The Birth Story According to Mommy (sorry it's kinda long but then again, so was my hospital stay)....

Five days after my due date of February 7, 2003, little Alex Charles Jordan Dubé arrived on February 12, 2003 at 4:11pm Pacific Standard Time, weighing in at 7lbs, and measuring 19" long. He has a little bit of brown hair, dark dark blue eyes (for now) and is a truly beautiful little baby (of course I'm biased). Here is the story of his birth from my point of view as well as the aftermath of what followed:

The Birth:
Early Wednesday morning (the 12th) at around 2:30am I got up for one of my many trips to the bathroom. Things just felt a bit different, so when I went back to bed I couldn't really get back to sleep. 45 minutes later, I had to go again and noticed a sharper, more noticeable pain. I also noticed that I was bleeding a bit and I knew this was it. I got the next contraction at 3:30am and that's when I figured I'd better wake Pierre or else he'd be mad that he'd missed even one contraction. So I woke him up and said that I'd started having contractions. He timed them and they stayed 15 minutes apart for a bit, then got to 10 minutes apart and we got up and started getting things ready.

At about 5:30am I paged my doctor's office to find out when to go into the hospital and we waited. My contractions went to about 7 minutes, then 6 minutes apart. They were getting pretty painful. I paged my doctor 2 more times and still got no response after an hour. So at 7am, with contractions now 5 minutes apart, we headed off to the hospital. Turns out that the doctor had left her pager in the car...geeeeee...a lotta good it does there! Little did I know at the time, but that was just the first of many things that just didn't go right throughout this whole experience.

Once I got checked in and into the bed, we discovered I was still only 2-3cm dilated. I was so bummed and we all (Pierre, my mom, and I) got ready for the long haul. The contractions started getting VERY intense and painful so I wanted an epidural to help me through. After they did the blood work and we waited for awhile, I finally saw the anesthesiologist come through the door around lunchtime (although I can't be sure of the time) and he tried to put in an epidural...he was unfortunately UNSUCCESSFUL. I sat in that horrid position for 45 minutes while he tried needle after needle after needle (4 in all) and finally felt he had it. It turns out he did not. The ordeal stopped labor for about an hour and then the contractions came back fast and furious. They hooked me up to the monitors so they could monitor my contractions and the baby. The contraction belt was never on correctly and when I was having a horrid contraction it wasn't even registering on the machine. And Alex's heartbeat kept taking huge dips which was scaring us all a little bit.

Thank goodness for Pierre and my mom...they were both so supportive and kept telling me how good I was doing, though I didn't feel like I was doing good at all. The main thing I remember is feeling totally panicked because I knew there was no way I could make it through this labor pain without any epidural. They tried giving me a shot of demerol and some fentanyl (sp?) which did absolutely nothing to touch the pain. I truly felt like I would pass out with each contraction. Finally a new nurse came in to spell the nurse that had been working with me, and she contacted another anesthesiologist to see if someone else could try again. At about 3pm I was only at 4cm and was so discouraged. Pierre decided to run home and do a couple of things since it appeared we'd still have a long way to go.

The doctor came in again a little before 4pm and checked me again. During this I had a HORRID contraction and suddenly we lost Alex's heartbeat on the monitor. The nurses and doctor tried to turn me over quickly and get it back but no luck. Before I knew what was going on, a ton of people showed up in my room and started prepping me for an emergency C-section. As they wheeled me out of the room over to the OR, I remember telling my mom to call Pierre on his cell phone as quickly as possible. Then everything was a blur. I was wheeled into the OR, a dozen people were talking. I remember hearing the doctor say we got his heartbeat back, everything will be fine. I remember the anesthetist telling me he had to put me under. I remember the nurse talking to me. Then I remember a mask coming over my face and remember nothing after that until I woke up very groggily a short time later. I was so out of it. I've never felt like that before in my life. The nurse was talking to me but I had no idea what she was saying. Although I do remember something about her saying Pierre was being the proud father and showing off his baby to everyone.

And then Pierre walked in with this huge smile on his face and a baby in his arms with my mom right behind him. He brought me our little Alex and put him in my arms and I saw our son for the first time. They told me that I was wheeled in at 4:05pm and Alex was born at 4:11pm. That was how fast the doctor got him out. Apparently his cord had been in a loop right next to his head and every time I had a contraction he'd smash it and cut off his oxygen. So he gave us a good scare but came out as perfect as ever through it all. When Pierre and my mom brought Alex to me I was still so out of it. I remember the nurse telling me to hold my arm straight and I couldn't figure out why I had to do that. So I remember asking several times why I had to hold my arm straight but I could never remember the answer that Pierre gave me. To this day, I still don't remember why I had to hold my arm straight. LOL!

