Sunday, March 02, 2008
It’s a girl and what a ride…
What a ride! The birth of our 3rd (and final) child was an amazing experience in more ways than one. I thought I would try, for posterity, to recollect as much as possible, as we went in the hospital on Tuesday, February 26th, gave birth on the 27th, and didn’t leave the hospital til the 29th. I think I can say that the easiest part for my wife was actually giving birth. The issues that developed after, however, had me frightened, perhaps more than ever, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the fine doctors and caretakers at Paoli hospital for their pro-active approach to healthcare and getting my wife the attention she needed with no hesitation whatsoever. When things go perfectly, you tend to forget how skilled these people are. When things don’t go perfectly, and a doctor is asked to bring out more of his or her skillset than you ever want to see, well, that’s when you realize that most of us can’t be doctors.
Tuesday Evening
Kathi and I went to Paoli hospital on Tuesday evening for an 8:00 PM appointment. She was about 1/2 cm dilated and that’s not enough to deliver a baby. As she was almost a week overdue, the doctors decided that we were going to make this baby come out whether she was ready or not. I was introduced to a medicine called “Cervidil,” and apparently this is the way to get a not-ready-for-prime-time mother to dilate so she can be brought into a stage of active labor. Our doctor did some voodoo that I mostly couldn’t watch and walked away saying “we were all set.” Then, I unfolded the amazingly uncomfortable hospital chair into its makeshift bed form and cracked open a bottle of Yellow Tail Chardonnay, which would serve as my sleep aid, while my wife was utilizing more conventional forms of sleep aids per her doctor’s orders (Ambien was the order of the evening). I took tons of snapshots of my wife and the general condition of the room, and we were, for the most part, ready to tuck in for the night without much fanfare. I’m not sure what worked faster in the end, the Ambien or the Chardonnay, but we both ended up asleep, which was the plan in each of our respective-yet-highly-different-cases.
Wednesday Morning
Through the night we had a lot of visits from nurses checking vitals, etc, and I slept horribly, but I woke up anxious to see how the Cervidil worked. It took a while for a Dr. Sheila Kambin to bounce through the door, but when she did, we were happy to hear that Kath was 3 centimeters, and the prediction was we should be able to have active labor by 2:00 on Wednesday afternoon with the help of a wonder drug called Pitocin. I was familiar with this drug from our last 2 babies, and recalled that it threw my wife into labor fairly quickly. The nurse came in and said, “Ok, looks like you’re 3 centimeters. No problem. We’ll just relax, crank up the ‘pit’ and you’ll be ready to give birth.” That was at about 9:30 AM. My father-in-law showed up with his wife shortly after and I gave the two of them a run down of the events thus far. My FIL brought me some “Zeps” (a Norristown hoagie) from a great Italian deli and by the time we went to eat them, Kathi was 6 centimeters along. The Pitocin was working as advertised. We all hung out and just talked about the great event that was about to take place…
Fast Forward about 30 minutes
Around 11:30, my FIL and I went to a room outside the Maternity Ward to eat our “zeps.” About 5 minutes later, we got a call on the cell phone..."Kathi is ready to deliver. Get back here right now!” I charged back through the labyrinth of hallways and pushed open the door. Kathi had gone from 6 cm to 10 cm in less than an hour, and she looked at me and it was clear that now was the time. Dr. Kambin came in and said we were ready, and that’s when Kathi asked her father and stepmother if they wanted to remain in the room for the birth. While she was asking, the nurses were breaking down the bed for a delivery, lights were coming out of hidden areas in the ceiling, and I’ll never forget the look on my FIL’s face as the room went from what looked like a hotel room to a birthing room in less than 60 seconds…
Anything in the name of Education...
Our nurse had been shadowed by a Villanova University nursing student all morning, and this would be the first birth the student nurse got to witness. Somehow, a bunch of other student nurses were in the nurse’s station with little to do, and they, too, got wind of what was happening in Room 247. As we were about to start pushing, they all crashed through the door (about 7 of them) and asked if they could watch. The scene was quite funny, as I was holding my wife’s left leg and the nurse was holding her right with the doctor in a catcher’s stance tacked onto the end. By this time, we already had at least 5 people in the room as part of the delivery team, so my wife graciously agreed to let the students see their first birth and we went from 5 people to around 12 people in the blink of an eye. It was cool to watch the students, all females in their 20’s, witness a birth. You could tell that they were marveling not only at the site of birth from a clinical perspective, but they were watching it as females who would no-doubt go through something similar in the not-too-distant future.
