Patrick’s Emergency C-section Birth Story

IMG_0184I have a post sitting in my drafts folder right now. It was going to be funny, and about my attempts to try every  labor preparation suggestion given to me. Of course, none of them would work, and I’d wind up being induced after my due date (again).

Man plans, God laughs.

On Thursday, Jan. 22, I went in for my 37 week, 5 day regular OB checkup. I ate a quick bowl of cereal before I left and arrived at my OB’s office for my 8:30 appointment. I checked my work e-mail while I waited.

My OB arrived and did the rundown. Blood pressure, urine sample, and fundal height were all perfect. Baby’s heart rate was there — a little on the low side, but there.

“Anything else?” he said.

I hesitated for a moment, not wanting to be THAT paranoid patient. “Well,” I said, “I hate to even bring it up, but he really doesn’t move much. Probably just a different personality from my first!”

He chuckled with me and said we could do a non-stress test “just in case.” I agreed. I let my boss know I’d be a little late and posted a picture to the KCMB Instagram.

The tech performing the NST and I chatted — about my nails, the unseasonably warm weather.

Then the chatter stopped. She crouched next to me, adjusting the straps, pressing the sensors into my belly and moving them around. She furrowed her brow, ripped the strip from the machine, and said, “I’m going to go show this to the doctor.”

Within two minutes, she had me up and walked me directly to the elevator with instructions to go up to the Birthing Center. I checked in upstairs and was immediately put into a hospital gown and on the monitors again. Like, in a birthing room, where people have babies. The nurse told me what was happening as she started a bag of IV fluids.

“Your baby’s heart rate is having decels and not recovering well. We’re going to check with the on call doctor and see how he wants to proceed.”IMG_3785

I texted my husband, Tim, to come up from work.

An ultrasound tech came in with a portable ultrasound machine to perform a biophysical profile. She reassured me that he was breathing, and moving, but I heard her mutter “AFI is 2,” to the nurse, who hightailed it out the door.

No sooner was the ultrasound finished as Tim showed up and the on-call OB came in to talk.

“Well,” he said, “you’re not leaving here without a baby today.”

At this point Tim and I just looked at each other, jaws dropped. My mother-in-law was still 4 hours away, and she was our childcare. I had work appointments on my calendar that afternoon. I was supposed to be overdue again.

As the doctor explained, AFI stands for amniotic fluid index, and should be 5 or more. Our baby’s AFI, at 2, was dangerously low (also known as oligohydramnios). When this happens, the cord compresses and the baby’s heart rate may drop and not recover. Since I’d had a previous successful vaginal delivery, they were going to proceed with a Cervadil induction.

He left and Tim and I sprang into planning mode. He called his mother and told her to drop everything and start driving to Kansas City immediately. I sent him home to grab the bag I’d packed and change clothes.

(null)

Around 2:30 p.m., Tim got back to the hospital. A new doctor, Dr. R., had taken over call, and she wanted to get the induction started as soon as possible. My nurse, Nikki, brought the Cervadil in.

Then, the phone rang. I saw it was our two-year-old son’s daycare and handed it to my husband to deal with, as I was literally laying on my back, legs open, ready to start the induction process.

“Your son has a 101-degree fever. I know this is a really bad time, but…we need you to come get him.”

I didn’t know what else to do but laugh. Our poor nurse, standing there gloved and ready… and a sick toddler stuck at daycare. This is parenting two kids, huh?

Once I stopped laughing, we made a plan. Tim left to pick up our son, and took him home to stay with an aunt and uncle until his mom arrived. Meanwhile, we would insert the Cervadil and pray nothing happened until he got back.

(null)

He left, she put the Cervadil in. I listened to my son’s heart rate on the monitor, willing him to wait just a little longer and trying to rest.

Tim returned and I could breathe again. I started feeling contractions. Every time I contracted, I’d watch the numbers on the baby’s heart rate monitor plummet. The nurses would come in and have to flip me to my other side or on my back to get his number back up.

