Garrett’s Birth Story

Lord have mercy y’all….I don’t even know where to begin.  At my 39 week appointment, my doctor gave me the go ahead to be induced.  We got to the labor and delivery wing at 5am on Monday, October 27th.  Did all the paperwork, got hooked up to the IV and started fluids, etc.  The nurse started pitocin around 6:30am which was shortly followed by the on call doctor coming in to break my water.  I got my epidural a little while after that and let me say, this time….the epidural HURT.  I was screaming and grabbing onto the nurse because it hurt so bad.  With Carter, they had given me a pain medication before the epidural and they didn’t this time so it hurt significantly more than it did last time.

So anyway, I labored for a while but then Garrett started going into distress.  His heart rate kept dropping every time I had a contraction so they rolled me on my side and put an oxygen mask on me several times throughout the day.  It helped and his rate always went back up, it just kept happening which was frustrating.  The first time they put me in the mask, I started bawling.  I was so embarrassed too because there were several people in the room with us.    My sweet pastor’s amazing wife saw that I was beginning to cry and came over to the bed and held my hand and blocked the line of sight to me so that no one would see me crying until I had a chance to get it together. 

So then something else went wrong.  The epidural stopped working on the left side of my body.  I could feel EVERYTHING.  So they called the anesthesiologist in and they gave me a different kind of medicine.  Apparently the epidural you get while laboring is different than the numbing medicine they give you if you have a csection.  They gave me the csection medicine.  About 15 minutes later my left side was numb again and all was right in the world.  I finally started progressing more since I was able to relax.  I got to 6cm shortly after getting the extra medicine. 

Well, then ANOTHER thing went wrong.  Each time they checked me, they couldn’t feel the position Garrett was in.  The entire 3rd trimester he’d been head down facing my back which is the correct position for birth.  But both the nurse and the doc was having a hard time figuring out which way he was facing.  So they had a sonogram rolled in and that’s when we found out that he was posterior.  Meaning, he was facing my front, sunnyside up.  This isn’t good.  We discussed the possibility of the doc trying to turn him, which even with an epidural is painful.  At the end of the day, my doc decided that he was pretty sure that he could deliver him even though he was sunnyside up.

At around 2pm, I got to 9cm and they started bringing in all the stuff for delivery.  All the family left the room except for Justin and my sister, Lindsey.  I wanted her to stay to take pictures.  I started pushing at almost 3 which is funny because it was pretty close to the exact time I started pushing with Carter.  I pushed until about 4:45 which was when they decided that my doctor needed to come in and use forceps to get Garrett out (a repeat of what we had to do to get Carter out too).  Oh wait, let me backup.  The epidural went out AGAIN while I was pushing and I felt absolutely everything.  I could feel Garrett’s head in my pelvis and it was the MOST painful thing I’ve ever experienced.  So the anesthesiologist came back in to give me another boost, which eventually worked again.  However at that point, I was so mentally drained and absolutely exhausted that I had no energy to push.  My doctor ended up literally putting his hands in my pelvis and pulled Garrett out.

I ended up with another 4th degree, but this time it was a tear instead of a cut.  With Carter, the doc cut me to get him out.  A cut is much easier to heal and stitch back together than a tear is.  They had to put the oxygen mask back on me at this point.  If you know my birth story with Carter (you can read it here), then you know that I lost a lot of blood and my blood pressure dropped to 65/43.  Well, same thing happened with Garrett, but worse.  I lost even more blood and my blood pressure was 55/36.  I was drifting in and out of consciousness.  I don’t remember a lot of what happened after Garrett came out.  Justin has filled me in on a few conversations that occurred. 

As if all of that wasn’t bad enough, the epidural that was boosted began kicking in REALLY well…..like too well.  I was numb all the way up to my chest.  This meant that my diaphragm was also numb which meant that even though I could breath, I didn’t feel myself breathing.  Which then led to me having anxiety seizures.  I was convulsing like I was in the movie the Exorcist.  At this point my husband and sister were FREAKED. OUT.  Justin did an amazing job of not showing me he was freaked out though.  The only thing that was able to calm me out of the seizure was Justin squeezing my hand and giving me small sips of water.  Crazy I know.  But eventually all was ok.  I was stitched up, Garrett was out and all the blood had been cleaned up.  Oh and I should mention that when he did finally come out, they wiped him off a little bit, but not all the way, and then put him on my chest.  I was crying tears of joy at that point and the first words that came out of my mouth were “oh hey baby!!!  You’re so gross”.  Everyone started laughing. 

They took Garrett from me to finish cleaning him up and to get his stats (he was 8lbs, 1oz and 20.5 inches long).  So then Justin went to go get Carter so that Carter would be the first (other than Lindsey and Justin) to see him.  He was so funny.  Seeing me in the bed made him very nervous, you could tell.  He didn’t like seeing me hooked up to monitors and stuff.  But he did say hey to baby Garrett and then he just wanted a pop tart and some M&Ms.  It was really funny to watch.  After Carter had his time, we let everyone come in to meet him.  By everyone, I mean the following:  Nana, Papa, Gigi, Pops, Anderson and Lydia (my niece and nephew), and Don and Ina (our pastor and his wife).  Most people only stayed for a short while.  Garrett was born at 5:06pm and because of the massive clean up that had to be done and the recovery that I needed, the family didn’t come in until about 6:45pm.

