It's crazy to think that we've been in the hospital for five days now. The time has passed so quickly, and we've been anticipating so many things that the long hours of waiting haven't felt as long as they could have, but even then the time here as begun to wear on us. In between feedings, watching over Mommy while she slept, and appointments with doctors I've been "trying" to keep a consistent documentation of this experience though photos and much of this blog is more of a photo essay than anything. It's a bit long, but hopefully this will be a story worth having written down while Benjamin grows up.
Day 1: The Appointment
Back in January, Ali was put on bed rest due to a risk for Preeclampsia, and without any changes in her blood pressure for the entire month of February we knew that if Benjamin didn't come naturally before his due date that Ali would be induced. The due date came and went, Mommy took a dose of caster oil to no effect, and little Benjamin seemed pretty adamant that he was comfortable where he was, which now brings us to day 1: Monday March 9th.
Ali was scheduled to meet with the midwives again, and I went off to work a little hungover from daylight savings time. At around 9:30 Ali called me to let me know that the midwife decided it was time to "evacuate this baby", and that we were to call the hospital later that day to set up a time to get induced.
This was happening.
Even with nine months of waiting, and the pre-scheduled induction it still came as a little bit of a shock that soon I was going to be a dad. Even though there wasn't a camera readily available at the moment, here is an artistic rendition of what I looked like sitting at my desk, half-asleep from daylight savings, trying to wrap my head around it.
The rest of my shift went by very quickly and as I was walking out I shouted to my boss "Baby's coming, so I'll see you in a week". She and everyone else there smiled and wished us luck.
Coming home at around noon, I found Ali sitting on her ball painting her fingernails, and while she carefully stroked along each nail she told me about her appointment in greater detail. We were to wait until 5:30 that night, and then we were to call the hospital and see if there was an open bed. If there was we would go in and begin the process of being induced. If there wasn't we were going to have to wait a little longer.
In either scenario we had a fair amount of time to kill so we decided to spend the time saying good bye to the bump. The first thing we did was take some "farewell to the bump shots". While it was fun to have a built-shelf for last six months, we were not sad to see you go, especially when we knew we'd be trading it for someone much, much cuter.
After we were done taking pictures Ali decided that a milkshake was needed to celebrate, and so we piled into the car and drove to Arctic Circle for lunch. Needless to say we got a little bit more than a milkshake, which fit perfectly well with all of the lovely weather we were having at the time. A park was found, and with our stash of salt and sweet treats we sat down for the bump's last meal.
After lunch we returned home. I started double-checking our hospital bags while Ali called her parents to let them know that baby was going to be coming soon. Of course they were excited to hear the news and they let us know that they were on their way.
For the rest of the afternoon we simply relaxed. Ali took a nice warm bath, and I finished packing the last of the bags. Most of the essentials had already been packed by Ali, but a lot of the last minute things such as phone and camera chargers, toothbrushes, laptops, books,stuffed animals and baby blankets still needed to be packed.
When Ali's family arrived later that evening they brought with them a very cute friend for Benjamin. Meet Tino the Dino. He was hand made by Ali's friend Jessica and is probably the cutest stuffed animal I have ever seen. So of course I made sure he got included in the packing.
We called the hospital at 5:30 pm and they informed us that they wouldn't have an open bed until probably around 11pm, This, of course, meant another 5 hours of waiting, but with Ali's family there the time went by fast. At 10:30 I made an Arby's run to carb-up, and when he got back he packed everything into the car. We said goodbye to Ali's parents (they went to stay with an Aunt/Uncle for the night), and Ali and I made our way to the hospital. Even though the parking lot was fairly empty, we still were excited to pull into the parking spot marked by a stork and the words "expectant mother parking".
Mommy carried baby, and Daddy carried everything else. And up they went to their room.
Of course the necessary amount of snooping was done, as we familiarized ourselves with our little home away from home. Mommy found the cafeteria menu, and daddy got a closer look at all the doo-dads and gadgets lining the room. The nurses came in shortly after that. They were incredibly helpful in getting Ali changed, hooked up, and ready to go.
Given the late hour, we didn't expect baby would be coming before morning. After the first dose of Cytotec was administered Mommy curled up in her bed, and I curled up on my "bed" and the two of them tried to get some sleep.
Day 2: The Labor
Throughout the night the nurses would occasionally come in to administer another dose of medicine and check on mommy's progress. Mommy unfortunately didn't sleep a wink, but when I woke up in the morning I found a thousand little ticks of Benjamin's heart graphed out across the floor and fresh blankets laid out in the crib. Soon after that the cafeteria brought us some breakfast and the second shift of nurses came in to introduce themselves.
And then the waiting began. Again. Ali's labor was very slow to progress and after 3 doses of Cytotec Ali still wasn't much beyond 3cm. Luckily for us we had family to come and share in on the waiting.
At about 2 in the afternoon (14 hours after the beginning of labor was induced), Nicole, the midwife, came in to see how Ali was doing. They talked for a few minutes and they decided to switch to Pitocin(aka the Pit, which must be short for "Pit of Despair"), which is a much stronger drug apparently, and boy was it. Not much longer after that Ali began the long and painful process from a 3 to a 5. At this point everyone but Daddy and Grandma (Ali's Mom) left for the waiting room.