Around 6 p.m., Dr. R and my new nurse, Maggie, came in to remove the Cervadil. I was confused — it was supposed to stay in for 12 hours, and it hadn’t even been four.

“Your baby isn’t tolerating the Cervadil. His heart rate is dropping with each contraction and not recovering. We’re going to pull it out and hope he does better with you contracting on your own.”

So, the Cervadil came out. I continued to contract, and each time had to be shifted to get baby’s heart rate back up. The low heart rates kept getting lower — I’d see 110, then 100, 90, 80, 70, 60… then alarms went off.

Around 6:30 p.m., they came back and explained that because his heart rate kept getting lost on the monitors, they were going to break my water and attempt to place an internal monitor on his scalp. I nodded. Whatever needed to be done, I thought.

My cervix was dilated to 3 at that point, but the baby was still very high. It took four wretched tries before they ruptured the bag and got the monitor on. (You know it’s bad when the doctor apologizes profusely to you.)

At that point, everything changed.(null)

Meconium,” I heard. “Thick meconium.”

Then the heart rate monitor made that awful bottoming out noise, and they couldn’t find heart tones anymore.

Like little ants, the room filled with nurses. Dr. R. told me, “You are having a c-section right now. I need you to remain calm for your baby. You will be put under general anesthesia because we need to get him out as fast as possible. Your husband has to stay here.” Although her words were serious, her face was kind and calm, and I trusted her completely.

I remember hot, salty tears rolling down my cheeks as I tried to keep an ear out for a heartbeat amidst the chaos. “Stay with the baby,” I mumbled from behind an oxygen mask, “I love you.” We whispered a prayer for safety and I was rolled away.

In the operating room, waiting for an anesthesiologist to arrive, I remember willing my body not to contract so his heart rate would stay stable. “More thick meconium,” I heard Dr. R. call. “No time for that, let’s go.” I prayed.

I remember finding a happy place to go to as the anesthesia trickled into my veins and I went to sleep: Disney World, riding It’s A Small World with my son and husband. The happiest place on earth.

Then: there is missing time. Our son came into the world at 8:18 p.m. I don’t know if he cried right away, or how he looked all tiny and scrunched up and brand new. I was fast asleep and will mourn the loss of that time forever.

Through picture time stamps, I know he was swaddled and in my husband’s arms by 8:42 p.m.

I hope a nurse cuddled him in those 24 minutes.

As I awakened from my anesthesia fog, I remember hearing: “We stitched her up so that you can have more kids.” She told me I had been very brave and that our son was perfectly healthy. I spied the bundle in Tim’s arms across the room. “How big?” I croaked. “And does he have hair?”

Photo credit meredithrae photography, http://www.meredithraephotography.com
Photo credit: meredithrae photography

(7 pounds, 4 ounces, and yes.)

My pain meds were delayed, and I spent the next several minutes moaning “hurry.” Tim brought the baby over to show me, but I didn’t have my glasses and couldn’t see a thing.

Eventually, the chaos died down. Two hours after he was born, Patrick Doyle was in my arms.

The moral of the story? Trust your gut. I can’t stand to think what could have happened if I had failed to mention the decreased movement that day. Physically, we’re both fine now, but emotionally, it will take me a long time to come to terms with those missing first minutes of my son’s life.

But we’re going to be OK.

Brieanne Hilton
Brie Hilton lives in the Northland is a stay-at-home mom with multiple side hustles in the Northland. Her oldest son, Charlie, is 7 and has his own pet-sitting business and outsmarts his parents at least three times a week. Her youngest, Patrick, is 5 and has cerebral palsy and autism, so she considers herself an expert on navigating the special needs life on way too little sleep. In her spare time (ha), Brie teaches group fitness classes, has a boutique in her basement, naps too much, and actively ignores the piles of laundry on the floor.

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