So I'm back to blogging again. So much has happened that trying to update everything then do the present won't work for me. I'll blog the present with things that have already happened mixed in. First thing first Henry is here! My amazing strong miracle came on October 4, 2009 at 6:10am. His due date was Jan. 15th 2010. I blogged about Emily's birth so here's Henry's. And it's bit of a cliffhanger but I have two kids to chase after now so lots of things are done in pieces.
Saturday Oct 3, 2009 started off to be a great day. Cindy, Alica and Jenny had come down for the weekend. It was sunny and a little chilly out. Emily was playing with Alica and Jenny outside with the puppies. Cindy was teaching me how to make plum syrup, jelly and butter.
I started having a Braxton hicks. I didn’t think much of it, I was about as far along as I had been with Emily when I started having them. I had to stop to catch my breath a couple times, that’s about it. We had huge taco salads for dinner. Pudding for dessert.
Afterwards I had a couple cramps and went to the bathroom. What I thought was a blood clot the size of my pinky came out. I called Doug into the bathroom to look at it and he asked his mom what she thought. She wasn’t sure and we decided for me to call the doctor. They told us little bleeding during pregnancy is normal but if I wanted to come in to the E.R or I could wait till Monday. We decided to wait since I was feeling fine and they told me to rest and put my feet up. Doug and I watched a Wovlerine Originions X-Men. We went to bed right afterwards.
At about 2am I woke up feeling (and I still claim hearing) this pop. My water broke. I jumped up and went to the bathroom while waking up Doug. I never wished so badly in my life that I peed in bed. We woke up Cindy to let her know what was going on and that we were leaving for the hospital. We called labor and delivery to let them know we were coming in.
We got to the hospital at about 2:30am. The took us back to a room and the nurse confirmed that my water had broke. She went to call my OB Dr. Mercyer. Doug and I sat there not saying much of anything. I don’t know how long till Dr. Mercyer got there. Maybe 20-30 minutes. He came in checked me and told us I was at 7 cm and that Henry had grabbed his hand. He walked out of the room. We just stared at each other. He came back in and said he placed a call to St. Lukes in Denver Co. They were sending a neonatel life flight team to Riverton. Since Henry had his hands above his head he was breach and so they needed to do a c-section. He said they would try to delay doing the c-section until the team from Denver got there.
We called Doug’s mom to let her know what was going on and we called my dad. We also called our branch president. He came to the hospital and helped Doug give me a blessing.
They gave me a shot of magsium to help slow it down and a shot of streiods to help Henry’s lungs mature quickly. My hospital bed was also tilted downward with my feet in the air to take presure off my cervic.
From all this ment I got a catheter. I know I probley make jokes at the wrong times, but we needed to find something to laugh at. A nurse was in the room with Doug and I. I told her I needed to pee and she told me to relax that it would just happen. 3-5 minutes later she said “ look you peed. “I looked over at Doug and said “ Ha! You can pee standing up but I can pee upside down!” Doug claimed he could too and I told him maybe but he’d pee all over himself in the process.
Around 5am the life flight team got to Riverton airport and so they started to take me down to the O.R. Between the team of doctors and nurse for the c-section and the team from Denver there wasn’t room for Doug to come in. So Doug was saying bye to me, when the nurse said hold on. She needed to empty my catheter bag. I had already filled it up with a pint or so of fulid. Doug and Dr.Mercyer were laughing about how much I’d peed and I told them “ I’m pregnant. It’s what I do!” Doug kissed me bye and they took me in.
I’m terrified. Of needles. There’s a reason I did natural child birth with Emily. Not because I’m brave but because I’m that scared of needles. The first part of getting me prepped for my c-section was the epidural. The nurese helped me sit up on the operating table and has me curl up with my knees against my chest and my head tucked down. First was the numbing shot. Which you need a numbing shot for the numbing shot. Then the epidural. I didn’t feel the epidural go in. They laid me down on the table and started draping me and setting up equipment.
I hated the epidural. I tried wiggling my toes and I couldn’t. The anesthesiologist asked me if everything was ok and I told her I couldn’t tell if my toes were moving or not. She looked down and said they weren’t which was a good sign, that it ment the epi took. I could feel or move anything from my ribcage down. I hate that very helpless feeling.
The life flight team came in and introduced themselves to me.
Then it all started. A nurse was by my head and her job was to keep me calm. I couldn’t feel any pain but I could feel lots of pressure. I could tell when they ripped my stomach apart. Gross detail, they just make a slit along your stomach muscles then take hold of each side and rip it apart. The muscle heals together better which jagged edges then with a clean cut. I could feel all the pressure and pulling. The anesthesiologist kept asking me if I felt nauseous. I didn’t and then all of a sudden I did. I told her so and she grabbed one of those pink little buckets and told the doctors while I threw up. I don’t know how I could throw up or that I even could with the epi. I just turned my head to the side and did. I remember thinking what it looks like watching my stomach throw up and that everyone in the room could see me throwing up from the inside and the outside.
Then I heard a cat. Or I thought it was a cat. I heard this little mew. The nurse that was keeping me calm said” Did you hear him? He cried when they took him out.” Me “ I though I was hearing a cat” Nurse” That’s a good sign. He’s strong. I’ve never heard a baby this young cry before when they’ve come out. “ I didn’t see him. He was handed over to the life flight crew right away. The finished up my c-section which took about another 30 minutes. Then I was taken to recovery. Doug came and saw me there.
After I was back in my room, Doug quickly went home to get a change of clothes to go with the life flight crew and Henry to Denver. Once he got back the life flight crew brought Henry in his incubator into my room so I could see him before he left. He was so small. So tiny. Henry looked like a skeleton. I could see every bone. I could see through his skin. There’s no way to describe the terror I felt seeing him. Not knowing if I would ever see him alive again.
By this point Cindy was there. Our branch president was still there with us. Doug and our branch president gave Henry a name. It was importain to us that Henry was given his name before he left. I held Cindy’s hand while they did it and cried. Then I kissed Doug bye. He and the life flight crew took Henry and left for the airport to fly Henry down to Denver.
About 45 minutes later Doug walked back in the door. The plane couldn’t land again to pick them up. They had to stay at the hospital till they figured out how to get Henry to Denver.
