Birthing Story






                                                          BIRTHING STORY

                        

                   

What a whirl wind this was. So let’s start from the beginning. This is a long one just a heads up. ...Little man was due Oct 31st... Halloween! This was exciting! We weren’t telling anyone the name yet until he was born because of a couple different reasons. But one being so we wouldn’t change our mind (because we both are so indecisive) and two so we wouldn’t have others opinions. (b/c it’s already hard enough as it is)

When we found out I was pregnant it was the same week we found out that Nick was getting reassigned to become a respiratory therapist and leaving for Texas in less than a month. So yay!! (Sarcasm) 


I ended up taking a pregnancy test because we were going to a friends house for a going away get together for Nick ...and I was thinking... we are going to probably be drinking...Heavily...aaannnd I’m late...but I’ve been late every other period so I thought for sure I was just wasting another pregnancy test..but sure enough there were two lines instead of one and I was sooo shocked!  Our prayers were answered and we were excited for this long awaited journey of ours. 


I was one of those lucky girls who had no real drastic symptoms. My mom didn’t either when she had me so I was convinced it was a girl right off the bat. Plus those were the only names we could come up with. We could not for the life of us think of boy names. If you want to see how we found out... check out my instagram here...>Baby boy!


So like I said pregnancy was going great! No morning sickness, felt a little tired but still had great energy. There was a week in a half of second trimester that I had heartburn from hell but that was about it. Oh and if I wouldn’t eat or if I held my pee for too long I would get so nauseated. Other then that everything was great. 


Well, I was working in the ER at that time and also doing my Pediatric clinical’s for Nurse Practitioner all at the beginning of COVID. So besides already being at risk b/c of the ER, COVID had to hit. Well during my Clinicals I had taken care of patient who had CMV. CMV stands for cytomegalovirus. It’s super common and most of us have had it at one point in our lives. BUT if your pregnant and get it, it could be passed to the fetus which could cause an array of problems. This was super highlighted for me only because I was learning about it and I was pregnant. CMV Info


Regardless, I was concerned. So I brought it up to my OBGYN and she said it’s HIGHLY unlikely that I transmitted it from the baby but that we could test my blood and see what it says. Let me also preface this with... CMV is still very unknown in the medical world even if I did have it there’s not much they can do until the baby is born except there are higher risk testing they can do but then I would have increased risk for miscarriage or still birth. 


So... drum roll... anticlimactic....my blood work never came back before we moved. DONT EVEN GET ME STARTED! That was a headache in itself. But I was going to be seen at an active duty clinic and I had TRICARE now which was amazing. So they tested my blood and sent me to a specialist off base. When I got to the specialist they drew my blood too. Did I mention I HATE needles?  I know a nurse who hates needles. Go figure. Anywho. One of my tests came back slightly elevated by like .001(I'll save you from the boring science)... it was nuts but regardless the doc

 had not seen that before and was concerned. He said most likely I had it at some point because of working in

 the ER but highly unlikely while I was pregnant with Coleson. 


Still, everyone was super cautious soooooo I had to have WEEKLY Ultrasound scans at the specialist and weekly NSTs (non stress tests) Read about NST's here at the OBGYN’s office. Thank god I didn’t have a job right? Geez. COVID=Hiring freeze. It’s crazy how things work out. Anyway, so I went for my first ultrasound and the ladies were super nice they were teaching so I had two ultrasound tech’s and they decided to do a Doppler. Not standard when doing my type of scan. Well they found a spike in the Doppler which typically means there could be some type of cord compression or kink in the cord. So because of that I had to have weekly dopplers too. Each week was different one week it was abnormal the next it was normal. We did a growth scan at 36 weeks and he was weighing in at about 5lbsish.  They said if I had 3 abnormal dopplers it was induction time. 


Everything was going great the Doppler turned out good he’s weighing good and I was like YAY I can go term and I don’t have to be induced! The doc was like I just want to make sure in two weeks your Doppler is good and we will 

do another growth scan. So we get to the appointment and everything is looking good until we get to the growth 

scan and the tech didn’t say much and I looked at the screen and was like SHIT. He’s still weighing 5lb’s WTF! 

So my freak out mode kicks in and I’m like Nick that’s not good....minutes later the doc comes in and is like you 

ready to have a baby today?? I’m like NO! ...I mean I am but I’m not....so here we go.


We were in Pensacola at the time and I wanted to have the baby at Eglin. One because my friend worked there and two it’s closer to our home as oppose to an hour away. So they said have some dinner, pick up your stuff, and head to the hospital. So meal of choice was of course Chik Fila and away we went.



Here comes the fun part....NOT...this is already way too long so I’ll shorten this part for you. (psych)  So we get to Eglin they explain how everything works with induction. I’ve had cytotec before for a procedure during infertility which I’ll go into detail about that in another post. But cytotec didn’t work well. There were 3 ways they could induce. 1 was with a pill on a tampon basically. 2 a pill they shove up there (cytotec), and 3 a foley balloon catheter to open up the cervix and then pitocin to get things moving along. 