12 Pushes and you’re done.
Kathi rode the wave of 3 contractions, pushed about 4 times at 100% for each contraction, and our daughter came into the world on approximately the 12th push. Dr. Kambin knew exactly when to tell Kathi to push and when to hold back, and when our daughter’s head appeared, Dr. Kambin grabbed it with both hands and started to gently help our baby through. I’m always amazed at how something that big fits through something that small, but when her shoulders cleared the area, she came through and was placed right on top of Kathi. I’m 3 for 3 on the cord-cutting, although for the record I asked my FIL to do the honors. He passed…
Our daughter weighed in at 8 lbs, 7 oz, and was 21 inches long. She came at 11:41 AM, several hours before we anticipated.
And then this.
A few hours later, I could see that Kathi’s nurse wasn’t liking the amount of bleeding that was going on, and I could see some concern in her face. When the doctor was called and came through the door, I knew something was not exactly as it should be. Kathi had delivered so quickly that her uterus was apparently not “bouncing back” to it’s normal state, and the doctor began to do everything she could to find the source of the bleeding right there in the room. I was sitting in a chair feeding my daughter, and Kathi was mostly writhing in pain from what was basically a highly invasive exam to figure out where the bleeding was coming from. After the Dr. did some cleaning out of the area, she said she’d be back in to check on Kathi’s progress. 20 minutes later, Kath was being unhooked and the bed was being rolled to the OR.
A short stopover, but an important one
Kathi had a tear in her cervix from the rapid delivery. Dr. Kambin needed to get Kathi into a anesthetic situation so she could take a proper look. Since Kathi had eaten just after birth, they had to opt for another local spine anesthetic instead of putting her under. I was so upset that she had to go through a minor surgery completely awake. I sat in the room alone, as I asked the nurses to take my daughter back into the nursery in case I was needed. The 1 hour procedure seemed to take days, but I called my FIL on the phone and told him what was happening, as well as Kathi’s mom. My FIL decided he was coming back to the hospital, and I told him to bring a few bottles of wine! He showed up just as Kathi was coming back to the room, and she was surprisingly alert given everything that just happened. One of the highlights of the entire stay was Kathi, her father, and myself chatting until around midnight, while Paul and I tugged on our wine to keep the edge off. I was really scared that night, and Dr. Kambin knew exactly what to do and when to do it. Kathi’s nurse as well was the one who initially noticed the anomaly, and I’m so thankful we had this particular set of folks on call that evening. Things could have really gone differently depending on who was there. I really believe that. From then on, the concern was that Kath lost a lot of blood, and we were fearful that she might need a transfusion. That step never came, and we were thankful for that.
A day of monitoring and rest
Kathi had a good day on Thursday, but they wanted to keep her until Friday to monitor blood counts. Since they had stopped the bleeding, it was anticipated that the blood counts should stabilize, but they wanted to be sure. Kath was weak as expected, but she had our baby for large parts of the day and was doing very well. She seemed happy and the doctor was confident we were going home on Friday…
Friday
I sent Kath a text message on Friday morning, and didn’t hear right back. Then I sent another asking if she was ok and didn’t hear right back. Now, a nervous wreck, I called her cell and she answered. “I have an infection from the surgery,” she said. I was thinking, “Man, I just want her to have a win, here.” They gave her an IV drip of antibiotics and some painkillers, and the doctor said he wanted to monitor the effect of the antibiotic on her condition, which resembled flu-like symptoms. It was expected that they might keep her yet-another day, but by mid-afternoon, Kathi was completely transformed, and it was clear that the antibiotic was doing what it was supposed to do. Her blood counts were stable and although she was weak, the doctor said he could administer the antibiotic by prescription drug instead of keeping her in the hospital any longer. By 2:00 on Friday, we were packing up to go home.
On the mend
Kathi is feeling pretty good, and it’s clear that she’s getting her strength back. Our daughter, by the way, was perfect from the start, so forgive me if she hasn’t been the focus of this post. I’m thankful, however, to Dr. Kambin and Maurina for their kindness, skill, and compassion. They acted in the right way at the right time, and, as a result, we’re back home with our daughter safe and sound.
Welcome to the world, Aviana!
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I am, for the sake of posterity, reporting that on this day, 25. January, 2008, my wife officially threw away my daughter’s “binkie.” This is a milestone, as my daughter has been chomping on that thing for 3 years. We “misplaced” it 3 weeks ago, and have been sweating it out ever since. Given the fact that we’re expecting our third child very soon, it won’t be long until she spots her old standby, but this time being chomped on by her younger sibling.
My son dumped the binkie at 10 months, but for my daughter, it was such a staple. It was like George Burns with a cigar in his mouth. It became a hallmark of her existence, and we kept staring at the trash over the last 3 weeks thinking, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t ditch it just yet...”. Today we decided that after 3 weeks off the sauce, there’s no turning back. She’s going to have to find a new hobby, like torturing her older brother, which she seems to have chosen as her alternate. Congratulations, Bella! Now onto the Barbie dolls, I guess.
