Emily Brooke Wegner’s Birth Story
On Friday, August 7th, 2009 DH and I got to the hospital at 4pm. The plan was to induce me since I was 40 weeks and 6 days pregnant. After arriving we were sent to our Labor and Delivery room. Just before changing I had DH take my last preggo picture. Then two nurses came in and got me all set up. By 4:20pm all of my initial questions were asked, my IV was in place, and all of my paperwork was signed. Then we waited for Dr. Troy to arrive to place the Cervidil (prostaglandin). We watched one of DH's favorite shows while waiting, PTI. I also talked to my best friend for a while.
Dr. Troy came in at 5:20pm and checked my cervix. I will still completely closed and Lil’bit was still high. He inserted the Cervidil (prostaglandin) which was on the end of a really long string.
At 5:30pm I was brought ‘dinner’. I had some chicken bouillon, two types of juice, and a grape popsicle. DH ate my Jell-O and drank my iced tea. At 7:15pm we had a new nurse, her name was Kristine…she would be ours until the morning, or so we thought!
At about 8:00pm I started to notice some cramping and then realized that I was having contractions about five minutes apart. They really weren’t very painful so at that point I was just acknowledging when they came. I called to talk to my Mom around 8:30pm and noticed that while talking to her the contractions were getting worse—they were difficult to talk through—but the pain was still manageable.
At 9:00pm things got ROUGH! I started having some pretty painful contractions that were about a minute to a minute and a half long and were coming right on top of one another with only about twenty seconds between them. After about 15 minutes Kristine came in because she had lost Lil’bit on the heart rate monitor because I had been sitting up to get through the contractions. I told her that I was having them, but she said they weren’t registering on the monitor. Turns out, that had been moved as well and it was not picking them up! Once she re-aligned everything she started to notice that I was indeed having contractions, pretty strong ones. She left to call Dr. Troy.
At about 9:20pm she came back in and said that Dr. Troy wanted us to remove the Cervidil as it was causing contractions that were too painful and one on top of another. After Kristine removed it, she did a cervical check and once again I was completely closed and Lil’bit was still high. At this point I was very frustrated as I was still having strong contractions but my body was not cooperating otherwise.
As soon as Kristine finished checking my cervix my water broke. She went to call the doctor to alert him of what had happened and possibly to get him to come in. It turns out that there was meconium in my water and that was concerning her.
Dr. Troy arrived around 9:50 and he also did a cervical check…again same results. He said “Let’s, talk. There is meconium in the water—which may be because you are 41 weeks, or it might be that the baby is showing some distress, your cervix is not opening, and the baby’s heart rate is no longer fluctuating like it should be (it is more leveling out). For these reasons we are going to go ahead and do a c-section and get the baby out.”
I was actually relieved when he said that. I was still having contractions that were pretty painful, but they were starting to spread themselves out, since removing the Cervidil. From that point on, things were a whirlwind. There were two other women laboring at the same time as I was, and there were only 4 nurses working that night. The anesthesiologist came in quickly (supposedly the best there is…he came highly recommended by Dr. Troy for his work) and explained that he was going to do a spinal block for me so I would be numb from the waist down.
At about 10:30pm I was being rolled into the OR and DH was getting all of his scrubs on. As soon as I got in there the anesthesiologist started working on the spinal block.
A few funny things—while I was sitting hunched over to get the spinal block the top part of my ‘gown’ kept falling off and Dr. Troy came over to pull it up for me and he said, “C’mon, Rachel…let’s try to have a little modesty!” It made me laugh. He was very comforting…although it wasn’t the spinal block that was painful (as I had thought and feared) it was the contractions instead.
Another funny thing—Dr. Troy put his hands on my shoulders and started rubbing them, because it was so cold in there and then he said, “Don’t worry Rachel, I’m not trying to get fresh with you, I’m just trying to keep you warm.” He’s such a funny guy!
A few minutes later I was being asked to lie down, and they were asking for “Dad” to come on in. Seeing DH was SUCH a relief! We sat there and talked about getting to finally meet our baby and find out what gender Lil’bit was. Then we finalized our boy name…which had been up in the air for quite a while.
The next thing I remember was Dr. Troy saying “We’re going to have a baby here in a minute!” It felt very weird to ‘feel’ the pulling and tugging, but not really feel it! Dr. Troy then said, “Okay, Dad you can take a peak now!” DH stood up and the look on his face was priceless! I felt Dr. Troy pull Lil’bit out and then he said “Okay, Dad what do we have?” I looked at DH for an answer and he was quiet for a second...turns out Lil’bit’s legs were crossed, which made it difficult for DH to tell the gender. Then DH looked down at me and said “We have a baby girl!” I said, “REALLY?!” and then I started crying!
Then DH went over to where they were cleaning Emily up and took pictures. A few minutes later he was able to hold her and he brought her over to me so I could see her! I touched her face and talked to her for a few minutes while DH sat next to me holding her. It was such a precious time! Then the nurses asked for Emily back and DH split his time between watching Emily and talking to me. They weighed Emily and got her cleaned up a little more. Then they told us that they were going to take her to the nursery to finish up and that DG could go with her. DH came and gave me a kiss and then left with our baby girl! A few minutes later I was completely stitched up and recovering in triage.
Our stay in the hospital was filled with many trials and adventures as new parents as we had Emily “room-in” with us. We really enjoyed our family time as we got to know our precious girl. Over our three day period in the hospital we had a lot of visitors including: my parents, Uncle Nathan, DH's parents, Uncle Scott, DH's regional manager (Chris) and his family, Mary Jo (my co-worker) and Pastor Ralph. We went home Monday afternoon after enjoying our free massages and our “stork” meal which included chicken cordon blue for DH and a bacon-wrapped filet for me as well as salads, baked potatoes, and cheesecake slices for dessert!
Emily was born on 8/7/09 at 10:45pm weighing 7lbs 4oz and 21in long. We love her to pieces...as if you couldn't tell!
P.S. Sorry it took me two weeks to get this written out...but I've been just a little busy!
just born...
wrapped around daddy's finger
holding Emily for the first time
so cute!
with Dr. Troy
our "stork" meal
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