My due date (3/13/15) came and went. I had some signs of labor and hoped I could avoid induction, but no such luck. Rob and Anna's kids had been hoping for a 3/14/15 birthday - a perfect pi baby - but alas. This was what the incubator looked like two days after the due date:
Induction was scheduled for Friday, 3/20. We checked into Palomar Hospital about 2:00 P.M. that day. Mamo had arrived on Tuesday morning, so she was on Ever duty at home. I told Jim as we were checking into the hospital, "Is it weird that I am more nervous this time than I was with Ever? You'd think I wouldn't be nervous since we've done this before." Premonition? Perhaps.
I tried to take some notes in the hospital about how labor went down. It seems kind of irrelevant and insignificant in light of what ultimately happened, but I suppose I'll include that detail since I went through the trouble. Note: I entitled the memo in my phone where I took the notes "Soren" because the baby was supposed to be a boy. Soren James. This birth surprised us in more ways than one.
Upon arrival I was dilated to a "tight 3," which was a little exciting and meant things should progress faster this time. They started me on pitocin about 4:30 P.M. and then increased it little by little. The hunger set in shortly after arrival. The liquid diet of broth, jello, juice, and icy/slushy stuff is better than nothing but doesn't quite cut it.
By 1:00 A.M. I was on a high level of pitocin. I still wasn't really in pain, though, and was dozing a bit. They broke my water to get things going because they couldn't up the pitocin much more. They were surprised to find I was already dilated to a six (or a "five-to-six" - they kept downgrading after the initial assessment). The nurse warned me that I should ask for an epidural sooner rather than later so I didn't miss the window. I felt fine at that point but was nervous that I'd wait too long, and then suddenly the pain would be excruciating and I couldn't get an epidural and would have to die. So I decided to ask for it. And then pretty much right after I asked for it, I was really glad I did. The pain is not fun. I really don't understand how people survive labor without drugs.
I got the epidural around 1:30 A.M. I didn't throw up this time, as I did with Ever, but I experienced some weird tingling up my back and elsewhere and couldn't get comfortable afterward. While I'm certainly glad I got the epidural (that's an understatement), I did think it was a little weird this time, and I got a little freaked out by it.
My contractions were really frequent - like every two minutes. The nurse stopped the pitocin thinking my body would take it from there, but then the contractions died off. By 3:15 A.M. I had made no further progress. They started the pitocin again, and I got a little sleep. The nurse came back about 5:00 A.M. and was finally able to get the contractions going again. I was dilated to a seven-to-eight, and the baby was starting to move down. Despite the epidural, I had a dull, low pain that wouldn't go away and was especially bad during contractions. I think it had something to do with the baby's head as it moved down. I did not enjoy it.
I think I started to push around 8:00 A.M. By then the Kaiser doctors on duty were Dr. Stucky and Dr. Moon, and Dr. Stucky was taking care of me. I had really liked all the doctors and nurses I'd dealt with so far, and Dr. Stucky was amazing. With Ever the nurses didn't seem to know what to do and had me pushing without doctor supervision. In fact, the doctor was nowhere to be found during most of my hours of pushing with Ever. This time, Dr. Stucky was there the whole time, encouraging me, coaching me, etc. - as it should be. I had a hard time getting the baby down past some corner or something. (I don't understand anatomy or labor and delivery.) At one point, Dr. Stucky said she may have to do a c-section or use the vacuum. The baby's heart rate was dropping every time I pushed (the cord was wrapped around her neck), so I only pushed with every other contraction to give the baby's heart rate time to recover. Dr. Stucky said as long as the heart rate came back up, I could keep pushing. Otherwise, she'd have to intervene. After about an hour and 15 minutes of pushing with every other contraction, Wren was born at 9:13 A.M. She was 7 lbs, 12 ounces. We were really excited that Ever got her sister. I almost feel as if Ever wished Wren into existence, like I always felt I did with Bags. I am also glad we had put some thought into a girl's name, even though when I tried to talk names with Jim, he said it was going to be a boy and if it wasn't we'd have a couple days in the hospital to figure it out.