Everyone eventually went home and we put Garrett in the nursery for the night.  I asked for an ambien to help me sleep and it didn’t really work the first night, but it did the subsequent 2 nights.  We had several visitors the next day (Tuesday).  This was when we started noticing how GOOD of a baby Garrett was.  He was so relaxed.  He just laid there and slept essentially the entire time we were at the hospital.  We stayed again Tuesday night and again put Garrett in the nursery so that we could get some sleep.  Both me and Justin slept significantly better that night. 

I’ve noticed something about Justin this time around.  See, most men in general don’t have a clue of what they’re doing with babies until they’ve raised one.  Now that Carter is almost 3, Justin knew what he was getting himself into with another one.  His confidence level skyrocketed this time around and I’ve never seen him so involved and willing to do  basically everything while I heal.  I am so blessed to have a husband that is so truly in love with his boys.

This was on Tuesday when Carter came back to visit when there was less people and less distractions.  He got to actually talk to Garrett and spend some time with him.  He kept peeking into his crib and petting his stomach saying “it’s ok baby Garrett.  Carter’s here.”    It was the sweetest thing.

We were expecting to get discharged the next day but that didn’t pan out for us.  At about 6am, the on call doctor rounded and told me that over the past 2 days, my blood loss had been significant and that my iron level hadn’t bounced back like they thought it would.  Once your iron hits around 30 is when you start being a little bit anemic.  So you can imagine my shock when the doctor told me that  my bloodwork that morning came back and my iron was 19.  Not good at all.  She told me that I would need a blood transfusion and that they planned on doing at least 2 units of blood if not 3.  She also told me that I may not be discharged that day as expected.  Wonderful.  As if I needed anything else to go wrong!

So I started the blood transfusions.  They say that when you’re short on blood, that a blood transfusion makes you feel better almost instantly.  Well I felt no change after the 1st bag was done and was still so sleepy and weak.  They started the 2nd bag and about halfway through the transfusion, I started feeling better.  They did more bloodwork after the 2nd bag and my count came up to 26.  Still technically anemic, but so much better than 19.  They decided not to do a 3rd bag but that I needed to stay again overnight and check to make sure that number increased just a little the next day to show that it was going on a upward trend.  The next morning, I did bloodwork again and my count came back at 26.4.  Not a huge increase, but enough for the doctor to discharge me.

So Garrett and Justin and myself FINALLY got to leave the hospital around noon-ish.  Garrett was the perfect angel on the way home.  Didn’t make a peep even once.  We stopped by CVS to get a few things I needed to begin my recovery and then headed home.  My mom had Carter at her house and he was napping over there and then she was going to bring him home after that.  That was our first time to have both boys at their own home together as a family.  It felt amazing!  I’m now on day 6 of recovery and am getting better every day.  I am on pain medication still due to everything I went through and I do take it when I need it, but over the past 6 days I’ve needed it less and less, thankfully.  I’ll do a separate post on how Garrett’s first week was in a few days when I have some more time. 

In the meantime, here’s a couple of pictures I’ve taken since bringing him home:

Finally headed home from the hospital!

 

These two…

 

Carter’s obsessed y’all….not kidding!

On the left is Halloween night.  Carter dressed up as a doctor because those scrubs are the ones we got him to wear to the hospital when Garrett was born.  It says Big Brother on the back and Dr. Carter Morris on the front.  He loves the scrub hat and the face mask that came with it, though we couldn’t locate the mask before trick or treating began.  Baby Garrett was worn on my chest and wrapped in a million blankets because of how cold it was outside.  But he loved it and Carter had a BLAST trick or treating.  On the right is a picture I snapped of Garrett today (day 6) of that first sweet smile during his sleep.  Babies do this a lot and it is seriously one of my FAVORITE things about the newborn stage.

One of my LEAST favorite things about the newborn stage is the risk of jaundice.  Carter had jaundice BAD when he was a newborn.  Our pediatrician ordered him to be on this little mini-tanning bed lights for a whopping 4 days until his numbers went back to normal.  Carter HATED these lights and those first 4 days were hell on earth, let me tell you.  Garrett on the other hand, couldn’t care less.  I will go into more detail about the lights and all things Garrett in another post for another day.  But I did want to document this awful horrible labor experience before I forgot it.  Garrett was worth every second y’all.  He is so incredibly perfect and is SUCH a good baby.  I thank God for the suffering and struggles he put me through because the end result was just so amazing.

Oh and I will say this too….the night before being discharged from the hospital, my own doc came to check on me before he left for the night.  He wasn’t going to be there the next day so he wanted to say bye and to chat with us for a bit about everything.  He came and sat down in the bed beside me and asked how I was doing and all that jazz.  Then he looked at Justin and at me and said “Guys I’m not going to tell you what to do, but if we have a 3rd baby, I need you to consider having a c-section.  Marcie your pelvis just can’t handle anymore.”  Apparently my pelvis is too small to birth babies the size that I have (which is strange because 7.11 and 8.1 isn’t exactly considered big babies).  Regardless, he told us that this delivery was really bad and he doesn’t want to risk that happening again if we decide to have a 3rd baby.  I agree with him completely and agreed that a c-section would be the way to go if we do have a 3rd.  Not even contemplating that right now though.  I’m too busy enjoying the heck out of my sweet little boys :)