Birth Story... Kinda Graphic
Sep. 19th, 2009 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricevermicelliFor those of you who are (understandably) only interested in the vital stats, our girl is doing okay. She is in the NICU. They had to give her a third dose of surfectant for her lungs today, and the result is that her respiration rate is much improved. However, frustratingly, we haven't been allowed to hold her yet. (There's a potential digression on kangaroo care and its efficacy for stress vs. its efficacy for physiological difficulty here, but let's just stick with "it's frustrating.") If you remember my due date, you will note that she was pretty early, so while things look alarming, we hear she's doing well considering.
We are still working on a name.
This is a much more intense hospital stay than our last. I am spending a lot of time in the NICU, and a lot of time either pumping or being a pincushion for blood tests. We aren't really up to visitors. The expectation is that I'll be let out on Tuesday, and the baby will stay in the NICU until sometime around her due date (November-ish).
I started bleeding at around 10:25 on Thursday night. I've had bleeds before - small ones, I say now, and then I start to encourage you not to get too comparative. In general, obstetricians advise patients to call if they experience heavy bleeding, and to consider bleeding a hemorrhage if they're getting through more than one or two pads to the hour. This was past heavy bleeding. It didn't so much fill a pad as gallop past it with total unconcern. By 10:30, I had wokendanceboy and told him to call 911. They ran the sirens for me on the way to the hospital, ran all the red lights, and then took me straight to L&D without stopping by the emergency room. danceboy had to wait at home for jesse_in_boston. He got to the hospital about twenty minutes after I did.
At L&D, they put me straight into a delivery room and started throwing doctors and nurses at me. They hooked up two IV lines, started saline solution, and did a very careful vaginal exam, a non-stress test and an ultrasound. They determined that the placenta was functional and the baby looked good, that the hemorrhage was slowing, and that I was 2-3 centimeters dilated. Based on the available information, the attending OB on the floor recommended that we schedule a c-section. Better to do one while the placenta and the baby were fine, he reasoned, than wait for a(nother) crisis involving one or the other. What he meant by "schedule" was "let's take you in as soon as the OR is free."
So our daughter was born at 1:02 a.m. on September 18. They let me see her for a bit and letdanceboy hold her for a while and then they took her to the NICU.
Once they got the spinal in, the c-section was sort of weirdly comfortable. In an alternate universe, I'd have preferred to wait, preferred for the previa to clear (interestingly, it appears that it was in the process of clearing, but that was still way too much blood), preferred to have a much less medical delivery. I wish we lived in that universe.
The height of my ambition right now is to hold my daughter, without a tube, a needle, or a shred of tape on either one of us. It'll be a few months before we get there.
We are still working on a name.
This is a much more intense hospital stay than our last. I am spending a lot of time in the NICU, and a lot of time either pumping or being a pincushion for blood tests. We aren't really up to visitors. The expectation is that I'll be let out on Tuesday, and the baby will stay in the NICU until sometime around her due date (November-ish).
I started bleeding at around 10:25 on Thursday night. I've had bleeds before - small ones, I say now, and then I start to encourage you not to get too comparative. In general, obstetricians advise patients to call if they experience heavy bleeding, and to consider bleeding a hemorrhage if they're getting through more than one or two pads to the hour. This was past heavy bleeding. It didn't so much fill a pad as gallop past it with total unconcern. By 10:30, I had woken
danceboy and told him to call 911. They ran the sirens for me on the way to the hospital, ran all the red lights, and then took me straight to L&D without stopping by the emergency room. danceboy had to wait at home for jesse_in_boston. He got to the hospital about twenty minutes after I did.At L&D, they put me straight into a delivery room and started throwing doctors and nurses at me. They hooked up two IV lines, started saline solution, and did a very careful vaginal exam, a non-stress test and an ultrasound. They determined that the placenta was functional and the baby looked good, that the hemorrhage was slowing, and that I was 2-3 centimeters dilated. Based on the available information, the attending OB on the floor recommended that we schedule a c-section. Better to do one while the placenta and the baby were fine, he reasoned, than wait for a(nother) crisis involving one or the other. What he meant by "schedule" was "let's take you in as soon as the OR is free."