Then I was wheeled into the Mother & Babe area into our room to begin my next portion of the journey.

The Aftermath:
The first night Pierre stayed with me in my room and Alex roomed in with us. I don't remember too much of that night other than that Pierre was wonderful and did everything from feeding to diaper changes and I didn't have to worry about a thing. The next day I was in a lot of pain from the surgery and began to get a slight headache that afternoon. But we muddled through and mom spent the day with us and Alex bonding with her grandbaby. Pierre stayed till about 11pm and then went home so he could take mom to the airport the next morning. So Alex went to the nursery that night.

On Friday, the headache was worse and I was told that I should lay flat to help it. The anesthetist that had failed at my epidural came in and told me that I most likely had what they call a spinal headache which means I had a leak of spinal fluid and it could take some time to work itself out. A spinal headache is a lot like a migraine and pretty much makes doing anything impossible. He said the only way to fix it was to go in and put in a patch the same way that you put in an epidural. Well since he had failed at doing the epidural and I was already in so much pain from the surgery the last thing I wanted was to go through that whole ordeal again, just to fail and still have the headache. I thought I could work through the headache. I was up and about and walked around a bit, albeit very gingerly. By Saturday, the pain had not abated and I was feeling a bit worse. I just wanted to sleep and everytime I opened my eyes my head just felt like it was splitting open. In the midst of all of this, I was trying to bond with Alex, but it was pretty hard because I felt so awful and Pierre again came to the rescue, pretty much doing everything. I had tried to breastfeed Alex but he wouldn't open his mouth wide enough to latch on and got very frustrated trying. We tried with so many nurses that it was frustrating for all of us, but mostly Alex and me. It's so awful to see your baby screaming at the top of his lungs and have nurses trying to stuff your boob in his mouth and push his head into your chest. At any rate, it was not fun. So Alex ended up going on formula for his first few meals, though I still pumped so he could get some of my milk. My milk came in on Saturday which was a huge relief so I felt he could at least get some nutrition.

Saturday night I felt horrible. The pain was at an all time high, not only in my head but in my incision as well. I was off the demerol...the shots they gave me for that had bruised both my hips and made me black and blue with huge knots in my hips. So they put me on Ibuprofen and Tylenol 3s. Unfortunately, these didn't touch my pain. I tried to sleep but found myself involuntarily jerking and moving and couldn't control it. I tried to tell the nurse but she just brushed it off and said I should talk to my doctor on Sunday. When Pierre got up on Sunday morning, he took one look at me and called the nurse immediately. I was shaking uncontrollably, could hardly speak and was jerking spasmodically and in so much pain I was almost passed out. The nurses came in and took my blood pressure. It was at 210 over 100! Then they really got busy and called in the OB on call and they put me back on IV's, antibiotics, catheter and demerol, and ran a bunch of blood work. They surmised that I had developed an infection and that this combined with the spinal headache was causing the problem. They got my blood pressure down a bit to 160 over 80, but I had a temperature and my pulse was racing. I had to stay in bed hooked up to all this stuff for 3 days and didn't get to really bond with my little guy at all. Again, Pierre took care of everything, and he got so tired that the nurses sent him home at night and took Alex into the nursery so we could both get our rest and be able to function. Finally on Tuesday, a new anesthesiologist felt my temperature had come down enough to try the epidural patch and took me back into the OR to do it. After 2 attempts, she was able to get it to work and a few hours later I felt the headache begin to fade.

By Wednesday morning I felt like a new woman...1000 times better than I had and felt I could actually move around and do stuff, so they removed my catheter and allowed me to be mobile. We tried the breastfeeding thing with Alex again but no luck there. And of course with my raging hormones and all we'd been through I felt a bit of a failure and was pretty weepy. But it was so nice to feel better and the doctor on Wednesday afternoon said we'd shoot for gettting me out of the hospital the next day, 8 days after I had been admitted.

Thursday the doctor came in and gave us the go ahead to go home and I have never been so relieved about anything in my whole entire life. Pierre was so excited also. So we got everything all ready and left the hospital around 1pm that afternoon. Leaving the mother and babe wing, I started crying with relief just to have the whole ordeal over with.

As of today, Friday, we are doing ok. We have ups and downs and it is the biggest adjustment I've ever had to deal with in my life. I thought I'd know what it would be like but until you go through it there's no way you can know how hard it is. I have a new respect for all parents out there and I have a HUGE new respect for my wonderful loving husband who has taken such good care of us through everything. He is a wonderful father and Alex and I are the luckiest people in the world to have him. I had a bit of a weepy time today but am doing ok and Alex actually latched on for the first time today, so it was one small step in the right direction.