The Story of Olivia

Born: May 12, 2010
17:01
6 lbs, 12 oz
20 inches

I woke up on Wednesday morning as Pat's alarm was getting him up for PT. My stomach felt a little crampy, but it was early and I was tired and told him, "my belly hurts" as I rolled over and went back to sleep. A little before 7:00 I woke up again and could now feel contractions lasting only about 30 seconds but about 2-4 minutes apart. I called Pat and he was pulling in the driveway. He was going to jump in the shower while I finished getting things ready, but we soon realized we needed to take off right away.

We got to the hospital and contractions stayed consistent while the nurses asked me questions and got me into a bed and hooked up to the external fetal monitors. When they came to do my exam I hadn’t made much progress but they didn’t want to send me away, because my contractions were steady and I was in pain. They swept my membranes and asked me to sip some water and nibble on some crackers. When they checked again I had progressed to 4cm so they admitted me. I must have looked like I was in a lot of pain because they didn’t even ask me to walk to a LDR room, they just wheeled me over in the bed I was already in and transferred me when we got there!

That’s when I heard the words no weakling wants to hear....”We can’t give you the epidural yet because our anesthesiologists are in the OR.” Oh goody. So they offered to get the tub ready, so I could try to get a little more comfortable while we waited. But the anesthesiologists came to my room less than 10 minutes later, so we were able to cancel the bath and they began prepping me for the epidural. After that, I was finally able to breathe! My nurse said it was good to see me smile.

My contractions were strong and steady and when they checked me again I was still at 4cm. They decided to rupture my bag of water in the hopes that it would help move things along. When the bag broke there was meconium in the fluid, and later on when more fluid was released there was meconium in there as well, so they were keeping an eye on that. They switched to an internal monitor and administered Pitocin to try to stimulate dilation, and they gave the baby a “saline bath”. The baby’s heart rate began to drop after every contraction so they came and talked to me about the possibility of a c-section. When they checked me again I still had not dilated any more than 4cm and the baby continued to have an unsteady heart rate. So they decided it was time to get me ready for the OR.

After that things moved pretty fast. They brought the anesthesiologist back in, gave Pat a pair of scrubs and rolled me away. Once in the OR they got me moved onto the table and put a screen up. When I was all ready to go they brought Pat back in and went to work. At 5:01pm Olivia Genevieve was born. And my world stopped for just a moment.

I heard them tell us “It’s a girl” and I felt a a joy run through me that I never thought possible. I was over the moon happy as I looked into my husbands eyes and waited to hear my baby girl cry. And I waited. And I waited. Sweet little baby Olivia was here with us, but she was having trouble breathing on her own. They began resuscitation procedures on her. And I waited. Almost three minutes after that little girl came into this world I heard the most beautiful sound a mother can hear...her baby crying. They put her in an incubator and took her to NICU as a precaution to monitor her breathing. I told Pat to go with her while I was cleaned up. He met me back in the LDR room to tell me that Olivia was breathing on her own and doing better already. By the time they took me to my postpartum room I had already been updated that she was awake and looking around, breathing on her own and that she probably wouldn’t have to stay overnight in the NICU. I got to see her as they wheeled me to my room and she was perfect. I made two trips to the NICU to breastfeed and by midnight that night Baby Olivia was released from NICU, and was right where she belonged, with Mommy and Daddy.