll stop here for now.  More coming soon!