Skylar Bloom Haas
Tuesday, April 12, 2011 - 10:24pm - 5lbs 8.4oz - 19 1/4 inches
I will preface this by saying that part of this post is graphic! This is my labor & delivery story & is mostly for my own recollection. I wanted to write down all the details so I have it to read later.
At my Dr. appt this morning I was 5cm & 100% effaced! How the heck was I still walking around? My Dr said she thought the only reason I had not gone into labor yet was because Skylar’s head was not engaged in my pelvis. She recommended that I walk & do squats. I went home & did squats throughout the day. Apparently that worked because at about 3:30pm I started having contractions that were between 2-5 mins apart. They didn’t hurt at all though so I didn’t take them too seriously. At about 4:15pm I started wondering if I should go back to the Dr to have her check me again before they closed for the day. I called & the nurse recommended I just head to labor & delivery since I was already 5cm that morning & since I was having contractions that close together for 45 mins already. I really did not want to go to labor & delivery unless I was absolutely sure that it was the real deal.
I called Tyson though & just gave him a heads up that I was having contractions & they were pretty close together. He was working in Seguin which is his furthest store & it would take him at least an hour to get home in rush hour traffic. I told him I wasn’t sure if he should come home early yet. About 10-15 mins later I called him back & told him he might as well head home just to be on the safe side since the contractions were not stopping & they were still 2-5 mins apart. They still didn’t hurt though!
I still wasn’t so sure that it was the real deal but since the contractions were so close together I figured I might as well go to the hospital & walk around for awhile just to see if they would progress or stop. The hospital would be the best place to be, right?
I called Amy Beltran who is a friend from church since we had planned in advance that she would watch Blakeley while we were in the hospital. She came over & picked up Blakeley & I headed to the hospital. Tyson had left work & he was heading to the hospital & I just walked around for an hour or so until he got there. During that time, the contractions never stopped & they seemed to be like 1-3 mins apart & by the time he got there, I knew we were going to check in to labor & delivery. They still didn’t hurt but they were pretty strong & I felt a lot of pressure down there. I actually felt like her head was going to pop out! So we checked in & the nurse took us straight to a room…she didn’t even bother to monitor me in triage since I had already been 5cm that morning & I was having contractions that close together for a good 3-4 hours at that point. It was 6:40pm when we checked in.
The nurse’s name was Janis & she was really nice. She checked me & I was like 6-7cm! I was surprised because the contractions really didn’t hurt! You watch all the shows on TV & the women are doubling over in pain so it’s just hard to believe that I was dilated that much without any real pain.
With that said, I will preface the rest of this by saying that nothing about the delivery was easy. It was pretty stressful.
Soon after I was admitted, I started shaking uncontrollably & I absolutely HATED that sensation. The nurse said that’s really common once you get to 7cm because that’s when your body is transitioning to the next stage of labor. I remember shaking when I was in labor with Blakeley but not until after I had my epidural & they had said that was from the medication.
So of course I told the nurse that I wanted an epidural as soon as possible. It was probably about an hour before I got it. (In the meantime, the contractions still didn't hurt.) As I was getting the epidural, I felt really scared & I regretted that we forgot to have Tyson give me a Priesthood blessing before we checked in. I silently cried a little as the anesthesiologist put the big needle in my back & Tyson was across the room…I should have had him come over by me & hold my hand. Meanwhile, the uncontrollable shaking continued…
The epidural kicked in pretty quickly & about 10-15 mins later, the Dr. came in & broke my water. Dr. Thompson was the Dr. on call so he’s the one who delivered me…not my normal OBGYN, Dr. Womack. I had found out like a week before this that I had a lot more amniotic fluid than the average person. As soon as the Dr broke my water, TONS of fluid gushed out. After that, I could feel fluid gush out every time I had a contraction. It was just Tyson & I in the room for awhile & I started thinking that the nurse needed to come change the pads on the bed since I could still feel fluid gushing. I pressed the call button & told the lady at the front desk that my nurse needed to come change the padding on the bed. She said she would send the nurse in. At least 10 mins went by & still no nurse. All of a sudden, I heard fluid start dripping from my bed onto the floor. It sounded like a waterfall & with every contraction, more fluid…bigger waterfall! I pushed the call button again & told the lady at the front desk that fluid was going all over the floor. She told me in an annoyed voice that she had already told my nurse & that she would be there soon. At least 15 more minutes go by & still no nurse. Finally she came in (she had been helping a Dr deliver a baby) & I told her about all the fluid on the floor & I mentioned that I had tried to warn them! She had never seen anything like it. Fluid was ALL over the floor! It was a really gross feeling to feel all the fluid gush out with every contraction too & at certain points, there was A LOT each time! I mean, A LOT! I actually got a kick out of it though because I figured the waterfall would make for a good story later on.
At no point during my labor did my epidural ever really make me comfortable or relaxed. The entire time I felt anxious & continued to shake uncontrollably. I hated the way I felt & I kept telling Tyson that. I must have told him at least 20 times...I probably sounded like a broken record. I should have asked for more medicine in my epi but I didn’t. I could move my legs so I knew my epi wasn’t THAT strong although I couldn’t feel any pain. My epidural with Blakeley made me feel loopy, relaxed, & comfortable. I remember I couldn’t even move my legs so I figured that epi must have been a stronger dose.
I did feel like time passed quickly, however, & I remember thinking that same thing when I was in labor with Blakeley also. At some point during all of this, I had Tyson give me a blessing & he rubbed my head to try to make me feel more comfortable.
