Ella's birth story, and my horrible experience with Riverside:

Tuesday morning (Nov. 14) I got up after again not sleeping, because I was in so much pain. The pain and bruising I was feeling on my pubic bone area was incredible, and now it was worse whenever I laid in the preferred pregnancy position, which is on your left side.  On top of that, Ethan came down with a stomach bug and threw up 5 times that night. After the first episode, we put him between us in bed. After the second and third episodes, we changed our sheets. After the fourth time, we got smart and just put a towel underneath him. (So we just had a couple towels to change instead of hauling out a new set of sheets yet again.) After 5 times, his tummy finally settled down and we got a little sleep, but I probably didn’t sleep more than about two hours that night, just like the night before.

 Ethan acted fine the rest of the day, so I didn’t know if he had just eaten bad fruit salad at Chick Filet that previous evening, when we went for our walk around the mall, or if it was a stomach bug. I had my appointment at 2:15, so I dropped Natalie off at my friend Ashley’s house, and kept Ethan with me. (He did great at the appointment since he didn’t have his sister to fight with.) Liza checked me, and I was a “solid 4 cm”. Just with checking me, though, caused me to have a contraction, and when it hit I moved right to 5 cm, and my bag of water actually came through (bulging below) my cervix – she said about a half inch. She told me, “you really must have a bag made of steel!”  She said she couldn’t believe I was still walking in there, and that just from the exam she figured I had been “stirred up” enough that she was expecting me to go that night.

 I continued to have some more contractions on the way to Ashley’s to pick up Natalie, so I sat and talked there for awhile, to just monitor things for awhile. When it seemed like I was pretty settled, and it was also getting close to 4:30 so I wanted to avoid driving across town during rush hour, I decided to head for home.  About half way home, about ten minutes from Phil’s office, my contractions started to really pick up, and I was getting wary of driving the rest of the way home, so I stopped at Phil’s office. I told him that tonight was likely it. I really didn’t want to drive anymore, but Phil didn’t want to leave his car at the office for what could have been a couple days, so we carefully drove home, Phil following behind me. We decided to head out to get some dinner, making our way to the hospital. On the way there, my contractions got even stronger, so we decided to just go right to the hospital and just eat some dinner at the hospital cafeteria. After two previous labors, I knew that I had to eat SOMETHING, because I wouldn’t be getting anything other than ice chips after being admitted. I almost just got a salad, because I didn’t want anything too heavy in my stomach for labor, but then I decided to go for a big plate of spaghetti with meatballs. I thought I might regret it, but I was feeling really hungry and wanted something substantial. And boy am I glad I didn’t have just the light salad…

 After eating, my mom, and my sister and Bruce showed up as we were finishing, and we headed up to the third floor. Everyone else took the kids to the waiting room and Phil and I went into the Triage. They checked me and I was a good solid 5, so even though my contractions weren’t coming really regularly (which was normal for me this pregnancy) I was going to be admitted. Of course, just getting there and getting hooked up, my contractions slowed down a little from what they were doing before, but they were still pretty strong when I did have them.  The best part of the triage time, and the only bright spot of the entire experience at Riverside, was when, upon reading my labor and birth plan, they told me that Riverside had the ability to donate the cord blood to a stem cell bank, and that they’d get someone in to talk to me about it in just a little while. I cried when I found this out. I had so, so wanted to do this for the previous two, and though I thought it was a lost cause, I still included it on my birth plan, as something that, if possible, I wanted to do. (It is a successful and available source of stem cells, and no baby needs to be aborted to obtain them.)

 They moved me to the labor, delivery and recovery room, and got me hooked up with an IV. My nurse there, who wasn’t the one who was with me in the triage area, was so negative the whole time. I told her all about how I had been in labor for a month, and that I was certain that all it would take would be breaking my water and I’d have the baby within a couple hours, but she “assured” me, several times, that “Oh, HONEY, you have a LOT of work to do.” Okay, yeah sure. Just get me hooked up here and we’ll see about that. Well, that’s how the whole evening went – the nurse insisting she knew best about what my body was going to do, and my body proving to her otherwise.

