While his due date was 2/17/03, Stephen
made a surprise entrance on 01/02/03 7
weeks early. After feeling absolutely
fine for weeks with no symptoms of
anything whatsoever my water
unexpectedly broke at 1:00 am. I went to
the hospital and they tried to slow down
my labor with Magnesium Sulfate so that
the steroid shot for his lungs had time
to work, but I still only ended up
getting one shot out of the two because
I was still having contractions. At
11:30 am they airlifted me out of my
community hospital to one in the city
that had a NICU and my husband had to
follow me by car. He also had to stop at
home to pick up clothes for himself to
sleep in and socks for me since we had
yet to pack anything. As it was we
ended up in the same clothes for 3 days
and the Hospital provided everything
else we needed.
When I arrived they kept talking about
an emergency c-section because his heart
rate kept dropping below 70. I kept
saying, "My husband isn't here, he's on
his way," because I wanted one of us to
be there awake when Stephen arrived so
that he could be held. I didn't want
him to be alone. But luckily my husband
got there and Stephen's heart rate
stabilized around 2 pm. At 8 o'clock his
heart-rate dropped below 70 again and
they rushed in and checked me and I was
10 cm dialated and started to push. I
pushed for 1 1/2 hours but it didn't
hurt because I'd only had my epidural at
5:30. They didn't check my dialation
throughout the day because my water had
broken early and they didn't want to
induce an infection, so who knows how
far along I was when I got the epidural.
Either way I couldn't feel anything or
move anything below the waist so my
nurse would tell me when each contration
started and when to push. Because I was
progressing slowly people kept coming
and going from the room and at one point
all the nurses and doctors left. I had
told my husband he could stay by my head
if he didn't want to see a lot of blood
but when everyone left I was worried
about Stephen coming out with no one
there to catch him. So even though
nothing was going to happen imminently
(which is hard to tell from my
viewpoint), my husband granted my
request to stand at the end of the bed
in case Stephen came shooting out.
Finally, with 3 doctors, 1 delivery
nurse, and 2 NICU nurses in attendence,
Stephen was born at 9:29 pm. He weighed
4 lbs 10 ozs and was 18.5 inches long.
He came out with a lusty cry so I knew
his lungs were OK. The nurses let my
husband and I hold him before they
wisked him away to the NICU. Then my
husband and my parents went to visit
Stephen in the NICU while they delivered
my placenta and stiched me up. I pushed
for 45 minutes trying to deliver the
placenta before they decided that it was
firmly attached in one corner and they
had to remove it maually - this took so
long that my husband and my parents were
lucky enough to come in to talk to me
while I was being stiched up (from my 3
degree tear). I finally got wheeled in
to see Stephen in the NICU after my
epidural wore off at 1:00 am. So 24
hours later I got to see my baby!
Stephen stayed in the NICU for 15 days,
and my husband and I were always there
(with many other family visitors, of
course!) He finally came home on
01/17/03 - exactly one month before his
due date. Welcome home, Stephen!!
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