I've been meaning to post my birth story for a while now, but having a new baby leaves no time for this kind of thing! Now that we have things a little under control, here it is...
37 Weeks – 01/26/08 – My Birth Story –This would be our last prenatal appointment with Dr. Fan. It was an exciting visit since Grandma Nancy arrived from Bolivia last night and she came with us to our appointment. It was another uneventful visit. Everything was OK. I had gained a couple of pounds, 168 lbs – total weight gain 24lbs. The baby’s heart rate was at 140bpm. The doctor said that the baby was not ready to come out. He recommended that I start walking. This would help the baby drop. Little did we know…
01/28/08
Dr. Hamersley did not give us very good news. She said the baby was not growing anymore and she recommended that we induce by the end of the week. The baby was much smaller than the average baby at this gestational age. He had been hitting his average growth marks prior to this, but for some reason the baby had stopped growing. Dr. H mentioned a couple of reasons but did not express any concern and thought the baby would do much better outside of my belly.
Later in the evening, Noli did some research in the net about our case and found that this is called Asymmetric Intrauterine Growth Restriction – IUGR. The website for the American Academy of Family Physicians provides the following description: “A fetus with asymmetric IUGR has a normal head dimension but a small abdominal circumference (due to decreased liver size), scrawny limbs (because of decreased muscle mass) and thinned skin (because of decreased fat). If the insult causing asymmetric growth restriction is sustained long enough or is severe enough, the fetus may lose the ability to compensate and will become symmetrically growth-restricted. Arrested head growth is of great concern to the developmental potential of the fetus.1”
This really freaked Noli out as well as the rest of the family. After talking it through with the family and at the urging of Grandma Georgina, we decided not to wait until the end of the week to be induced. We decided to move forward ASAP. I started feeling very scared and confused. I really did not want to make a decision!!!
01/29/08
The baby was not as active as usual. I called Noli at the office to let him know. He did not wait at all before he was calling Dr. Hamersley. She wanted to see me right away to do a Non-Stress Test. Noli came home to pick us up and before we knew it, we were on our way to see Dr. H. Noli and my mom thought that it would be a good idea to take our hospital bags “just in case” – Boy was that good thinking!!! I was in a daze… I was so scared!
The test lasted for 2 hours and at the end of it, they did another ultrasound. After seeing the results from the NS test and the pictures of the ultrasound, Dr. H was convinced that this baby needed to come out. The cervix was very long and still hard, so she recommended a C-section. She called Dr. Fan to let him know that she was sending me to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital at 3:00PM. The admission process did not take long at all. Before I knew it, I was laying on the delivery bed waiting for Dr. Fan to arrive. We waited for 6 long hours… once he arrived, he checked me and said we were going to try to have this baby as nature intended. He wanted to avoid the C-section. We started the process that evening by using Cervidol, a medicine that helps the cervix to soften. Noli then went to get us some dinner. He got me a huge sub from Mama Lucia, and I ate it all!!! Then Noli and my mom left to go home around 10PM. The nurse gave me something to help me sleep… Tomorrow would be a long day and we all would need to be well rested.
01/30/08
Surprisingly, I had a good night sleep. Noli and mom showed up early in the morning. We were all anxious to hear what the plan was. The nurse came in and told us that they were going to start with the Pitocin at 10:30AM… and that is exactly what happened. At 11:00 the dosage was doubled. But not long after that, the baby’s heart rate started going all over the place. The nurse rushed in and turned off the IV from which the Pitocin was given. She said she would call the doctor and we would have to wait for him. At 1:00PM Dr. Fan showed up and he decided to break my water and one more time, we were in waiting-mode. About every hour after that, the nurse came in to check how much I was dilated. At about 4-5cm, I was in so much pain that I begged to have the epidural. The anesthesiologist showed up in my room about 5 minutes after I yelled for him. I knew going in that the epidural needle was very long and somewhat thick – so I was SCARED! Luckily, this process was no where near as bad as the contractions that I was having. After the epidural started taking effect, I did not feel a thing… not even the pressure that other women talk about. At 5:00 the nurse came in to check me one more time and to our surprise, I was 10cm dilated. The doctor showed up at 6:00 to check me and said the baby was still high up in the birth canal and I needed to start pushing. For the next 30 minutes, I was being coached by a very patient nurse. To my left side was Noli and to my right was mom. At 6:30 the doctor came back in and 10 minutes later, Little Baby Nalda was born. Everything happened so fast… What I remember is that Dr. Fan and the whole team of nurses seemed to be in such a rush, it made me nervous. On top of that, the baby did not cry at first. I kept asking “Why is the baby not crying?” Noli assured me the baby was fine. He said that his eyes were open and he was checking out his new surroundings… He finally made himself be heard when he received his first bath. Grandma Nancy, Grandma Georgina, Grandpa Manolo and other friends and family were at the hospital to support us and to welcome our new son, Alexander Manuel Nalda!