 She insisted that I would need pitocin, since I “wasn’t in a very good labor pattern”, and “if it had been my decision, I would have never admitted you”. I told her, fine, fine – bring on the pitocin, as long as I get my epidural first.

 The anesthesiologist came in to administer the epidural, which seemed to go without incident, and then Shannon (my nurse) started the pitocin. As expected, my contractions took off, like they did with Natalie’s labor, but they didn’t seem to bring them on much more consistently than they had been without it. I tried to tell Shannon several times, “just break my water, and that’s all it will take” but she didn’t want to, because she said “with the baby still so high up (?????????????) if I break your water and she drops down really fast, the cord could wrap around her neck.” I’m not sure who she was checking, but it certainly wasn’t my body, with the baby that had been sitting on my cervix at 0 station for over two weeks. But, okay, whatever.

 After that, she suggested I change positions, so she had me scoot back on the bed. Now, I remember with the previous two labors, that they didn’t want me scooting around on my back at all, because of the epidural in place, but she assured me it wouldn’t move it out of position. Well, when I scooted back, I felt definite movement at the epidural, and from then on it felt really, really uncomfortable. I told her that it was hurting, that I thought it might have slipped or something, but she assured me that yes, it might pinch a little, but it wouldn’t slip out. Well, it pinched a whole lot, and it now hurt incredibly to lay on it at all – with the previous two epidurals, once it was in place I couldn’t feel it at all, let alone hurt like this one did. But I can’t possibly know best about my own body, can I?

 She put me into a position laying on my right side with my left leg up in a stirrup, and it took most of the pressure off of the needle poking into my back, so I was relatively comfortable. We had a couple hours of “downtime” then, with me laying in bed, the kids being brought in alternating (since only 3 people were allowed at once). I found out that Ethan had thrown up again, so I felt so bad for my little guy. At one point, when Ethan was in the room, he and Phil played a game of “Blue’s Clues”, and he also had a grand time being spun around on the doctor’s chair. “Ready, mark, set, GO!” he said over and over. (That was the last photo I got of my entire labor time, until 8 minutes after Ella’s birth.) At about 10, my sister took the kids home since we didn’t figure anything was going to happen anytime soon. Little did I know that by then, the epidural, jostled out of place, had taken a couple hours to wear off, and now I was about to experience an unexpected natural labor.

 Shannon then finally allowed me to have my water broken, since labor was at least going a little more to her liking. After my water was broken, I got into a sitting position on the bed, a pretty neat configuration that turned the bed into a big chair, and continued to labor like that for a little longer. It also took some of the pressure off the needle pinching into my lower back. But, though I was in a comfortable position, I noticed the pain of my contractions getting stronger. At first I figured this was just because I had my water broken, and I was also using gravity now, in this position. The epidural given to me was different from previous ones, in that I had a little button that would administer more of the meds as I needed it, so I also just figured that it had started out at a lighter dose, so that’s why I was starting to really feel the pain. Within just a little while, the contractions were coming every minute, and I was moaning and gasping through every one, all the while pushing that little button over and over again. (If I would have planned for natural labor, I would have had comfort measures ready, but since I thought that the epidural would kick in any moment now, I just sat there and went through each contraction.) I heard it beep each time I pushed that button, but I never felt a bit of relief. It never made it to my body.

