not about running

Since my disappointing-but-I'm-not-motivated-enough-to-care performance in the Daisy 5K, I've managed to go running once. I could feel myself getting sick all day at work, so I skipped Wilke the following Tuesday. On Thursday, I couldn't tell if I was getting better or worse, but it was a beautiful day and my legs needed the exercise, so I jogged out to the track and ran some easy 1000s. I managed to keep myself from needing to breathe heavily, and but got a little bit of a workout --- it was great!

Duane mentioned that he liked the running content of my blog, but that he skips any mention of Obama or Arsenal. Fair enough. I figure since reading this is a volunteer endeavor and you know you're only reading it because you're so bored at work, I can write what I want. But I can at least warn you that the rest of this entry will not contain any running content.

After the workout, I got home and started watching "Lost" when Meghal called and said she was coming home because she "felt something leaking". Wait --- what does that mean? "I don't know," she said.

So Meghal gets home and calls Felicia, her OB who happened to be on call. Basically, she said her water may have broken, but in a very half hearted way. She was instructed to lay down and see if there was anything else coming out and to call back with her observations. The waiting and further discussions were still inconclusive, so we were instructed to come on down to Seton Hospital and get to the bottom of this mystery.

We got there and were ushered into one of the L&D rooms. I had heard from Meghal (and other friends of hers in the medical field) that the rooms at Seton were not nice (they're currently in the middle of a big renovation), but this room was quite nice. Very roomy, hardwood floors, a comfy looking couch-bed-like contraption. If we were going to have to stay, I could live with these accomodations. But we were pretty sure we were not going to stay. Felicia would do her tests, and then we would go home rattled by the thought that we almost became parents. "Whew!" we would think to ourselves, "that was close."

There are 3 tests that are performed to determine if the amniotic fluid is leaking. Please don't ask me how any of these work. The first is a pooling test --- negative. Next up was a pH test. Um, we're out of litmus paper, the nurse told us. Well freaking find some, Felicia sternly replied. We were comforted by her bad-ass-ness. Finally the pH test was performed --- negative. At this point M was getting dressed to go home while Felicia checked a sample under the microscope to look for ferning. (I found a description of the test here. Warning: the word vagina is used a lot.) Sooner than expected, in marches Felicia announcing that we're staying because it is indeed amniotic fluid. I'm not exactly sure what the point of the first two tests is if you're going to overrule their results with the last one. Why not just do the last one?

Anyway, at this point our decision to leave Meghal's bag of clothes and toiletries is looking like a bad choice. At the time our thinking was that we didn't want to have to unpack the car when we got home. Genius, right?

So I head back out to the car to run home and bump into Chris Rains who is headed back to work in the pharmacy. Looking pretty sporty in that gazelle gear, Chris! So quite by chance, Chris becomes the first person I tell that el beskrownito's arrival is now imminent.

I run home and grab everything, including a pillow and blanket for myself since I'm told I might want to get some sleep. Yeah, right. M wasn't very dilated or having contractions, so they had started her on pitocin almost immediately. It was just after 11PM at this point, and they hoped to deliver the baby around 8 or 9AM.

While I'm at home, I text my brother. Don't ask me why I don't just call, but I'm too freaked out to talk. Texting is easier. I finally pack as much comfort clothes for M as I can (cozy socks and slippers, etc) and her laptop (they have wireless at Seton) and 3 different cameras, and head back.

When I get there, M is starting to feel her contractions, but she hadn't requested her epidural yet because once she does, she's stuck in bed for a good long while. I can't remember what we sat and talked about, but after an hour or so, she makes her move for the drugs. In comes the anesthesiologist, a little bleary-eyed, but in good spirits. I never really knew what numbing half of the body entailed, but I kind of figured they just gave you a shot. It's a little more complicated than that. I think it took 30 minutes for the anesthesiologist to get her set up. The end result is an IV dripping fentanyl directly into her spine. (In case you didn't click on that wikipedia link, fentanyl is 80 times more potent than morphine.)

Shortly after this, Meghal realizes she's really comfortable. It's late now... maybe 3AM or later, so she decides to take a nap. I pull out the bed but mostly just sit there, fidget and stare at the monitors.

A side story to all of this is that Meghal's parents were kind of stuck in San Antonio because her grandmother (who her parents take care of) was injured and Meghal's mom had to stay to take care of her. There were lots of phone calls over the course of the night, but the final plan was that her mom would drive up the next day. While we didn't want them to make a big fuss, but Meghal was a little sad that her mom couldn't be there with her.