So needless to say I had all 3! Little man did not want to budge. Rightfully so, we were forcing him out before he wanted to come. So the tampon thing ended up causing contractions too close together putting both me and him at risk. They pulled it out and we relaxed for a little bit. I was dilated to a 1 at the end of that. Then they wanted to do the balloon and there was absolutely NO WAY seeing as when they were checking to see how dilated I was... I would literally scream because it hurt so bad. Which I typically can handle pain but I’ve also had a ton of procedures go on down there from the past so I think that had something to do with it. So the doc suggested I get an epidural so we can try the foley. I said I’d rather not do the epidural yet because I wanted to do it as natural as possible. 


Well that didn’t last long, little man was not a happy camper in there and now that we tried to force him out he wasn’t going to play Mr. Nice guy. So we did the pill up there that dilated me to a 3. But, again, wasn’t budging. I got the epidural. Now were going to try the foley. That was interesting. I had 3 people try. They basically stick a foley inside your cervix and blow up the end of the foley which is a balloon to stretch out the cervix. Yeah didn’t work ....we had a doc come in and he had to MANUALLY do it. Oh BTW....i’m at about 24 ish hours now BUT that got me to a six. I apparently had scar tissue. 


So now we’re rolling, they got the pitocin going, we're dilating, we're contracting... epidural’s NOT working...WTH. With pitocin the contraction’s were getting stronger  because they had to up the pitocin every hour. LABOR is no joke. I was thankful I was only feeling it on one side but boy o boy it was PAINFUL. And I thought I could go all natural?? HA.  So they had maxed out my epidural and told me I should get another one. Regardless wether I had this baby natural or c-section (which was an option at this point 36 hours and no baby still) I would benefit from having another one done so it was more accurate. Oh yeah somewhere in between there they had to break my water. I forget...lol.


I’m here now with a new epidural. Still only working on one side..but the opposite side now. 🤦 BUT it was working b/c pretty much had a panic attack when my leg fell off the bed and I couldn’t lift it...we backed down on the epidural at that point. So I’m 8-9 cm dilated.. they really couldn’t tell... and they were telling me were going to have to manually...again with this manual thing...open me up more because I’m hitting the point of having increased risk of infection because my water had been broken for too long.They were giving it another hour and then we would talk c-section. I said fair enough. 1 hour later 10 cm...time to push. Welp it’s here. Time to push...that was not fun I think I tried three different positions because I wanted this baby out. 2 hours later. No freaking baby and baby was not doing well with my pushing. SO c-section time. 


I’ve told you I’m afraid of needles right? WELL I’m even MORE afraid of the operating room. Sometimes knowing a lot comes with consequences. I started freaking out. I’ve never had major surgery. Now I’m going to be pried open like a piece of meat. I’ve seen what they do and it’s horrendous don’t ever watch one if you have a weak stomach. So I’m here and Nick and I talked about this...I filled out a will and everything. My biggest fear was not really for the little guy but was for me. (Call me selfish) I would not want to leave this earth without being a mom to him and a wife to my husband. Basically I didn't want to die...I always think worse case scenario. I'm a realist. Sooo I talk a lot when I’m nervous and I pretty much talked everyone's ears off and asked a million questions wanting to know exactly what they were doing and why....they probably thought I was nuts. 


Well Nick finally was able to come in after this claustrophobic girl was strapped to the board....talk about anxiety...Nick came in and saved the day was talking to me and calming me down. Everything was fine. The epidural was working I couldn’t feel anything but just a little pressure down there but nothing too painful. Then they moved my position on the bed. Things started going down hill.  


Literally. I started feeling EVERYTHING. It wasn’t pressure this time...it was sharp and it was painful. I was telling them all of this and as I was telling them they were pushing more meds. My blood pressure sky rocketed and I was about to pass out. I went black for a minute came back and I couldn’t talk....I mean I was talking but I wasn’t sure if I was saying the right thing. My head was shaking side to side like I was rapidly saying no and My eyes were looking back and forth fast. The worst thing I heard..."i’m not sure what is going on....if it’s a seizure or what?"....Me being the medical professional I am I started freaking out even more because I knew something was wrong like really wrong and Nick kept talking to me and telling me I was ok. I kept asking him where’s the baby is he ok...Nick said did you hear that I said no...and I heard a cry. BLACK OUT. This time they put me to sleep.




I woke up, my head still shaking side to side, my speech still off, and my eyes still moving. But I could talk they said the surgery went well baby is doing great and is with dad and we are just finishing up. I went out again. Woke up I was in my room, head still shaking, but not so drastically. Speech still off but coming around, eyes still moving a lot. Nurses were doing great. They said as soon as you are better we will do skin to skin and start breastfeeding. Dad was doing skin to skin. A little while later my speech was back and I held my little son for the first time and it was amazing. 



This was by far the scariest thing that has ever happened to me... and I’ve been to war and tumbled down a hill in a car. But yet this was probably the most traumatic thing to date. I love my son, I love that he is here, and i’m so thankful I am here too. Pregnancy is scary, birthing is scary. That’s why I honestly put it off for so long. Of course not everyone is like that, some people have the easiest birth there is, me, I did not. Still to this day they weren’t really sure what happened to me. They are saying possible lidocaine toxicity because of my epidural. Who knows. For now Coleson is alive and well, I’m alive and well. And I’ve checked having a baby off my list of things to do. 


XOXO

Heather Leigh

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