I started to shake all over, and my mom reminded me that I had shook both previous times, during transition. By this point, I was pushing that little button almost non-stop, probably in a bit of a panic. With the strength of my contractions, the way I was shaking, and it being really obvious that the epidural wasn’t working, my mom called for my nurse to come get me a booster for the epidural. Now, she’d been pretty well ignoring us the whole night (since I still had such a “long way to go”, in her mind). She checked my cervix and I was at 7 cm – in transition, as we thought. She called my midwife to head out (figuring I still had at least a couple hours to go) and called the anesthesiologist to give me a booster on the epidural. They never made it. The nurse emptied my bladder, and as I was laying back for that (the stupid epidural needle digging right in), I suddenly felt a ton of pain in my hips. Shannon had me turn on my left side, to get the baby to rotate, and suddenly I felt the baby coming out. She checked me again, and I was completely dilated and the baby was coming out. I had gone from 7 to 10 cm in about two minutes.  “She’s delivering!” I heard her say. My mom says the next thing she said, right after that, was “I’m suctioning her nose and mouth!” I don’t remember any of it – all I remember thinking (and saying) was “it hurts!” and “I can’t stop it!” Everyone says that I “just pushed once”, but in my mind I didn’t push at all – I just couldn’t hold her back. My whole body was just forcing her out – fast. With Natalie and Ethan, they got the bed dropped down and my feet up, with a bag to catch all the fluid underneath, but Ella came out just right there on the bed as I was on my left side, legs just to my side, gripping the bedrails. (Later I asked Phil where he even was, because I can’t picture him there at all. All I was focused on was the bedrails.) My nurse caught the baby, because not even the resident made it there in time. She came out at exactly 12:30 am on Wednesday, November 15^th.

After cutting the cord, Ella was handed to me but I don’t even remember really looking at her, because I was still in so much shock at what had just happened. My mom and Phil looked at her face and fingers and toes, but all I could see was the top of her stocking-capped head. She was put to my chest to keep warm, but other than that, it’s all a big blur to me. After awhile they took her over to the warming table to get her length and weight, and her APGAR scores. She got 8’s and 9’s on everything, and came in at 7 pounds 2 ounces, and 19 ½ inches long. When they finally brought her back to me, I was finally able to get a good look at my beautiful little girl. Compared to Ethan, she looked so little!

I felt it all this time – the transition contractions, the “ring of fire”, the “pressure” of the baby coming down. (“Pressure” seems so benign a word for what it really feels like. “Pressure”, even “incredible or intense pressure” is what it felt like with an epidural, but just doesn’t cut it for how it felt this time.) Afterwards I found out I had a small first degree tear, which was really not bad at all for how fast she came out. (You normally should push the baby’s head out slowly, with control, so as to allow things to stretch without tearing.) There was no controlling it this time. The resident (who had made it there now) started stitching me up, and I swear they STILL didn’t listen to me when I told them I could feel everything, that the epidural WAS NOT working. I felt the stitch and said “OWWW! I FEEL THAT!!” so they gave me a local shot to numb things.

After things calmed down, and I had my hour with Ella, Phil went down to the cafeteria to get me some juice and something to eat. I’m always so completely hungry and thirsty after labor. When my nurse (who, by the way, was suddenly nothing but sweetness and roses with me now, since she had just delivered –I mean, “caught”-  her second baby and was feeling pretty thrilled with herself, probably) found out that Phil had gone to get me food and drink, she reminded me that I couldn’t have anything to eat or drink – not even ice chips – since I was likely to have my tubal surgery first thing in the morning. (And I had to be fasting for 10 hours prior to surgery, in case something happened and I aspirated.) If I had delivered the baby during the day, I could have had the surgery done right then, but since it was the middle of the night, I had to wait until day time. So, though I kept trying to tell them that my epidural wasn’t working, and it was really hurting me in the back, she said I had to continue to keep it in, so that they wouldn’t have to re-stick me for the surgery. Usually, getting the epidural is the most painful part, and then you don’t even feel it anymore, so this would normally make sense, but it was obvious to me that something was not right. Not that I could get anyone to listen to me, though.

So I went to my postpartum room and spent the night feeling incredibly hungry but especially thirsty. I also had to position my pillows around my back and my bed in just the right position, so that my back didn’t press directly onto the bed, because the epidural really hurt whenever any weight was put against it. That made those first post-partum hours really uncomfortable and distracting, instead of focusing on that feeling of high and excitement that follows childbirth, but I thought I only had the rest of the night to deal with it, then I’d have the surgery and get the thing out of my back.

