Brigham's Birthday!

I guess I better type all this out before I forget.

On Friday, May 6, I had a dr. appt. The dr checked me and I wasn't at all dilated or effaced. The plan was for me to come back on the 16th and if I was dilated to at least a 3 he would start me. If not we would have to wait another week.

Well Brigham had other plans. My water broke just after midnight on May 7. It was just a little trickle so I wasn't positive that it had broke. I went and sat on the couch for a while because I just wasn't sure what was going on. At about 1:45 am I went and told Josh. We decided we better get packed up. By 3:00 we were pretty much packed and ready to go. I wasn't contracting at all so we decided to try and sleep a little before we left. Yeah right. Neither of us could sleep and I was getting uncomfortable and a little nervous about the 2 hour drive. We woke the kids up at 4:00 and hit the road. The kids did really great on the drive. I had been so worried about waking them up but things went really well.

Josh dropped me at the hospital at 6:30 and then took the kids to my Robert and Heidi (my brother and his wife). They were going down to my moms house that day anyway so they took our kids with them. I got all checked in to the hospital and waited for Josh to get back. The nurse did a test to see if my water had actually broken. The little strip of paper didn't turn blue fast enough so she wasn't sure what was going on. They did a few different tests before they finally decided my water had actually broken. It was a little frustrating because I knew how much fluid I had lost.

The timing is all a little sketchy to me but I think it was around 10:00 before they started the pitocin and antibiotic. I had the GBS test at the my appt. the day before so we didn't have results yet. When the happens they treat for it anyway, especially because I had tested positive before. It wasn't long before I told the nurse I was ready for an epidural. I see no point in putting yourself through pain. The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. The did have to put monitors on the baby's head because his heart rate was dropping. I progressed slowly throughout the day and the nurse just kept on turning the pit up. I was starting to feel a lot of pressure but not enough to really cause a ton of pain. Between 5:00 and 6:00 pm I went from a 6 to a complete 10. Once I was complete I really felt like I had to push. I had never felt this much pressure with any of the other babies. My dr wasn't in that day so I had a different dr but he was pretty nice. I didn't have to push for very long. Maybe 10 minutes at the most. Brigham was born at 6:40 pm, eighteen and a half hours after my water broke.

As soon as he came out the doctor and nurse both commented on how small he was. I was shocked to hear that because I had measured big for the last 6 weeks or so. Just goes to show how much those measurements mean. He weighed 5 pounds 9 oz and was 19 inches long. He is such a cute cute baby.

I held him for a little while and then the nurse came in to bath him. With my other babies they bathed them in the nursery and Josh went to help. This time they bathed him right on the end of my bed. It was fun to watch that even though he was really mad about it. When she was done bathing him I thought to myself that it seemed like he was struggling with his breathing. I could see his chest retracting but I kind of thought I was just being worrisome and that the retracting was because he was so small.

The nurse took him to the nursery to warm him up and check his blood sugar. Josh left to go Robert and Heidi's house to sleep. I was running a low grade fever so I just kind of relaxed in my bed for a while. Around 9:30 the nurse came back in and told me they were taking Brigham to the NICU. I wasn't that worried. I thought maybe he needed a tiny bit of oxygen or something. Once my fever went down I had one of the nurses walk me down to the NICU. I don't know how I got through the next couple of hours. I didn't really have time to call Josh and I knew he really needed sleep. They had Brigham on nCPAP and they were giving him an IV because his blood sugar was very low. Seeing him completely broke my heart. It was so sad. The IV was hard for me to see. His hand just seemed too tiny to have a needle in it. The pediatrician showed up and looked at an x-ray. I had seen the x-ray there but didn't connect the fact that it was of Brigham. As soon as he walked in he looked at it and said, "Whoa, thats UGLY!" One nurse came to me and put her arm around me while another nurse kindly told the dr that the mom was in the room. The doctor felt really bad that he hadn't noticed me and been a little more gentle with his comment about the x-ray. He explained to me what he meant and apologized a lot. He decided that Brigham needed to be intubated and put on the ventilator so that he could have a dose of surfactant. He told me that Brigham had premature lung disease I started watching as they intubated him but had to turn away. The x-ray people came back in and did another x-ray to make sure the tube was in right. Once he was stable things kind of calmed down a little bit. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. I was really really tired and knew I better get some sleep. I didn't know what a good mom was supposed to do though. Sleep or just stay there and stare at my sick baby. A very nice nurse gave me a hug and told me the best thing I could do for my baby was go and get some sleep. I am so glad I listened to her.

I texted Josh to fill him in and I told him to just stay there and get all the sleep he could. Then I tried to sleep but I am not sure I was very successful. At this point I still wasn't really that worried. Maybe things just hadn't sunk in yet. The next few days were really rough. Hopefully I can get around to writing about them soon.