So our daughter was born at 1:02 a.m. on September 18. They let me see her for a bit and let
danceboy hold her for a while and then they took her to the NICU.Once they got the spinal in, the c-section was sort of weirdly comfortable. In an alternate universe, I'd have preferred to wait, preferred for the previa to clear (interestingly, it appears that it was in the process of clearing, but that was still way too much blood), preferred to have a much less medical delivery. I wish we lived in that universe.
The height of my ambition right now is to hold my daughter, without a tube, a needle, or a shred of tape on either one of us. It'll be a few months before we get there.
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no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:39 pm (UTC)Yesterday I met my neighbor's twins. They are eight pounds something apiece, having only recently come home from the hospital, where they spent a month or so due to having started out at four pounds something apiece. Hey, I thought, I know someone else in almost exactly that same situation. Anyway, her twins look like perfectly normal sleepy little newborns now. It will be OK. Even if it takes obnoxiously long to get there.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 03:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-19 11:52 pm (UTC)I'm sorry that it was hard, but have every faith that you and she and your guys will be well sooner rather than later.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 12:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 12:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:55 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 01:47 am (UTC)That sounds like you got carjacked but ended up with a BMW afterwards. It is traumatic and yet incredibly lucky at the same time. I am so glad you and all are safe.
She's a big 'un for her age, and the fact that your boy could hold her for a bit before NICU means she's got good stability. We didn't even get to hold Isabel for a bit, thanks to her stubborn refusal to breathe and not be purple.
Compared to the good number of preemies I've known (and they seem to be the latest thing in the past few years), she sounds like she is doing AMAZING.
I have a book rec- http://www.amazon.com/What-When-Your-Baby-Premature/dp/0812931092/ref=pd_sim_b_5 (What to Do When Your Baby Is Premature: A Parent's Handbook for Coping with High-Risk Pregnancy and Caring for the Preterm Infant). This was very useful for us when we heard Petey was going to be premature (from 21 weeks onward) and when we had to decide when to deliver Isabel (a choice every week from week 33 onward).
Just a tip- Petey couldn't nurse, which was frustrating for everyone. His suck was bad enough that age-appropriate nipples didn't work either. If this happens to you, stage 2 or 3 Avent nipples will drip liquid in slow drops, so the baby doesn't have to suck, but doesn't choke either. This was useful. Also, weak muscles/suck can become speech and language delays later. Wish we'd known that, as we would have gotten intervention sooner (Petey's expressive language was at 3-6 month age range when he was 24 months). Ok, that's a long time down the road, but just stuff I wish I'd known.
Also, children hate Amby baby hammocks. Don't be fooled.
Also, preemie diapers are just ridiculous in cute and pathetic.
Also, the toenails totally grow in. Petey came without toenails or eyebrows, but covered in fur. It was charming. It got better.
*hugs*
Be well. Let me know if there is anything I can do.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-21 02:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 02:30 am (UTC)I attended the international LLL conference two years ago, and blogged about the sessions I attended, of which one was on Breastfeeding Protocols in Premature Infants; maybe some of what I learned will be useful to you. I also attended a talk by Nils Bergman, who's done a lot of research on kangaroo care; I have much less detailed notes on that talk, but what I have is here. I hope the situation becomes less frustrating soon.
Newt
no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 03:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 06:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 06:20 am (UTC)For now, you (and she) get virtual hugs and retain your high-on-the-list positions in my wifty workings.
no subject
Date: 2009-09-20 09:11 pm (UTC)Quite a story
Date: 2009-09-21 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-09-22 05:55 pm (UTC)Take it easy, recovering from blood loss takes time and rest and food.