I told Dr. Stucky about how my placenta didn't want to come out after Ever was born, and the doctor had to go in and rip it out, which was incredibly uncomfortable for me. Dr. Stucky wanted to give the placenta the whole 25 minutes to try to avoid that. (It can take up to 25 minutes or so to come out. After that, it's a problem.) At first she kind of tried to help it out a little bit. She stitched me up as much as she could without having the placenta out yet. (I had second-degree tearing. She said I tore basically along the same line that I tore last time.) As time went on, things got more and more hectic. At one point she said, "You're losing a lot of blood." She started asking for Dr. Moon. It turned into, "Get Dr. Moon in here now! She has smaller hands." Jim said they were ripping the placenta out in pieces. I started seeing spots and feeling as if I were going to pass out. I wasn't sure what would happen if I did. Would I die? I felt like I couldn't breathe. I was taking really shallow, quick breaths, and I kept saying, "I can't breathe. I can't breathe." I could hear lots of people around, but nobody seemed to be attending to me. By that point my eyes must have been closed because I wasn't seeing anything anymore. I heard the word "hysterectomy," thought of our last embryos (really just the one good one we have left), and thought, "Surrogate." Jim said he was pushing the blood pressure machine over and over and told them to give me fluids. He said I was on the verge of coding. It's weird because I never heard his voice. I wasn't aware of being moved, but I heard them tell me I was in the OR and ask me to put some medicine under my tongue. Jim said he called "I love you!" to me as they wheeled me down the hall to the OR, but I didn't hear him. I must have been in and out - and out for the transport part.
I was in surgery for about three hours. Jim called Mamo, but she was driving and couldn't talk. He called Bags. All she got was, "She's bleeding all over the place. They're taking her into surgery. We need prayers." He was crying and hung up quickly. His third call was to Jeremy Wilson. Jim thought he was going to lose me and was wondering how he would raise these two girls by himself. He wasn't sure if Ever should be there if I died, but he wanted to be with her. So Jeremy brought Mamo and Ever to the hospital. Karen and Carl Wilson came, too. Pam McEwan (Trisha Wilson's mom) told us later that she (Pam) and Mark were with Gavin, Shawna, and the kids on a beach in Florida when they got a call from Trisha about me. They all got quiet and said prayers. I have been very touched to hear about everyone who rushed to support Jim and who prayed for me.
I woke up in recovery around 3:00 P.M. Dr. Stucky explained things to me then and then came back the next morning to go over everything again in further detail. (She also mentioned that she had wanted to call in the night after the surgery to check on me but had to restrain herself. She was incredibly caring and conscientious.) At one point while she was trying to get the placenta out, my uterus turned inside out. Apparently the plan was to take me into surgery, turn my uterus right side out, and put it back in. The hemorrhaging, however, resulted in my having to get a transfusion of six units of blood and an emergency hysterectomy. Turns out I had a condition called placenta accreta, where the placenta embeds into the uterine wall. When an accreta is diagnosed in advance, they generally plan an early c-section and hysterectomy. In the hours, days, and weeks following my delivery and surgery, Dr. Stucky went over everything with various colleagues and other departments to confirm that they could not have diagnosed it in advance (she had perinatology review my ultrasounds, and they couldn't see it) and that nothing else could have been done. She told us in the hospital she appreciated that when she went out to tell Jim what was going on, he said, "Just do whatever you have to do to save her." She assured us (and herself) over and over that they did what they had to do to save my life. The biggest risk factor for accreta is prior c-sections (which cause uterine scarring), but sometimes it just happens. She guessed that maybe with Ever the cleavage plane had been missing (or some separation between the placenta and the ultrasound), which is why it was hard for the doctor who delivered me to extract the placenta, and then the ripping out of the placenta that time may have caused scarring that led to the accreta. We don't know.
