Wednesday, July 11, 2007

2am: I wake up with a fever and chills, and throw up in the bathroom. I figure I have some sort of flu or intestinal bug.

4am: After suffering with stomach cramps (but not contractions) for two hours, I finally wake up Sir Monkeypants for help. He very kindly helps me throw up some more. I feel a bit better so we decide to get some sleep and see how I’m feeling in the morning.

6am: My fever is down a bit, although I’m still having stomach cramps. Sir Monkeypants wants me to go in to see a doctor, but I’m still convinced it’s just the flu, so I send him off to work.

10am: I realise that I haven’t felt the baby move since I threw up at 4. So, I do what always works: have a chocolate Instant Breakfast and sit in our rocking chair. But the baby still isn’t moving, at all, which is really unlike her, plus my stomach is still cramping and painful.

10:30am: I call the hospital and calmly explain the situation, and ask if I can come in to have the baby checked. They say sure. Then I call Sir Monkeypants and I’m totally, completely hysterical on the phone — I still cannot believe he understood a word I was saying. He calls Rheostatics Fan to come over and then rushes home himself.

11am: Rheostatics Fan arrives to take care of the Captain and Gal Smiley. Someday I predict she will write a book about this day entitled, “The Longest Nine Hours Of My Life.” Meanwhile, Sir Monkeypants and I rush off to the hospital.

11:30am: I’m hooked up to a monitor that shows that the baby’s heartbeat is fine. With rest and some chocolate milk, I even feel a couple of small movements, so everything is looking good, according to the nurses. I’m also having the occasional contraction, about once every half hour.

2:30pm: We finally get a chance to see the OB on call, who turns out to be my very own OB, Dr. Anderson. She is surprisingly worried about the baby. She doesn’t like the fact that my ongoing stomach cramps are right in the location of my placenta. Also, she isn’t impressed that my post-dates checkup ultrasound won’t be for another whole week. She asks us to stay and have an ultrasound in the hospital today, just to make sure.

4pm: Sir Monkeypants wheels me down to the ultrasound clinic. While we are waiting, we notice that my contractions have stepped it up, and are now coming every five minutes or so. Inside the ultrasound room, the news isn’t too good. The baby’s heart rate and breathing rate are elevated for no apparent reason, and she isn’t moving at all — not even wiggling her fingers and toes in response to “stimulus” (i.e. poking her with the ultrasound wand thingy).

5pm: Back at the birth unit and back on the monitor, it’s clear that I’m in labour, but also that the baby’s heart rate has zoomed to a dangerously high level. Dr. Anderson is really worried and you can tell she’s already thinking C-section. But, because Gal Smiley’s labour was really fast (4 hours start to finish), she decides to break my water and give me an hour to get dilated, before making the call.

5:30pm: Water broken — it’s full of meconium, which is baby poop, and although it often happens that an overdue baby will poop before birth, it’s not the greatest thing to be swimming around in, and another sign that the baby needs to come out NOW.

6:30pm: After an hour of fairly regular contractions, I’m still only 2cm dilated, so it’s time. Dr. Anderson says the baby’s heart rate is still too high, but also, dropping off dangerously with each contraction and not recovering, so we have to operate. I must say, having a C-section is something I really did not expect, or want to see happen, but at this point, having barely felt the baby move all day, I just want her out and healthy.

7pm: To the OR! Having a spinal is AWESOME. It totally took care of my annoying contractions, which by now, were coming about every 2 minutes apart. Sometimes I wish I had asked them to check me again at this point, because it seemed like I was accelerating quickly and maybe could have had a natural delivery within the hour. But as Dr. Anderson pointed out several times, you never know, and it was much better to be safe than sorry.

7:30pm: The Wee One is born! She immediately complains about being removed from The Warm Place, and that there is no latte waiting for her immediately, and that this place is very poorly decorated, and that they are using tap water instead of Evian to bathe her. Really, the nerve of some people! Sir Monkeypants takes her off to the nursery.

Meanwhile…having a C-section is not my favourite thing in the world. Turns out they removed two kilograms — that’s more than four pounds — of meconium. My reaction goes like this:

1. Gross!
2. GROSS.
3. No wonder the kid was in distress, she was swimming in poo!
4. No wonder some people thought I was having twins…I was, and one of them was made of poo!
5. Groooooooooooosss.

8:15pm: I’m moved to recovery and I get to hold Wee One for the first time. She gets her latte, and she’s like, “Finally! Five more minutes and everybody would have been FUCKING FIRED.” She likes her latte so I’m still on the payroll.

And that’s it! Wee One is perfectly healthy and doing great, eating well and sleeping not too bad. I’m recovering not too badly either — it’s painful but at least I can walk around, get to the bathroom by myself, and care for Wee One mostly by myself, while does everything else around here. Thanks, Daddy!