Friday, October 05, 2007

What led us to where we are today (part III)

The doctors decided that our baby girl's heartbeat was very strong and she wasn't showing any signs of distress, so we would be monitored over the next 3 days and would be induced the following Monday (oh- did I mention that this was a Thursday and Sunday was New Year's Day??). So off we went with a list of appointments for the next few days. Each appointment checked out fine, monitoring went well. I had a few contractions (random ones) while hooked up and most of the time the baby reacted just as expected. Then we got another change of plans. They wouldn't induce on Monday because it was a low staff day for the holiday weekend! "Just in case," they wanted an OR team on site and they wouldn't be there on Monday. So... Tuesday, January 3rd, we arrived bright and early at the hospital to be induced.They started an IV and antibiotics (because of my heart murmur) but were waiting on the doctors to start the pitocin. They decided that was the best way to induce so that they could stop it at any time if necessary.

They had us in triage this whole time but triage quickly filled so they moved me in to a birthing suite since it was guaranteed that I wasn't going home. After the move the nurses had a hard time finding the baby's heartbeat. They immediately put me on oxygen and after a minute she found the beat again. A few minutes later Mike poked his head out the door after I'd adjusted positions and said the monitors were beeping again. The nurse ran in and when she did find the heartbeat it was 70. A normal infant heartbeat is around 130 or so. This time both of the OB's in my practice stood over my bed and started at the chart, stared at me, and it happened again. No movement on my part, and no heartbeat on hers.With this new development we were VERY glad that the pitocin hadn't been started and the wait for Tuesday became a huge blessing. 15 minutes later I heard our new daughter's first little 'mews' as she was born via emergency c-section. At 5lbs and 2 oz (Kristopher had been a whopping 7 lbs, 1 oz and we thought HE was tiny!) and only 18" long she was quite a peanut! We bonded instantly with our Brianna Elizabeth, she checked out wonderfully from the doctors and after only 48 hours in the hospital we were able to take our 4 lb, 14 oz tiny baby girl home!

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