When morning came, the breakfast tray passed me by because of course I still couldn’t eat, and then I got the news that my surgery was going to be pushed back to mid-morning, because there were an unusually high amount of scheduled c-sections that day. Why so many that particular day? Because many people had scheduled their c-sections so that their baby wouldn’t be born during the upcoming weekend, when the big OSU-Michigan game would be playing. Heaven forbid if they miss part of a football game for the birth of their baby.

Mid-morning turned to lunch time, and again the lunch tray passed me by. Now I had been bumped to mid to late afternoon. A nurse came by and told me that there was one scheduled c-section that was supposed to start at noon but hadn’t started yet, but that I was in line right after that one. It would likely be around 2 pm. I still had not had a single thing by mouth, not even an ice chip, since 7 pm that previous evening when I had fortunately gotten the big plate of spaghetti.  Because I couldn’t have anything in my stomach, I also couldn’t take standard pain meds (which I needed more for the needle in my back than for the pain of childbirth, honestly) so I had to be given a strong narcotic through my IV. Which I was still connected to, of course. Every time I had to go to the bathroom I had to drag all my tubes with me. The narcotic went right to my head and made me feel incredibly tired and loopy, since I had nothing at all in my stomach. When the kids came to see the baby for the first time, Natalie was especially concerned with the tubes and tape all over my body, especially my back, which she saw when I got up to go to the bathroom. The epidural spot looked particularly gross, too. Not just a needle sticking into my back, but I had dried, bloody drips all over my lower back. That plus the yellow tape probably really scared her. It looked horrible to me, too, so I can’t imagine what she thought.

By late afternoon, I was feeling very shaky and increasingly unstable, and I still hadn’t heard anything about the now-passed 2 pm surgery. I was doing fairly well, playing this waiting game, until this point. Then I started to lose it. How could they put off someone who had not eaten or drank any liquid all day, had just given birth, and had a needle stuck into her back that was NOT in correctly? It became obvious that it was all about the almighty dollar. C-sections get them more money than a tubal. I was increasingly incensed that I was someone who would be forced to leave the hospital after 48 hours, yet I was told over and over again that a tubal was a procedure that was not scheduled, but “fit in where possible” among the scheduled C-sections. Like they were doing me a favor, and it wasn’t something they were going to get paid for (and I had SCHEDULED, three months prior). Now, I wasn’t upset about all the people who were in labor who had emergency c-sections. That happens, but it was the scheduled c-sections, done for the parent’s convenience, that I was mad about. These women weren’t in labor, didn’t absolutely have to have the procedure within the next 24 hours before being kicked out of the hospital, and hadn’t now gone 24 hours since last eating or drinking, following going through labor and childbirth, and who still had a painful needle stuck in her back.

The evening food tray now passed me by. Actually, it was brought into my room, only to have me sit there and look at it since I couldn’t eat. By about 6 pm, a nurse came in and said there was a “good chance” I could still get in for the surgery that evening, so she suggested I hold out just two more hours before eating. I didn’t think I could do it, but more than anything I just wanted this tube out of my back and the whole thing over with, so I said okay, I’ll wait two more hours. If I got bumped again, I told them at 8 pm I wanted to have a whole hoard of food brought to me. Of course, the surgery didn’t happen.

At 8 pm, I had some cafeteria food delivered, plus Phil went to get me some more juice, food, and snacks from the cafeteria. He then took the kids home for the night, and I was left alone for the first time with Ella. I spent the next four hours gorging myself. At 12 midnight, I would lose eating and drinking privileges again, since I would “likely have my surgery first thing in the morning”. Though I was feeling really doubtful by this point, I dutifully stopped drinking and eating right on the dot of 12.  I felt a little sick from eating so much so quickly, after a total fast for 24 hours, but I got through the night fairly okay. (Still in pain in my back, of course, which made for an unwelcome distraction with trying to get to know my new baby.)