I recently e-mailed my college roommate, Bethany, and told her about it because she's an OB. She said she was so glad I'm alive because "an unknown accreta and emergency hyst are complications where people don't always survive." She said she has only seen one accreta, and it was during her residency. She also said they usually are able to identify accreta before delivery. Apparently there are times when they try to take conservative measures and save the uterus (Bethany mentioned giving medicine to try to shrink the placenta that is still attached to the uterus), but I read that often when they try to take conservative measures, the women just have to come back a couple weeks later and have a hysterectomy. Dr. Stucky also said something to that effect, and I trust that Dr. Stucky handled everything properly.
Jim was very emotional about the whole thing for days after the delivery. He'd get teary and say, "I almost lost you." I still sometimes cry when I think or talk about it. I'm not sure why. Not because I lost my uterus but I guess mainly thinking about what it would have been like for Jim, in particular, seeing me hemorrhaging and wheeled off to surgery. He sent me a tender text in the hospital while he thought I was dying. I don't have it anymore, but it was something about how I couldn't leave him and he loved me, etc. He is the sweetest man, and I'm so grateful for the way he loves me. Thank goodness for modern medicine. If I had tried to do a home birth, I would be dead. It's crazy. I wish all the people who have home births would get a clue about how minimal the potential upside is compared to the risk.
Recovering from both a vaginal delivery and an emergency hysterectomy was less than ideal, especially when I had gone into the hospital with a cold and sinus infection. I felt good the afternoon immediately after the surgery. Dr. Stucky thought I was amazing. Then the next two days or so were really gnarly. The worst part was that I had to cough so badly and so often, but when I did cough the pain was excruciating and I worried my incision would blow open. Also I wet myself every time I coughed. (That was a major problem before delivery, too, when I had to lie there for hours wearing nothing but a gown.) That cough was really the icing on the cake. It was a dark time when they took the catheter out and made me start getting out of bed. All I wanted to do was lie there until I felt better, and that seemed like a totally reasonable course of action. Unfortunately they say moving around helps you heal.
Derrick and Melanie Karner came to the hospital Sunday evening and brought Mamo and Ever. I told Mamo to warn them that I was swollen to elephant-woman status. When they arrived, they tried to tell me I didn't look so bad. I didn't look at myself in the mirror until the following morning, and my face was so insanely swollen (eyelids, weird pockets under my eyes, etc.). I looked terrifying. And according to the nurses and Jim, it had been way worse on Saturday. I don't know how other people look good after giving birth when my face explodes. Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, is incomprehensible to me. At least this time the swelling in my face didn't set in immediately, so I could actually see Wren when she was handed to me.
By Monday I was feeling better, and we really wanted to come home. They wouldn't release me until I passed gas or had a bowel movement, though, and I didn't manage to do either that day. Jeremy and Trisha came to the hospital that night and brought me flowers and Coldstone ice cream. Then we got to go home Tuesday.
These are all the pictures I've got from the hospital:
Ever took this one while she was visiting. Visible in the background is her new white church shoe, purchased by Tutu on one of the shopping trips they went on while we were in the hospital:
I woke up in recovery around 3:00 P.M. Dr. Stucky explained things to me then and then came back the next morning to go over everything again in further detail. (She also mentioned that she had wanted to call in the night after the surgery to check on me but had to restrain herself. She was incredibly caring and conscientious.) At one point while she was trying to get the placenta out, my uterus turned inside out. Apparently the plan was to take me into surgery, turn my uterus right side out, and put it back in. The hemorrhaging, however, resulted in my having to get a transfusion of six units of blood and an emergency hysterectomy. Turns out I had a condition called placenta accreta, where the placenta embeds into the uterine wall. When an accreta is diagnosed in advance, they generally plan an early c-section and hysterectomy. In the hours, days, and weeks following my delivery and surgery, Dr. Stucky went over everything with various colleagues and other departments to confirm that they could not have diagnosed it in advance (she had perinatology review my ultrasounds, and they couldn't see it) and that nothing else could have been done. She told us in the hospital she appreciated that when she went out to tell Jim what was going on, he said, "Just do whatever you have to do to save her." She assured us (and herself) over and over that they did what they had to do to save my life. The biggest risk factor for accreta is prior c-sections (which cause uterine scarring), but sometimes it just happens. She guessed that maybe with Ever the cleavage plane had been missing (or some separation between the placenta and the ultrasound), which is why it was hard for the doctor who delivered me to extract the placenta, and then the ripping out of the placenta that time may have caused scarring that led to the accreta. We don't know.
