Part 2, delivery

I updated a small group of friends on the day of the induction, so it's easiest just to copy those updates:

I took the first dose of misoprostol a little before 3 this morning. 4 pills, under the tongue. Held them there for 45 minutes before finally swallowing. Cramping started within that time. So did really bad shivering/cold flashes. At 4, I put on a hoodie and sweat pants and took a vicodin. I have 20 of them, so I can be pretty liberal with them. Finally got back to sleep. Woke up at 5:40ish with some rectal pressure- wondered if it was going to be this quick and I was already done. Sat on toilet and did nothing, but got nauseated and had to yell for Rick to bring me a bag to throw up in. And I started sweating like crazy and got really hot. Peeled off the sweatshirt and dry heaved in the bag- puked a tiny bit, but not bad. Now I'm up, listening to Mariela's alarm just go off. I need to eat something else and my throat is a little sore, but I don't feel like going to the kitchen. No idea at all if I'm progressing, but I assume so. Lucky me already experiencing the two most common side effects: shivering and nausea.

October 15 at 6:06am 

I fell asleep right after writing that. Woke up at 7 to take 2 more tabs of miso plus another Vicodin. Went right back to sleep and got up just now (8:15) to swallow what was left of the pills. No shivering this time. Lots of cramping, but no pain. I really do need to eat something, so I will wake up Rick in a minute. My mom bought two big grocery bags of fruit and snacks- momspeak for love. I'm going to have a muffin and a glass of milk. Maybe I'll stop being a princess and go get it myself.

October 15 at 8:21am

Ate my muffin. Admitting to myself that there will be pain, as I'm feeling some now, through the Vicodin. I thought I'd have some bleeding or discharge by now, but no. Time to watch my millionth Law and Order episode.

October 15 at 8:53am

Just puked up the muffin. Yay. That came on fast, as I was trying to figure out what to do about pain med dosing. Pain has gotten much worse. Prescription says 1-2 Vicodin every 6 hours. I've taken 1 every 3 hours. I'm afraid if I take 2 this next time, it won't last 6 hours. If I take 1, it may not touch the pain. Quandary.

October 15 at 9:56am 

I took 2. Rick said the ones I have are tiny.

October 15 at 10:02am

Threw up again. Pain is more labor like, despite meds. Another dose of miso due and I'm dreading it. Getting in shower. Eating pears so I have something in my stomach to throw up next time.

October 15 at 11:07am 

Peed and had a little bloody mucous. Progress. In the shower with my waterproof phone.

October 15 at 11:15am

Hopefully I don't make it another 4 hours to next dose.

October 15 at 11:16am 

Something is in the birth canal, so I am pushing now and then. Despite not feeling pushy. Let's get this done.

October 15 at 11:46am 

And the shower helps a lot.

October 15 at 11:46am 

Got too hard. Transferred to hospital.

October 15 at 3:30pm

 

 

So, to fill in some blanks...  We called Mary at about 11, when I said the pain was feeling more labor-like and she got there soon afterward.  I never expected a full labor-- with half a pregnancy and a tiny baby, I just expected it to be easier.  I was wrong.  That big gap of time between the last two updates covers an excruciating stretch of real, full, not diminished labor.  I was in the bathroom the whole time, in and out of the shower.  By 2, I think I had gotten back in the shower and was just determined to push and deliver and be done with it.  It hurt a lot.  There was no break between contractions.  I pushed and pushed, to no avail.  My body just wasn't ready yet.

 

My breaking point came because I had checked myself a couple of times and I was just staying at about 4 cm.  No progress that I could tell, despite intense and unrelenting pain.  The vicodin didn't touch it.  I told (cried to) Rick that I didn't want to do it anymore and that I wanted to go to the hospital so they could make it (labor/pain) stop.  Mary called ahead and we went at about 3 (12 hours after my first dose of Cytotec).

 

I live about 6 blocks from the hospital (St. David's), so it was an "easy" transfer.  Easy in quotes because I was in a lot of pain and absolutely miserable.  It seemed like it took forever to get checked in, even though it must have been pretty fast.  I signed a million consents, which I can't imagine have any legal significance, since I was out of my mind in pain.  Finally, the nurse went to go get my IV meds, which also felt like it took forever.  I threw up again (I think I missed chronicalling one of the puke events at home too), so I was dehydrated and she had some difficulty starting the IV.

 

But once it did get started, oh blessed and immediate relief.  They used Stadol, which completely knocked out both the pain and me.  I fell asleep and woke up about 30-45 minutes later (no real concept of time for any of this) to pee.  When I got up, the baby was already in the birth canal, ready to come out.  It was more a matter of holding it in until I got back to the bed rather than pushing.  On the bed, I laid on my side and he was born, in the sac, together with the placenta.  All at once.  At 4:15 on Monday, October 15.