The hours literally crawl by. Meghal naps. I stare at the ceiling. The nurses come by occasionally and turn on the lights, do their thing and turn the lights back off on their way out. I nod off for maybe an hour at the most around 5 or 5:30, but am awake the rest of the time.

Once Meghal is up at around 8, she seems pretty chipper. Being a doctor and having delivered babies, she's pretty familiar with how everything will go. I only know the rudiments. I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong, like the recent story of a friend of ours who almost bled out when she delivered her baby.

It took a while, but at 10:15, she's finally ready to start pushing. It's kind of weird how casual all of this is. I'm thinking of the Hollywood-image of the angry mother-to-be screaming in agony. With an epidural, it's decidedly different. With each contraction, they'll do 3-4 pushes, and then look at the monitors and make sure the fetal heart rate looks OK. If there are abnormalities that concern them, they'll reposition the mom (by turning her on her side, for example) to put less stress on the baby. To me, this adds a little a tension. But to Meghal, Felicia and M's nurses Rachel and Brittany (who were awesome, by the way), it's no big woop. Anyway, no one is screaming.

So Meghal is going through this process of pushing between every minute and a half to two minutes and, in between, she and the nurses just chat about whatever. Meghal wants to hear about the most outrageous birth plans that patients have brought in, and the nurses want to hear about crazy ER stories. So they laugh and casually talk about stuff that would make most people grimace, then every two minutes get down to business, and then return to the conversation they were having before being interrupted.

M makes a ton of progress very quickly. The baby's head is visible, and you get the impression that they all expect things to go smoothly based on how things are developing. This makes me happy.

About an hour into the pushing, something surprising happens, Meghal's mom shows up. Hooray! That makes M happy, and it makes me happy as well.

Unfortunately, the pushing drags on. It seems that after the first hour and a half, not so much progress has been made. M is still fine, and the baby is still fine, but after 3 hours, it definitely seems like everyone's getting tired. Felicia and Meghal discuss the options. Felicia doesn't think she can vacuum the baby out, but she thinks forceps are a possibility. This doesn't bother me since I've read about what a great tool forceps are in the right hands. M has apparently seen some bad forceps deliveries. (There was a time when forceps revolutionized child birth, but it's become something of a dying art since it's a finesse skill and can be difficult to teach. It doesn't help that OBs are one of malpractice lawyers' favorite targets. Anyway, some residencies apparently don't even teach this technique any more so many doctors are forced to go straight to a C-section. I feel like it should offer the disclaimer that I am no expert on the field of obstetrics and that this is what I've picked up from listening on a few conversations and reading a few articles and I could be totally misrepresenting the facts.)

Felicia assures Meghal that she feels comfortable with forceps, and that since the baby is right there, she thinks it's good option. M trusts Felicia so she says "let's do it." Felicia also explains that if, for some reason she fails with the forceps, they'll have to move to a C-section and they'll have to move pretty quickly.

The only people in the room are still the two labor and delivery nurses, Felicia, Meghal, me and M's mom. I didn't notice anybody say anything to anyone about rounding up the troops, but out of nowhere, another 7 people come into the room. They don't huddle up or anything, they just immediately start setting things up: Felicia is gowned up, M is draped, someone is setting up the C-section cart, someone else brings the forceps, another nurse is prepping the baby receiving cart, etc. The hubbub seriously rattles me. A minute ago it was all light-hearted banter, and now, it's business time.

I'm not going to go into the gory details here, but highlights of the next couple of minutes are this: forceps look like giant salad tongs, Felicia has to pull harder than I would have expected but successfully pulls the baby part way out, and then Meghal pushes him out the rest of the way. Voila! Baby!

They lift up the baby and his head and arms limply fall to the side. I totally gasp and feel all the blood drain from my body, which is stupid in retrospect because everyone knows that babies can't hold their own heads up. Anyway, el beskrownito is fine. He's crying within seconds. They wrap him with a towel, plop him on Meghal's chest and he immediately starts pooping. I feel a little overwhelmed.

Apparently M is going to need a few sutures, so I stay with her while the baby is taken over to the receiving table and cleaned and checked over, etc. M's mom goes over there though is the first to hold him. She looks so happy. We're so happy. And relieved. It's been a tense 15+ hours since we arrived the night before.

I could go on about the week that's passed since then, but I don't think it would be all that interesting. It's lots of sleep deprivation, diaper changing and feeding. And a lot of learning on our part.

Oh yeah, in case you like sappy baby photos.

By the way, el beskrownito is formally known as Avi Mehta Beskrowni. (If you think it would be funny to make a joke related to his name and Windows file formats, um, it's been done.)