Morning came, and once again the food lady came by and I had to tell her I couldn’t eat. (Think they could have put a memo up somewhere so that they could stop coming by?) And this day was warming up to be a duplicate of the previous. There were lots of c-sections scheduled that morning, but I was assured they would try their best to “fit me in”. By mid-morning I was tired of playing nice, and I started demanding them give me more definite timelines. The tears also started, because boy, I really was in pain and I had just about had it with that needle. On top of everything else, since I was still hooked up, I couldn’t have that so-coveted first post-childbirth shower, so I felt really gross. And Phil had to tell our friends from church who wanted to come by to visit to wait, since we didn’t know when I would be gone to surgery, and we didn’t want them to come by just for me to be gone. It all made for such a different hospital experience this time than I had before, which always felt very much like a welcome “calm before the storm” that came with heading home with a newborn and into reality.

The lunchtime tray came and went by, and then suddenly, they had found the ability, and doing me the grand favor, of “fitting me in”. I was rushed out to surgery at about 12:30. Phil stayed with the kids. He put Ella in the nursery for awhile so he could get the other two kids lunch, and during that time she got checked out from our pediatrician, and got the PKU test done.

As I was being wheeled over to the pre-op room, I almost didn’t believe it was actually, finally, happening. We had all been told that the whole thing, including pre-op, the surgery, and post-op, would take about an hour and a half.

Laying in the pre-op/recovery room, I felt a little scared just being in that hospital setting, but mostly I was just relieved to actually have gotten there. I was so glad it would soon be over and I would get this pin out of my back. I was told that they were going to use the epidural again, but if it didn’t work, I had the option of either having a spinal epidural, or going under general anesthesia. They told me that if I went under I would have a tube down my throat, and the thought of that scared me (since the last time I saw that was when my sister had been in a coma), so I told them I wanted them to do the spinal, if needed. Up until this childbirth, I had had good experiences with epidurals, and I liked that I was awake and could feel sensation even though I didn’t feel any pain. They told me what to expect, that with the epidural I wouldn’t feel any pain, but that I’d feel pulling and tugging. Then the anesthesiologist started putting the epidural meds into my tube. I started feeling numb on my left side, but nothing on my right.  He gave me a few more shots, and then had me lay on my right side, to try to get gravity to push some of the meds to my right side. Meanwhile, they looked through my files for the consent form I had signed three months ago. It wasn’t there. I was asked, “Do you have your form?” No, I said, I signed it in the office – three months ago. So then for about 15 minutes the whole thing was put on hold, until they got a hold of my doctor’s office and had them fax over the form – the surgery would not have gone forward until they had that form in hand. Meanwhile, I just laid there, hoping my lower half would become equally numb. The form was obtained, and I was wheeled into the surgery room.

When I got there, they had me cross my arms over my chest, and I was rolled (literally, rolled) unto the operating table. The lights were so bright in there, and I started shaking. The doctors then did several tests to see how much sensation I had around my abdomen. One thing he did was touch a cold paper onto my skin, and asked me to tell him when it felt colder. It felt colder where I had the most sensation, but I could still really feel it everywhere. He told me I was giving him the “right answers” though, so I thought maybe the epidural was working. I was given another shot of the epidural into my IV. (How many WAS that now??) My arms and legs were strapped down, but I was still shaking like crazy. Then I was told that they were going to give me “something to calm my nerves”. After the shot went in, I noticed I stopped shaking right away, and then they started putting the cover in front of my head. That was the last thing I remember, until opening my eyes in a very dark recovery room. I had no idea where I was, or what had happened, or how long I had been there. Did I have the surgery? Was it stopped for some reason? And how did I end up back here? I was supposed to be awake for the whole surgery. When I was able to focus on the clock,  I discovered that it was 3:30 – not quite the hour and a half we had all been told. I had no memory of the past almost four hours.

When a nurse came by, I asked her what had happened, and she just said “everything went just fine” and I was told I had to rest there for a little bit longer, then I’d be brought back up to my room. I couldn’t keep my eyes open, so I dropped off to sleep and then a half hour later they finally came back to take me back up to my room.

