Caleb's Birth Story - Part 2

So the epidural just kicked in and also there was a shift change for the nurse. The new nurse came in and checked me again since it had been 4 hours since the last check. Most checks take less than 30 seconds, this one seemed to have taken more than a minute. She said I was at 6cm now, and completely effaced. Then she just kept checking...for the longest time but didn't tell me anything other than he's still pretty high. She said we will wait a few more hours to see if my body will progress on its own before starting a low dose of pitocin.

Around 8am (I think, could be wrong) my doctor came in to check up on me and also check my cervix. She is a very sweet doctor who really gets to know her patients. She asked me the story on how I went into labor and I only made it to the part where I said my water broke when she suddenly looked at the heart monitor screen and asked the nurse "is that baby?" The nurse asked me if we've ever had a level 2 ultrasound, I said yes nervously....I was so confused. My doctor turned to Matt and I and said his heart is showing signs of arrhythmia (where the heart beats with an abnormal rhythm). I said "but his heart is perfect, the level 2 ultrasound showed a perfect heart." They said they will keep an eye on it closely. I immediately turned into a ball of stress, even though they reassured me everything will be fine.

My doctor then checked my cervix. She also said I was still at 6cm. While she was checking me she looked up at the nurse and this was the conversation I heard:

Doctor: yeah, I see what you mean...I don't know what that is.
Nurse: I've never felt anything like it before. Maybe his head is tilted and not in the right position, so we might not be feeling the top of his head.

You can imagine the stress levels for Matt and I at that moment. Matt started pacing back and forth by the bed. My doctor then sat on the edge of the bed and described what she was feeling. She said they are feeling something on his head, and aren't sure what it could be because they've never felt this before on a baby. My doctor said it could be his hand in the way (my word! That big?!) or a mass growing, like a cyst.

I immediately lost it. I was crying the ugly cry and it was making Caleb's heart rate do crazy things. I couldn't help it though! I was just given two AWFUL reports on my baby, reports that I THOUGHT were ruled out at the 26 week Level 2 ultrasound! I was mad, confused, and most of all beyond scared out of my mind.

They were telling me I had to calm down, but I couldn't. They put an oxygen mask on me and kept telling me over and over it's ok, that they're probably wrong, but they just need to make sure it isn't anything to be concerned about. They called a specialist from children's medical to do a sonogram to see what position the baby was in and to see if they could figure out what they were feeling on his head. They also wanted to check on his heart.

At that moment the 18 week ultrasound flooded my memory and that awful 2 month wait to see if Caleb was healthy. I felt like I had just been lied to, honestly.

While we were waiting for the sonogram machine to come, my sister rushed in the room and immediately held my hand to comfort me. I didn't know that Matt had prepped her on what was going on, but she knew what just happened. I just cried while she held my hand and kept telling me "you're doing great, you're doing great"

About 30 minutes later my doctor was rolling in the sonogram machine and for the first time ever the screen was turned away from me and I wasn't able to see my baby on the screen. I just laid there with my eyes closed and prayed.

My doctor said she couldn't see anything out of the ordinary. That made me feel a little better. Shortly after the specialist came in to do the level 2 ultrasound again. Before doing the ultrasound he checked me to see if he could feel what they were feeling. He said he could feel it and actually said these words: "I only feel one ear." I put my hand over my eyes and cried. At that moment I wanted to punch that man for even saying such a thing to a woman who was in active labor and trying to stay calm for my baby!!

Matt immediately got his phone out and was looking through all the sonogram photos we have of Caleb from the 26 week ultrasound. He kept saying "he has both ears, we saw them in the last level 2 ultrasound."

I will never know why that man said that, but a doctor should never EVER say those things out loud in front of a woman in labor. I honestly blame him and the nurse for what came later.

In the end the specialist told us everything is fine and we have nothing to worry about. He even said his heart looks good, and that the baby was just under stress (wonder why?!) or maybe has the cord wrapped around his neck, which is normal but could be very bad if wrapped too many times.

