Friday, December 6
th, 2013 was a snowy day.
So snowy, in fact, that the governor of
Oklahoma declared a State of Emergency for the entire state.
I guess 2-3 inches of snow on the ground
is a very serious matter here.
There were a few cars off the freeway, but we made it to the hospital
safe and sound in only an hour (it usually takes 30 minutes.)
We went in to register right at 7:30
and they sent us to OB Triage where we discovered I had dilated to a 3 since
Wednesday, so they decided against Cervidil and said they’d send me right up to
the 4
th floor for Labor and Delivery as soon as they had a room
ready.
An hour and a half later we
finally moved to the 4
th floor and discovered we had a problem on
our hands.
The doctors at OU
Medical will not induce labor unless you are at least 39 weeks, but I was only
38 weeks and 6 days, so they were trying to determine 1) why I was there a day
early, and 2) what they were going to do with us.
They finally determined that the doctors scheduled the
induction to be 38 weeks and 6 days because he had originally assumed I would
have to be given Cervidil, which would take all night to kick in and get my
cervix to soften up, which means that I wouldn’t actually have the baby until
the 7
th of December, exactly at 39 weeks.
And secondly, they decided to go ahead and start me because
of the snow storm; they didn’t want to make us go back out in it.
So, I got all hooked up with Pitocin (to
cause contractions), Penicillin (for Group B strep), and extra fluids to the IV
and waited.
At 18 hours in I had
only dilated to a 4, so the doctors continued monitoring me and the baby
consistently, and since I had been so nervous that morning that I had thrown up
on the way out the door of the apartment, I was starving and made Benjamin go
to the cafeteria and get a cheeseburger, only intending to sneak a bite or
2.
Well, I was so hungry that I
literally shoved that burger in my mouth and devoured the entire thing in 6
bites.
We were so afraid that we
were going to be caught, but all turned out well, and I became much
happier!
Benjamin finally lay down
on the couch and slept for a few hours, but around 3 in the morning on Saturday
the 7th the Pitocin was up pretty high and my contractions were being a
beast!
I swear, the doctors had a
conspiracy going that they didn’t turn up the Pitocin until the 7
th
so that I wouldn’t have the baby on Friday so they wouldn’t get in trouble for
not waiting until 39 weeks.
I had
been on a birthing ball for a few hours, but even that wasn’t helping anymore,
so I asked for an epidural.
I
changed into a hospital gown, and this gruff, white-haired grandpa and his
younger intern came in and performed the epidural.
The anesthesiologist seemed like a grouchy old bear, but he
softened up when I called him my “pain fairy”.
He said that in 30+ years of being an anesthesiologist, he’d
never had such a nickname given.
The epidural went off without a hitch, so the nurse came in and gave me
a catheter (yeah… I didn’t know that when you get an epidural you also have to
have a catheter).
At 5:00am the
doctor came in and broke my water, and after that I don’t remember anything but
sleeping.
I tell you what, that
epidural was my magic juice, and I had no shame in pressing that gloriously
flashing blue button for an extra umph every 20 minutes or so when I could feel
a contraction or two.
My
contractions were pretty even, going from 4 to 2 minutes apart, but still I
didn’t move past a 5 for hours after they broke my water.
By this point I was starting to get a
little loopy and didn’t even notice the doctors and nurses coming in every hour
or so to switch IV fluids out, take my blood pressure, move the monitors on my
belly, or make me roll over so they could hear the baby more clearly.
I didn’t even ask questions when they
made me put on an oxygen mask for the last few hours.
Evidently the baby’s heart rate would drop every time I had
a contraction, and my blood pressure dropped to an 87/45.
They took my oxygen off once for about
5 minutes, then promptly put it back on, and I wore it for the rest of the
labor.
At 12:30pm I was awoken
from a nap by a fairly good earthquake and couldn’t go back to sleep quite so
easily after that.
At around
1:30pm, the doctor (we were now on our 3
rd set of doctors and
nurses) woke me up to check me and said “guess what?”
I thought for sure she was going to tell me that I was still
only at a 5, and all I could think of was that I just wanted to go back to
sleep… but that’s not what she said.
What she actually said was, “you’re ready!”…and I started to cry.
I clung to Benjamin and told him that I
wasn’t ready, and that I was scared, but he was so good about comforting me and
telling me that everything would be just fine.
Then he pressed my magic epidural “umph” button for good
measure.
By 2:00pm they had all
the equipment ready for the baby and had called the doctor to let her know we
were ready to start.
At 2:15 they
propped up my legs (cause, you know, I couldn’t feel anything,
much less move anything on my own), and
I started to push. 6 contractions later, at 2:28pm on Saturday, December 7
th
2013, Merrill Ivan Heddy entered this world.
He was a purplish/gray and wailed like a banshee!
The first thing I thought was “holy
wow!
His nose is huge!... and he
is sooo beautiful!” and I burst into tears again.