I didn’t know how all this had happened, but later I found out that Phil hadn’t been told ANYTHING while I was gone for such a long time. He was up there in the room trying to keep the kids occupied, meanwhile he was just told “no news is good news” when he asked why I had been gone for four hours instead of an hour and a half.  I can’t imagine how that must have been for him.

I was glad to get back to my room, now finally without the pin in my back, and I was finally able to drink and eat! Oh the joy of grape juice!

The next day was pretty much a blur to me. I was just glad to be able to finally be able to recover from the labor and delivery, and though my tummy really hurt, it wasn’t anything like the epidural sticking in my back. 

We were scheduled to leave the hospital by noon on Friday, but I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I felt like I had just started to get my recovery time.  Everyone went on to work that day, and my sister Nan had the kids, so it was just me and Ella, and we had a quiet morning. I ate a very big breakfast, pretty much everything that was offered on the menu. We decided that I would go home after lunch. (Which then turned out to be 4:30, before they could apparently get it all together to get my discharge in order, but whatever…)

I still had no idea what had happened to me in surgery, why I was missing four hours of my life. The midwife from my doctor’s practice who came to discharge me had no idea. The notes that the doctor (whom I had never met before surgery that day) had left in my file said nothing unusual, that the surgery went without incident. But apparently it hadn’t, because I was expecting an epidural (or failing that, a spinal) but instead I had been put under. So she went to call her to find out more information. The midwife then came back and told us, that “she had to really ‘snow’ me”. So I still really don’t know what happened. Maybe the epidural was so messed up that even a spinal, put around the same area, wouldn’t have worked. Maybe when they started cutting into me I freaked out because I was still feeling too much sensation, and they had to quickly put me under. I have no idea why I had to be “snowed”.

I’m glad, overall, that I had the surgery, and it’s now healing up (though slowly – I didn’t expect it to hurt this much, I guess) and all in all, it’s over and done. But the whole incident – from being put on a waiting list for two days to be “fit in” among elective c-sections to avoid a football game, not getting food or even ice chips following delivering a baby, having to keep that needle in my back for two days, and going through an unexpected natural delivery (without any resources for pain management since I expected to have the epidural) just because the nurse didn’t believe me when I repeatedly told her the epidural wasn’t right – was just incredible with how many things possible can happen. I know lots of people have had good experiences there, and Riverside apparently delivers more babies than any other hospital in the state, but they must be TOO big if they care more about recruiting new patients instead of listening and caring for the patients already there.

The most important thing is that I now have a beautiful, sweet, adorable little baby girl safe in my arms. She is just so precious and wonderful. So many times I just stare into her eyes and I think about what an unexpected, extra little miracle that she is. Natalie somehow knew that God was going to give her a baby sister, and now here she is.

She has straight, brown hair, although it will all likely fall out, like Natalie and Ethan’s did, and she’ll be a baldy for 6 months. Her ears are just like Natalie’s, and her eyes look a lot like her too. I think her eyes might turn blue, but of course it’s hard to tell so far. She has a red line around her right eye, above her iris, but the pediatrician told me it was likely caused by the fast delivery – her eyes might have been open – but it will heal up fine. (The only other thing we need to stay aware of, is that she’s got a small skin tag next to her right ear. It’s apparently a risk factor for hearing problems, because the outer and inner ear develop at the same time. She passed her hearing test just fine, and seems to hear all of the chaos around us just fine, though they recommended I take her to an audiologist for tests every 6 months until she’s two, just to be sure.) I think her nose looks just like Ethan’s (and mine), and her mouth is a lot like Ethan’s too. She has my long fingers (and nice square nail beds) and Phil’s really long feet and toes. Like the other two kids, her torso is longer than her legs. Her head is so much smaller than Ethan’s, so she just overall seems so much smaller! She’s a pound and a half smaller than he was, but about the same size as Natalie was, but maybe because Ethan was the most recent she just seems so small!

The hospital experience this time was so overwhelmingly negative, and her birth so overwhelmingly a fast blur, but we just mostly feel so blessed that she’s here, and very healthy. We love you so much, little Ella!