Once everyone left (all the nurses and specialist) my doctor stayed back to calm me down and reassure me that everything is fine and what they are feeling on his head could just be his skin wrinkling up from the pressure of him entering the pelvic bone. She said it's very important that I stay calm and continue taking deep breaths since his heart rate was all over the place.

I took a little nap at this point, and then my mom and sister came back to the room to talk and take my mind off what happened. During that time I started feeling some pretty intense pain on my left side. The pain would start in my back then go to my hip then my lower belly. I realized I was feeling my contractions now and it was back labor. I called for my nurse to come in and help me tilt on my side to get the epidural to run to my left side. Bad mistake. That made Caleb's heart rate start going crazy again. They tilted me to the other side, same thing. So I had to just lay on my back, which hurt so bad! Thankfully, they gave me another dose of the epidural which helped so much! At this same time they decided to put an internal heart monitor on Caleb to get a better read.

Once comfortable again, I took another nap. I was woken suddenly by a rush of nurses (I think I counted 5) and they were tossing me side to side to get a good heart rate from Caleb. Matt went over to the monitor and noticed his heart rate was lower than mine, then it would spike at 180 then drop to the 70's. He took this picture of the screen.



Then all the sudden my doctor came into the room out of breath. She looked at the monitor and then sat on the edge of the bed and said in a reassuring tone that he is not tolerating the contractions and I was sitting at 7cm and not progressing. She said we needed to do a c-section and I began crying. I was so scared of the risks that come with having a c-section but I knew Caleb needed to come out ASAP. While she was telling me all of this, they were making Matt put on scrubs and they were already prepping the OR.



All of the sudden nurses were all around me and the anesthesiologist was telling me what all was going to happen. I was being wheeled out of the room to the OR and I looked to my left at the doors to the hallway that lead to the waiting area. I saw my family and Matt's family waving at me and blowing me kisses. Before I knew it I was in the brightest white room I've ever seen. It was also FREEZING cold!!

I remember Matt telling me over and over "in 10 minutes we are going to meet our son! This is the moment we've been waiting for!" that made me feel so calm. I was numb from the neck down and shaking uncontrollably. Matt put his phone right in front of my face and played a slideshow of our wedding pictures. That helped so much to take my mind off the fact that I was totally cut open behind that blue sheet.

The anesthesiologist then said I was about to feel a lot of pressure, just as if I was pushing my baby out but they were doing it for me. It felt as if the biggest elephant in the world was sitting on my chest and I couldn't breathe at all!

It only lasted a few seconds and then the blue sheet was lowered and I saw my baby boy for the first time! I screamed out "he's beautiful!" over and over again. I began crying as the flash back of the entire pregnancy and all the scares came flooding back.



He is perfect. There was nothing on his head, no heart problems, and he has both ears! Matt went over to Caleb to be with him and take pictures. I kept crying out to anyone "is he healthy? Is he healthy?" Matt came back to me and said "he's perfect and healthy!"







Caleb James was born at 4:18pm, weighed 7lbs 3oz, 18.5 inches long and perfect as can be! It turns out that the "thing" they were feeling on his head were his plates overlapping. His head was a little too big for my pelvis, and there was no way he was going to come out vaginally. I don't know whether or not his cord was wrapped around his neck causing the heart problems, but I'm still curious so I am going to ask my doctor at my follow-up appointment next week.

One funny story that happened after he was born, when the nurse was holding Caleb up to my head for the first time, Matt said "he has your brown eyes" and I looked up at Matt and said "I have blue eyes." The nurse holding Caleb lost it and said "what happens in the OR, stays in the OR!" Matt doesn't know why he said that, he knows my eye color, but it makes for a great story for sure! By the way, Caleb has dark blue eyes, but we'll see later if he keeps the blue or they change.

Caleb's birth story is nowhere near the way I had imagined it being, but in the end he is a healthy, beautiful baby boy and we have so much love for him that our hearts just might expode!