Unexpected Arrival

What was expected to be a visit to the doctor turned out into an emergency c-section and the arrival of our son!

I had a doctor's appointment at 10:20am on Monday, February 6 in advance of our induction on Tuesday evening. There was a problem in the office and we ended up waiting almost 2 hours before seeing the doctor. At this point my blood pressure was high (wouldn't anyone's be?!) and the doctor said that I needed to go over to triage at the hospital.

This made me very frustrated - we were going to have him tomorrow and of course my blood pressure was going to be high. But, we went over to the hospital and found that they were very full. We had to wait in the waiting room for a room to be ready for us and they found one in the acute area.

Within minutes my blood pressure was going down and things were within the normal range. But, I started having contractions and in the midst of the contraction the baby's heart rate would be erratic. They had me switch sides and it would be fine but then occasionally the heart rate would go erratic again. I switched again and the same thing happened. They thought that the baby's umbilical cord was being compressed during a contraction and by moving me around that it would shift around and be okay.

My doctor was on her way to the hospital to do a scheduled C-section so she came by and said that with this issue, she did not feel comfortable letting me leave. I could either have the induction started or have a C-section. Within the time it took for the nurse to get the bag of Pitocin and use the restroom, the baby had an episode where his heart rate dropped from the 140s to 88. She called the doctor and Dr. Maikis made the decision that we'd need to go in immediately for a C-section.

They began prepping me for the anesthesia and Barry began calling people. From the time of the decision to when they wheeled me to the operating room it was about 30 minutes. Another episode had occurred in the mean time and the heart rate had dropped to 95.

Nathan Kenneth made his entrance into the world at 4:49pm on Monday, February 6, 2012. He weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces and was 20 inches long. We are so blessed!