At about 10pm I was fully dilated & it was time to start pushing. All of a sudden a monitor started beeping and the nurse made me put on an oxygen mask. I didn’t really understand what was going on & I asked them why I needed to wear the mask. The nurses told me that the beeping on the monitor was occurring because the baby’s heart rate was decelerating. They had me lay on my side and the beeping stopped. I think it beeped a few different times though. The Dr came in & told me that I only had a limited amount of time to push before it would end up in a c-section because of the baby’s heart rate. After a couple pushes, he said he was going to have to use the vacuum to help the baby come out. This entire time I felt really stressed because I didn’t know how safe it was to use a vacuum or what it really meant. And the thought of a c-section was scary…especially when I was dilated so much for a few weeks & the baby was low…I didn’t even think a c-section would be a possibility. So the Dr used the vacuum and after some more pushing, Skylar was out. She was born at 10:24pm after about 20 mins of pushing.
As soon as she was out, they started cleaning her off on a nearby baby bed and immediately I could see that she was really skinny. Her legs were soooo thin! They weighed her & she only weighed 5 lbs 8 oz! I was shocked that she was so small since my stomach was really big & Blakeley had weighed 7lbs 4oz so she was almost 2lbs bigger. After they cleaned Skylar, they handed her to me & I held her for maybe a minute. They told us that they were not happy with her coloring because she was pale so they wanted to monitor her in the NICU.
It turns out that the umbilical cord had been wrapped around her body & they thought that may have been the cause of her heart rate decelerating. They thought that she could have been stunned from the delivery because of those issues and that could have been the cause of her pale coloring.
After the delivery, the nurse said I was bleeding more than normal. (Could this be any more stressful?) The Dr had left to deliver another baby and the nurse went to go get him since I was bleeding a lot. When he came back, he said I had some clotting in my uterus & he proceeded to push on my stomach & go to town on my uterus & belly. When he left, I told the nurse, “It felt like he had his hold fist up me…” She replied, “Oh honey…that's because he did.” Thank goodness for epidurals since it didn’t hurt although I felt a lot of pressure & knew it would have hurt like crazy if I didn’t have pain medication. And ewww…his entire hand was up me & he was pushing on my uterus. Gross. Turns out a small piece of the placenta was still in my uterus and that was causing the bleeding.
I remember wondering why Skylar was so small. I felt guilty because I assumed it had to have been from something I did or didn’t do. Did I not eat enough? I gained 33 lbs during the pregnancy which was 5 lbs more than what I had gained with Blakeley. I just felt so worried because she was so small. She looked so whithered and the skin on her legs just looked saggy. (Dr. Agrawal from the NICU later said that she looked like she had lost weight in utero).
Posting the following on a later date...
(This is regarding Wed, 4/13/2011)
Skylar was in the NICU until about 11am the next morning. I went there every 3 hrs and nursed her in the meantime. After they brought her back to us, we had her for about 8 hrs. During that time, I discovered that Skylar has two dimples! Just like Blakeley and me. And Tyson has one so we're just a family of dimples, I guess. It's really fun when you first discover qualities like this on your newborn for the first time! I was so excited!
Amy also brought Blakeley to visit & Blakeley met her little sister (although she had no idea who this baby was). We had visited a couple friends in the hospital in the previous week who had also had babies so Blakeley might have just thought this was some other baby she was visiting. Ty & Crystal also came to visit later that night.
At some point that night, nurses must have taken Skylar for tests or something & I guess Skylar was throwing up a lot. I didn’t really see it although I did see her doing a weird gasping thing a couple times & that was freaking me out. It was like she couldn’t breathe & the nurse would put her on her side & use the aspirator to suction out fluid that she was spitting up while patting her on the back. I remember thinking that if she did that at home, I was going to freak out. It was scary.
I had the nurses watch her in the nursery that night because I was worried that she would do that gasping thing during the night & I knew that we wouldn’t be able to stay awake & watch her. We had gotten barely any sleep the previous night (I got maybe an hour total). While she was in the nursery, she threw up a couple of times & it was enough that made them think there might be a problem. They did an xray & it showed her stomach was really big. It showed that nothing was passing from the stomach to small intestine & they thought there could be some kind of blockage. They took her back to the NICU for monitoring. They put a suction tube down her throat so that they could suction out the air & fluid that was in her stomach. That made her stomach shrink back down to normal size.
On Thursday, 4/14/2011, we got discharged from the hospital & we had to leave our sweet baby there. It was horrible. The whole situation was really unexpected. And thanks to fun hormones, ever since the delivery, I would just cry at the drop of a hat...sometimes because I just felt stressed & other times I knew it was just the hormones because I don't think I would have normally cried.
At 9:11am, my FB post read: "Skylar is going back to the NICU. X ray results show she has some kind of obstruction in her intestines which is causing her to spit up all her food & they also said it's probably the reason she's so small & why I had so much amniotic fluid. They are putting a tube in her stomach right now & she might end up needing surgery. Looks like we will be going home without our baby today. Please pray for us." (This post got 46 comments.)
As much as it sucked to leave Skylar there, I really wanted her to be healthy when we took her home so in a lot of ways, I was totally OK with everything.
At 8:10pm, I posted this on FB: "I'm so happy to be home with Blakeley but so sad that Skylar is still in the NICU. They still haven't determined the exact problem. There is no blockage in her intestine- the problem has something to do with her stomach not functioning properly. Not sure how long she will be there. Thanks for everyone's well wishes and kind words-we need them and greatly appreciate them."
And so the emotional roller coaster begins...
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