They took him to get cleaned up, weighed and measured as the
doctor sewed up my 2
nd degree tear.
Our little man measured in at 19.3 inches long, and weighed
6 pounds 9.5 ounces.
A
few hours later, after I’d regained feeling in my legs and made a successful
trip to the restroom on my own, they took us to the 5th floor for
recovery for the next 2 days, and our little guy got his first procedure, a
frenectomy, where they cut the lingual frenulum (little string thing under your
tongue). The procedure was done
because our poor little guy was “tongue tied” as the doctor called it, which
just means that his frenulum was so tight that Ivan wouldn’t be able to stick
his tongue out, suck, or potentially speak well in the future. Supposedly it is a painless procedure,
but our poor little guy screamed and screamed and screamed, which made me cry
and cry and cry! I cried so hard
that it actually made the nurse cry, which I felt bad for. As soon as they finished though, the
nurses handed Ivan to me and almost immediately he snuggled in close and
stopped crying. I’ll be honest,
it’s been hard to let him out of eyesight ever since. Gosh, we sure do love our sweet little boy!!!
And
now, the sweetest thing I've ever read... Benjamin wrote his version of
the birth story as well! He wrote it as a letter to give to Ivan when
he's older. So, here you go!
Saturday, December 14, 2013
Dear Ivan,
Last
Saturday was the most amazing day of my life. Not the greatest, mind you, because the day I married your
mother was the greatest day of my life, but it was the most amazing. I have never seen anything so amazing
as your birth. Let me tell you all
about it.
Last
Friday, December 6th, your mother and I woke up very early in the
morning. 4:30 if I remember
correctly. Your mother had already
packed everything we needed for the hospital three to four weeks prior and we
just needed the time to make sure that we had everything we needed and to get
ourselves ready. You see, there
was a snow storm going through Norman that morning. It had started snowing the day before and OU had even closed
down early Thursday afternoon.
Many people, including your mother, had suggested that we get a hotel up
in the city the night before so we wouldn’t have to travel through the
treacherous snow and ice. I,
however, had all confidence that we could get there safely. I had had experience driving in the
snow before and I knew God would be watching over us as well. When we got up that morning I spent a
good fifteen minutes scraping all the ice and snow off the car and getting it
all warmed up for our trip. Mom
hurried around getting ready. We
had a couple pieces of toast for breakfast and then Mom just couldn’t find
anything else we needed to do. She
looked around in vain, but she finally had to accept what I already knew. It was time to go.
We
got downstairs and I put everything in the car. Then Mom smiled and asked me to take some pictures of her in
the snow.
She was so beautiful
with that shining bright smile. We
got in the car and started slowly off.
There were about two to three inches of snow on the ground covering a
layer of ice so I had to drive carefully all the way there. We never did slip except for once in
our own parking lot. On the way we
saw that the snow really was dangerous for many other people. On the radio we heard about several
accidents. There was even one
onramp where there had been one accident after another. They finished cleaning one up when they
had to go back to the same exact spot to clean up another one. We passed a couple accidents involving
multiple cars and we saw one tractor trailer upside down in a ditch next to the
highway. Almost everyone was
driving carefully. I remember one
dangerous driver was weaving in and out of traffic, speeding along and laying
on their horn. I got upset that
they were driving so recklessly, but I calmed down thinking that he would
probably get into an accident before he got to where he was going.
We
got to the hospital and saw all the beautiful Christmas decorations. Every tree outside the children’s
hospital was decorated with strings of lights and the giant statues inside the
main lobby were decorated as well with trees and giant presents. We parked in the snow next to a place
reserved for mothers in labor. I
thought we shouldn’t use it because how would they ever know if our car really
belonged to someone giving birth or not and I didn’t want to find out. We made it up to the fourth floor with
all our bags and were surprised to see Sister Blackburn at the receiving
desk. She brought us back to a
room to see how far along Mom was and gratefully she had already dilated to a
three. We waited nervously in there
for what seemed like forever, but was really only little more than an
hour. While in there, Mom got an
I.V. in her wrist because the vein in her hand didn’t work well enough. I was getting antsy, but Mom said that
I would have to stop if she was going to keep her sanity. You know how my mannerisms affect your
Mother.
After
a long time we made it up to the delivery room. We settled in, Mom to her bed and me to the rest of the
room. We both had hopes that we
might see you by early afternoon, but little did we know that you wouldn’t be
there until the next day in the early afternoon. We hunkered down and Mom got started on the Pitocin, which
started her labor. Before the
induction, there was a little confusion about policy because you were only thirty-eight
weeks and six days along. Their
policy was to induce only if a pregnancy was thirty-nine weeks along and they
were serious about it. They would
have sent us home if there hadn’t been a large snow storm that day. FYI, that “large” snow storm (which
only accumulated about 4 inches where we were) was enough of a shock to
Oklahomans that the governor declared a state of emergency. Now, we knew that you were going to be
a handful, but we didn’t think that your birth merited that kind of a response. Anyhoo, they agreed to induce your Mom
one day early and we hunkered down to a day of waiting. I had my computer and some schoolwork
and Moby Dick with me and Mom watched T.V. a little and mostly we just talked
and updated Grandma and Alisha through texts. And then it just kept going. And going. And
going. Mom was in labor for a very
long time. She started to get
worried and I was also getting worried texts and phone calls from Rebecca,
Twila, and Curtis. I wasn’t
worried because I had understood that labor could take up to two days, but I
was getting a little worried because everyone else was getting worried.
