Baby M's Birth Story

Alex and I checked into the hospital at 4pm on Friday, August 7th for my scheduled induction at 39 weeks 1 day. The nurse started me on Cervadil around 5:30pm.  I was still 1 cm dilated since being checked for the first time at 35 weeks, 5 days.  I was 50-60% effaced.  The goal of Cervadil was to help thin out my cervix more so that it made dilating a faster process.  Once the medication was in place, all that was left to do was wait 12 hours for it to be taken out.

So we waited.  We watched Modern Family on tv.  We placed cards...War to be exact. And Alex beat me.  We listened to Baby M's steady heart beat all night long.  I didn't have any contractions, just an irritable uterus that was preparing itself for contractions.  Alex slept on the pull out chair and I tried to sleep in the uncomfortable labor bed as we anxiously awaited my body to prepare itself to give birth to our precious baby boy.

I slept for 3 very restless hours and woke up at 4:30am.  I couldn't go back to sleep because the bed hurt my back too much. And I was too excited to see how much closer my cervix was to being ready to deliver our son.  I sat awake waiting for the nurse to come in to take out the Cervadil.  At 5:15am I heard a healthy crying baby in the room next to us.  As I sat there listening to the beautiful cry all I could do was cry myself.  I couldn't wait to hear our son's first cries.  I had been waiting to hear our baby cry for the last 7 years.  7 years.....Riley was born silently into the world at 5:15am 7 years ago.  I started crying even harder at the memories that still linger from the trauma of Riley's birth.  We never got to hear her cry.  I was a ball of emotions between reliving the hurt that I felt on the day Riley was stillborn and anticipating the best moment of my life when I get to give birth to our healthy. beautiful baby boy/

At 5:30am the nurse took out the Cervadil and checked my cervix.  1.5 cm dilated. 60-70% effaced. Not much progress at all in 12 hours.  For an hour I stayed unhooked from the contraction and heart rate monitor while I got up, walked around the labor and delivery floor, and rocked myself in a rocking chair.  At 6:30am we started Pitocin and I had to remain on the monitor for the rest of my labor to make sure the baby's heart rate stayed stable.  I started having mild feeling contractions every 1-2 minutes pretty quickly after starting Pitocin.  Some IV pain meds helped me to fall back to sleep for a good 2 hours.  My doctor arrived to the hospital around 7am and came to check me around 8:30am.  I was 2 cm dilated and 75% effaced.  Slowly making progress.  Around 10:00am our photographers arrived to capture Baby M's birth story in pictures for us.  The doctor came back around 10am to check me again and I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced.  I was having contractions every 2 minutes according to the monitor so they slowed down the rate of Pitocin since I was contracting too often but not dilating as expected-they said that the contractions so close together could cause the baby distress.  My doctor came back at 11am and I was still 3 cm dilated but after breaking my water (oh my warmness) I was not 4 cm dilated.  HOURS PASSED.  My friend arrived to be there as a second support person.  We sat around with our photographers and my friend and cracked jokes with each other and discussed birth stories about the birth of their children.  At 2:00pm the doctor checked me.....still 4 cm dilated.  I got out of bed and started bouncing on the birthing ball.  I started doing some weird position in the bed that the other girls in the room said helped them to dilate faster.  My contractions started picking up in intensity but were still manageable in my opinion.  They were happening every 1-2 minutes.  The nurse came in to check me around 4:00pm and I was still 4 cm dilated.  Over the next 2 hours I played Yahtzee with my friend and listened to some songs on my birthing playlist.  We tried to bounce on the birthing ball again.  Finally at 6:30pm I asked for an epidural hoping that due to my contractions getting more intense that I was going to be at least 6 cm dilated.  I thought if I got the epidural it would help me dilate faster.....that's what I had been told by other moms so why not give it a try.  My contractions were still manageable pain wise....but I wanted to get the show on the road.  Every time I felt a contraction coming on I would first feel the baby backing himself up into my right rib cage too....like he was telling me he did not want to come out.  Maybe an epidural could help us both with this laboring thing.