I recently e-mailed my college roommate, Bethany, and told her about it because she's an OB. She said she was so glad I'm alive because "an unknown accreta and emergency hyst are complications where people don't always survive." She said she has only seen one accreta, and it was during her residency. She also said they usually are able to identify accreta before delivery. Apparently there are times when they try to take conservative measures and save the uterus (Bethany mentioned giving medicine to try to shrink the placenta that is still attached to the uterus), but I read that often when they try to take conservative measures, the women just have to come back a couple weeks later and have a hysterectomy. Dr. Stucky also said something to that effect, and I trust that Dr. Stucky handled everything properly.
Jim was very emotional about the whole thing for days after the delivery. He'd get teary and say, "I almost lost you." I still sometimes cry when I think or talk about it. I'm not sure why. Not because I lost my uterus but I guess mainly thinking about what it would have been like for Jim, in particular, seeing me hemorrhaging and wheeled off to surgery. He sent me a tender text in the hospital while he thought I was dying. I don't have it anymore, but it was something about how I couldn't leave him and he loved me, etc. He is the sweetest man, and I'm so grateful for the way he loves me. Thank goodness for modern medicine. If I had tried to do a home birth, I would be dead. It's crazy. I wish all the people who have home births would get a clue about how minimal the potential upside is compared to the risk.
Recovering from both a vaginal delivery and an emergency hysterectomy was less than ideal, especially when I had gone into the hospital with a cold and sinus infection. I felt good the afternoon immediately after the surgery. Dr. Stucky thought I was amazing. Then the next two days or so were really gnarly. The worst part was that I had to cough so badly and so often, but when I did cough the pain was excruciating and I worried my incision would blow open. Also I wet myself every time I coughed. (That was a major problem before delivery, too, when I had to lie there for hours wearing nothing but a gown.) That cough was really the icing on the cake. It was a dark time when they took the catheter out and made me start getting out of bed. All I wanted to do was lie there until I felt better, and that seemed like a totally reasonable course of action. Unfortunately they say moving around helps you heal.
Derrick and Melanie Karner came to the hospital Sunday evening and brought Mamo and Ever. I told Mamo to warn them that I was swollen to elephant-woman status. When they arrived, they tried to tell me I didn't look so bad. I didn't look at myself in the mirror until the following morning, and my face was so insanely swollen (eyelids, weird pockets under my eyes, etc.). I looked terrifying. And according to the nurses and Jim, it had been way worse on Saturday. I don't know how other people look good after giving birth when my face explodes. Kate Middleton, Duchess of Cambridge, is incomprehensible to me. At least this time the swelling in my face didn't set in immediately, so I could actually see Wren when she was handed to me.
By Monday I was feeling better, and we really wanted to come home. They wouldn't release me until I passed gas or had a bowel movement, though, and I didn't manage to do either that day. Jeremy and Trisha came to the hospital that night and brought me flowers and Coldstone ice cream. Then we got to go home Tuesday.
These are all the pictures I've got from the hospital:
I hate to include the ugliest picture in the history of the world, but Jim says I have to:
Ever took this one while she was visiting. Visible in the background is her new white church shoe, purchased by Tutu on one of the shopping trips they went on while we were in the hospital:
Mamo took amazing care of Ever while we were at the hospital. I never buy clothes for Ever and generally just make do with the clothes we've gotten as hand-me-downs, etc. Mamo took pity on the child and took her shopping, buying her tons of clothes, as well as books and other fun things. This was one of the fancy dresses they got:
They did lots of crafting and drawing while we were gone. They made a sheep involving cotton balls I wish I had photocized, along with these:
Ever loves spending time with Tutu, who is the best entertainer. Mamo said Ever started missing us at night but did well other than that. I'm grateful the timing worked out so Mamo was here when Wren arrived and was able to take care of Ever while we were in the hospital.