I
kept constant watch over Mom and all her needs. Mostly her needs were help getting to the bathroom, wanting
more ice water, and wanting me to be close by. I happily complied.
Once, she got so hungry that she told me to sneak her a hamburger. I was nervous, but I did it
anyway. Every now and then while
she was eating someone would knock and come in. She would throw the hamburger back in my hands and we
pretended like nothing was going on.
I felt so guilty. I was
sure they would kick us out of the hospital if they caught me sneaking Mom
food.
Other
than food, the thing Mom wanted most was to get some rest. She was a pro through all her
contractions, never complaining once.
Not once! I was
impressed. She had warned me that
she might cuss like a sailor, but it never came. We tried to get as much sleep as possible and I laid down on
the couch/bed with our jackets as a pillow and a few blankets the nurse brought
me. I was in and out of sleep the
whole night, waking up every few hours to check on Mom. She didn’t sleep as well as I did,
understandably so. Throughout the
day and night they would come in to check how your heartbeat was doing and how
Mom’s contractions were progressing.
They kept adjusting the straps on her belly and every now and then they
would increase her Pitocin levels.
Every once in a while they would be worried because Mom’s blood pressure
was too low or because your heartbeat would fall with her contractions. Once, around one-thirty a.m. they put
Mom on oxygen to help you because you were in distress. Around three a.m. the anesthesiologist
came in and gave Mom an epidural.
We thought she would be able to sleep more after this, but she never
really slept for more than half an hour until about nine that morning. Now, after three I was mostly asleep
until eight, but I was awake for the epidural and I woke up shortly after they
broke Mom’s water. We got up and I
stayed up for a while, letting everyone know that we made it through the night
with only a little progress. Your
mother was pretty exhausted by then and didn’t want anything to eat. I got breakfast and we waited for the
nurses to come in and check her progress again. They came around eleven a.m. and she had only progressed to
a five. She was really depressed
by that and when I told everyone I got even more worried phone calls.
You
see, your Mother’s niece, Lisbeth, had just gone through a long and dangerous
labor with many complications and a lot of scary updates. We didn’t know if Lisbeth or Isabella
were going to make it. So,
everyone was worried when Mom’s labor was lasting so long with so little
progress. Everyone was worried
about a repeat of Isabella’s delivery.
However, Mom and I tried to remain as calm as possible. I knew that if anything went wrong the
doctor’s would perform a caesarian section and everything would be fine. I’m glad I was calm throughout the
delivery. Because of that, I was
able to be there for your Mom.
After that checkup, Mom fell asleep for a good three hours. Even the visits from the nurses didn’t
wake her up. She needed the rest
and I’m glad she got it because we were in for a surprise around one
thirty. They came in like usual
and did another check. “You’re
ready. I think you’re ready,” said
the nurse. I was excited and Mom
had a little panic attack as soon as she left. We had to wait about forty minutes for the doctors to come
and set up, but once they were ready I supported Mom’s left leg and the nurse
supported her right. The doctors explained what pushing entailed and what it should feel like
and Mom must have understood completely because she made it look easy. I remember the first time I saw a glimpse
of your head and I thought, “that head is purple. Purple is the wrong color.” Your Mom only pushed for six contractions and you came out a
little more each time until you came out in a rush and suddenly there you were,
wet, purple, crying, and still attached to Mom through your umbilical
cord. “Is dad going to cut the
cord?” asked the doctor. Have I
ever mentioned how it gets on my nerves when the doctors speak to you in the
third person? So, I cut your cord
with the little tiny scissors and I was surprised how rubbery it felt. I saw them cut your cord again closer
to your stomach and then carry you across the room where they cleaned you up
and got you ready for Mom to hold.
From the moment you were born, Mom was weeping with joy. She couldn’t wait to hold you in her
arms. It took a while for it to
hit me that you were my baby.
After all the anticipation you were finally here. I was relieved that when they brought
you back you had changed to a normal pink color. They laid you down on your Mom and you stopped crying for
the first time and fell asleep.
Your
Mom hasn’t wanted to let you out of her site for one minute since that
moment. We love you. We’ve loved you even before you were
born. We will love you forever
more.
Love your
Father,
M. Benjamin
Heddy
I
had a picture of me on the screen and looked at Ivan to make sure he
was ok as he slept in his swing, and about fell out of my chair when I
realized that Ivan looks like I did when I was a baby! It's the nose
that caught my attention!
