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Thursday, May 29, 2008

Fast forward nine months...


Contractions started one evening right as Jamie was coming home from his second shift job...right around midnight. They came consistent and strong from the very beginning. They were every five minutes to the tee!

We called the dr...and just our luck...being a weekend, we got the dr. "on call". Dr. Gerard would not be delivering our baby. Boohoo!

They told us to wait till the contractions were at about every 2-3 minutes and then come to the hospital.

I think we waited till about 3am...something like that. I remember I kept telling Jamie to "Hurry up!" and he kept telling me "I can't speed!".
LOLOLOL!

We got to the hospital and we were greeted by our wonderful nurse Thelma...who told us she goes by "Tim"...ok, whatever. She was an older lady and ohhhh so sweet. I immediately told her I wanted an epidural and she assured me that "because this was my first baby, we had plenty of time".

NOT!!!

"It's time to push!", she tells me.
"I didn't get my epidural", I tell her.
"Well we don't have time now", she tells me.

You have go to be kidding me.

Eight hours of long strong intense labor...and...NO EPIDURAL.

I am the biggest wimp in the world when it comes to pain, but I can honestly say I am so incredibly proud of myself having gone through natural childbirth. She did give me some Stadol to "take the edge off"...yeah right. All that did was make the room spin...pain was STILL INTENSELY there!

During my labor, I spiked a fever. This led them to discover I was Strep B positive. Because my labor went so quickly I didn't get all of the antibiotics...so we were in for a long ordeal...

Around 8:00am Evan Brice made his arrival. He was 7 lbs 5 oz and 19 inches long.


Welcome little one!

Because I didn't get my antibiotics, Evan had to spend 12 days in the NICU at Butterworth in Grand Rapids receiving antibiotics. They also told me he was having respiratory problems and not feeding well. He lost a little weight. Trying to get information from the specialists in a nicu is next to impossible.

I always hear how so many families thank the nicu and staff for being so compassionate and caring. I never felt that. I never got close to the nurses, I never was able to speak to the drs. It was awful. Leaving your baby in the hospital after giving birth is the worst thing in the world. It is like having your insides ripped out. It is heartbreaking.

I prayed night and day for my baby Evan. I felt like I couldn't function...I couldn't live...I had to keep praying for my baby. I felt if I stopped praying I was a bad mommy. I was terrified for his life. I visited daily, I called over and over again to check in with his nurses. I was so empty...

Then came the day he was moved to the "intermediate nursery".
I was so excited! I called mom and told her, "He graduated!".


He was only there a few days. He started gaining weight, feeding well, and soon he was able to go home.

Welcome home little one!


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