The anesthesiologist came in around 7:00 to start my epidural.  He missed the epidural space the first time he tried and placed the catheter in my vein.  It was painful.  When he finally got it in the proper place it didn't hurt at all.  When we got all connected to the epidural the nurse checked me again....STILL 4 CM!! I couldn't believe it.  10 minutes later I started violently shaking and couldn't stop.   The nurse said it was just pregnancy hormones. But I felt like I was having a non-stop seizure.  It was the worst feeling I had ever felt.  My parents and niece arrived to the hospital around 7:30pm.  As soon as they walked into the room I was hurling over into a bed pan puking my guts out.  The nurse once again said it was part of labor.....but I felt completely fine until I got that epidural.  By 8:00pm I felt so bad that I knew there was no way I could relax enough to give birth to this baby.  I wanted him out as soon as possible and I wanted this awful feeling to go away.  Every time the nurse flipped me to my right side the baby's heart rate dropped into the 60's.  It was normal and stable when I was on my left side....but she had to keep rotating me since I got the epidural.  Finally I told her she needed to get the doctor...NOW.  When the doctor came to talk to me she agreed that at this point it did not appear I was going to dilate much more and would probably end up in an emergency c-section due to the baby's heart rate/response to the epidural the longer we waited.  She called in her counterpart and I was in the operating room by 9:10pm to have my c-section.  My husband and my friend got to be there to watch the doctors deliver our son.  My friend was an awesome photographer and videographer for us!

As the doctors were pulling out our son my husband started crying at the relief that he was finally being brought safely into the world.  As I heard his little wimpery cry for the first time I was both crying and laughing.  It was the cutest sound I had ever heard! And I could finally say that I did it....I gave birth to our son! Maybe not the way I wanted to.....but he was born alive and that was my main goal my entire pregnancy! 

Our son was born at 9:32pm on Saturday, July 8th, 2015.  We were so excited to hold him for the first time and to figure out if he looked like a Jayden or an Eli....we were ready to finally give Baby M a real name! But it wasn't long before the neonatologist asked my husband to come over to see our son and was told he would be going to the NICU and not back to our room with us.  Our son's feet were completely raw and his hands had skin just hanging from them after he was cleaned off.  They were afraid to continue cleaning him because his skin seemed to be so sensitive. 

Instead of holding and kissing our son right after he was born, we could only look at him.  As I went into recovery I sent my husband to the NICU to be with our son and to figure out what was going on with him.  During the hour that I was in recovery I continued to shake like I was having non-stop seizures.  I hated the feeling that the epidural gave me and honestly wished it was a decision that I never had made.  Our family took turns between visiting with me and visiting with my husband and the baby. While in recovery I was asked if I wanted to try to breast feed our son.  I initially said I didn't feel physically stable enough to even hold him let alone breast feed him.  However, the feeling started to ware off and I wanted so badly to hold our baby boy in my arms,  When I got wheeled into the NICU I was able to hold our baby for 10 minutes (I was the first and only one who got to hold him that night) before they took him from me and asked me to sign papers to start an umbilical IV.  While I was take to my regular mother-baby room my husband stayed in the NICU to talk to the doctor who informed him that our son may have a serious skin condition called Epidermoylosis Bullosa (EB).  WHAT??? 

Due to the effects of the anestecia and pain medications, I wasn't able to process the severity of our son's skin issues.  His hands and feet looked very painful but I didn't understand what was really going on with him.  After our family left that night Alex and I discussed what we were going to name our baby boy finally and decided on Eli Francis Monnier.  He told me he weighed 7 lbs 14 oz and was 21 inches long.  He was beautiful and I couldn't wait to wake up the next morning to see him again! 

Eli remained in the NICU at the hospital where I delivered until today.  He has now been transferred to Cincinnati Children's Hospital which is 2 hours from where we live.  His skin condition is rare and can be very severe.  The last 5 days have been a roller coaster of emotions between feeling thankful that Eli was born safely, angry that after all we did to conceive Eli that he still ended up with a life-altering and sometimes life threatening skin disease, helpless that we can't do things that parents should be doing with their child after birth such as bathing him, changing his diaper, feeding him, loving on him, cuddling with him all the time, and waking up in the middle of the night with him, depressed that all my expectations for motherhood have been stolen from me due to his condition, and incredibly humbled by all the support we have received and all the people who are following Eli's journey on my personal page and me and my husband's blog page on Facebook.

Due to so many challenges over the past week and weeks to come....there will be future posts about our NICU experience.  For now, I am going to bed so I can get up early and get back to the hospital to be with Eli.  If you are in a group where I post my blog and want to get caught up to speed on what has been going on with Eli, please visit my personal facebook page or  https://www.facebook.com/alexandlindsaysbabyquest

More updates will come within the next week on Eli's condition as we learn more about how to manage him.  He has blisters all over his body, in his mouth, and most likely throughout his digestive system causing him difficulty eating.  From what we have learned so far on the disease....we have to rethink how we are going to do everything from diapering to feeding to clothing our child.  It's going to be a long road and challenging one at that.  It's been hard to understand why this has happened after all we have already been through.  We really thought we would have the perfect birth and would have been home already with our perfectly healthy son. None of our neices and nephews will get to meet their cousin until he is home from the NICU and even then most likely wont be able to hold him:( Please pray for healing over Eli.  He is so sweet and precious....I just wish I could take this disease away from him and treat him like a normal healthy baby.