 

I didn't see much then.  They took him to the baby station.  Mary and Rick looked at him, and couldn't see much since the sac was strong and intact.  They could move it and see his hand press up against the side.

 

In the meantime, they got some pads under me.  Dr. Polon came in-- I can't remember if that was the first time, or if he had been there earlier when I was in labor.  He did an ultrasound and found some lingering POC (products of conception) in my uterus-- not unusual when the baby had passed a couple of weeks before delivery.  He said I had about a 60% chance of having complications if I didn't have a D&C, but that the decision to get one was up to me.  He said I would have twilight sedation and, when I pressed him on it, said I could go home that night.  So, with Mary and Rick both weighing in in-favor, I decided to do it.

 

My decision was complicated when the anesthesiologist came in.  She said that since I was past 12 weeks gestation, I was considered "full stomach," which increased the aspiration risk and made twilight sedation not an option.  My choices were general anesthesia or a spinal.  I really didn't want to do either.  General freaks me out, as does having my spinal column punctured.  Bleh.  They even did a second ultrasound to see if the bleeding I had after delivery had addressed the concern.  It hadn't.  With assurances that I would still be able to check out that night, once my legs/pelvis were fully functional, I chose the spinal.

 

The procedure itself was easy.  They wheeled me to the OR and transferred me to the tiny operating table.  They gave me lidocain before giving me the spinal.  And soon after, they gave me IV sedation, so I slept through the whole thing.  Afterward, when they rolled me back to my room, I got the shakes, but I slept through most of it.  Dr. Polon said they removed quite a bit of material during the D&C, so it was good that I had it done. 

 

I can't remember when I looked at the baby, but it must have been before the D&C, because I walked over there.  He was small-- just 6.2 ounces.  He had passed some time before, and there was some evidence of that.  There was some kind of issue with his sacrum-- right between his bottom and his back.  It looked constricted, as if a piece of thread had wrapped around there.  Mary theorized that it may have been amniotic band syndrome.  Poor baby.  We consented to an autopsy.  Maybe we will get some answers.

 

After surgery, my legs woke up fairly quickly.  My pelvis took much longer.  In the meantime, Rick went out and picked up dinner from Jimmy John's, which was so good-- I was starving. To be discharged, we had to wait until my bladder fully voided, which took forever.  I think we finally got home at around 1:00am.  I immediately started a load of laundry and showered (hospitals are gross), and was in my own bed by 1:30.

 

I slept fine and felt good the next day.  No pain.  No physical issues at all.  And still no big emotional issues, either.  Which I really couldn't understand.  I lost a baby-- a baby I wanted to carry and protect-- a baby for a family I loved and cared about deeply-- but I wasn't crying.  I didn't feel sad.  I just felt numb.

 

Until that night.  Rick picked up a frame and I put together the baby's footprints with a quote and his birthdate.  I started crying while I was making it and just never stopped.  Big, heaving sobs for hours that night and then for hours the next day (Wednesday).  Wednesday morning, my eyes were practically swollen shut from having cried myself to sleep the night before.

 

Looking back now, I think it had to be that way.  There was no way I could have handled the emotional pain and the physical pain of delivery all at once.  No way.  So, without knowing I was doing it, I packaged all the emotional pain up and tabled it.  Stored it away.  And once the physical experience was completely over and done with, once the baby was gone and my body was healing, the floodgates opened and all of the emotions from the past 4-5 days came tumbling out all at once.

 

Tuesday night and Wednesday morning were the worst of it.  M called late Wednesday morning and we talked for 45 minutes, which was really helpful.  We all have different sides of this loss, so our experiences are different but still shared.  I am so appreciative for their support throughout all of this, when I know they are hurting as much or more.

 

So since then, I'm grieving as you would expect.  Some moments are better than others.  I did not look forward to coming back to work today-- and to tell the truth, it's as bad as I expected-- but I made it here for a little while anyway. 

 

I finally called the hospital this morning to ask about when we would have autopsy results, and they said it would be 30 days and the results would be released to my doctor (Dr. Polon, I guess?).  We are spending Thanksgiving with M and N (and bringing our parents), so maybe we will have some answers by then.  Though there's a large possibility that no answers are forthcoming and the loss will be unexplained.  Which would suck.

 

It's hard for me, The Planner, to leave it at that.  I want to know exactly what comes next.  If it were a novel, I would read feverishly to the end, so I could find out what form "happily ever after" took for all of us.  I do trust that the story works out in the end-- I have to believe this is just one sad chapter.  But for now, we stay in limbo.  We grieve.  We heal.  And we move on.