In the beginning lots of back rubs, and changing of position helped to hold off the most of the pain, but as the pain grew Mommy was forced to transitioned to her very luxurious bathtub. This helped ease alot of the pain, but that too only lasted a little while.
As the pain began to increase Ali's energy to cope with it began to deplete very quickly. At this point she had been awake for nearly 36 hours, and all she wanted was nap that wasn't going to be coming anytime soon thanks to the constant pain.
At about 5pm Nicole returned to see how far Ali had progressed. Looking at how much pain Ali was in, she was hopeful that the baby may be almost ready to come, but when she checked and found that Ali was only at 5cm she immediately suggested an epidural. All in the room heartily agreed with her diagnosis. Soon after that Nicholas, the anesthesiologist, came in and administered the epidural. The relief he brought was so wonderful we joked about possibly naming our baby after him.
The difference was night and day, and finally Ali was able to settle down for a well-earned nap. The sun set soon after that and the midnight oil was reignited for a second time. Those in the waiting room went home in search of more comfortable places to sleep, but a few stragglers maintained their vigil until nearly midnight. Not much can hold back a determined grand- or - great grandparent.
Nicole had hoped that we would have a baby before midnight, and so many of the hold-outs in the waiting room were just waiting to hear that Benjamin had come. Unfortunately midnight came and went and it became apparent that our little one was still quite comfortable where he was. Eventually the visitors all disappeared and Mommy and Daddy were all that remained.
Day 3: The Delivery
The night progressed quite peacefully, and when Nicole returned at roughly 5am to check on Ali we were very hopeful that Ali would be ready to push. Unfortunately that wasn't the case. Since being given the epidural, she had only progressed to a 7, and it looked like we had a lot more waiting to do. It was at this time that we were able to confirm that baby was posterior, or sunny-side-up in nurse lingo: which means that instead of facing down, he was facing up. This position is a difficult one for a vaginal birth as it is much harder for the baby to get out, as the child has to bend their head in an awkward way to get past the pelvis. It was also the cause of Mommy's extremely painful labor. Whispers of a possible need for a C-Section began to circulate around the room.
Not wanting to rush anything, Nicole decided to wait another hour to see if anything changed, but when that hour came and went with no major changes the concept of a C-Section became more than whispers. Nicole decided she would call in Dr. Cox, the OB on call that morning, to see what he throught.
While we don't have anything against having a C-Section( a birth is a birth no matter which way it happens), we had hoped to have a vaginal birth. However. after being in the hospital for 30+ hours ones wants and wishes have a way of changing. Long story short, we knew that something needed to happen soon if we wanted baby to be as healthy as possible, and whether that was a VB or a C-Section we didn't care.
Dr. Cox arrived, and while Daddy's comfort isn't really an important thing during labor, I was happy to see him. I've known Dr. Cox for years through my work, since he is an avid cyclist, and am friends with his son Ryan, and seeing a familiar face was very calming.
He checked Ali, and after a few test pushes he was happy to announce that the next time he saw her that "she would have a baby on her chest". He conferred with Nicole that no C-Section would be needed, and that baby only needed another hour or so to descend.
With that breath of fresh air everyone seemed to get their second wind. Nicole announced that she was going to run home for an hour and that she would be back shortly (unfortunately a dead battery delayed her a little bit), and we prepared for baby to come.
Grandma Manning arrived at some point during all of this, and at around 8am Nicole returned to find Ali was finally at a 9. It was time to push.
Fortunately the delivery itself was short, and by 8:45 little Benjamin was born.
When Benjamin came out he had the umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck, and for a brief moment everyone was a little worried. Nicole whipped the cord free in a flash, and immediately after that Benjamin let out a soft cry to let us know he was okay. With that little acknowledgement of life the Nurses whipped into full gear to take care of Benjamin while Nicole coached Ali through the last stages of labor and dealt with some significant hemorrhaging.
At this point my job was to follow around the baby while Grandma took care of Ali. Within minutes he was weighed, measured, and found to be incredibly adorable.
Even though he was breathing fine his skin was still fairly pale and the Nurses explained that he would need to be taken to the NICU for observation. However, they did allow Ali to hold him for a brief moment before taking him off.
While Ali recovered from the delivery I was taken to the NICU with Benjamin. The Nurses there were awesome, and they let me help take his temperature and get him settled into his crib. They also put my old baby blanket in the crib with him, which was very great for me. I've had that baby blanket folded up in my closet for years, saving it for just this occasion, and it was great to see Benjamin using it now, especially since he was going to have to stay in the NICU for 24 hours and I had to get back to Mommy.
Day 4: The NICU
After spending a full 24 hours in the NICU, it was clear that Benjamin was nearly perfect. He received lots of visits from Grandmas, Grandpas, Cousins, Aunts and Uncles and nearly all agreed that he was exceptionally cute (There's a special pride that comes from being able to show off your baby :D). However, his tests did raise a few alarms. Primarily his low blood pressure, and the fact that he was a little dehydrated caused some concern among the nurses. This led to much of day 4 being spent trying to pump some fluids into him. We hoped that maybe by the end of the day we could take him back to our room with us.
In the beginning he was maintained primarily by an IV in his head, and he was so tired from the long labor that he was content to just sleep. But every 3 hours we would stop in for feedings.
Unfortunately he was so sleepy that feeding him was hard. Every time we managed to wake him up enough to feed he would drop back off again as soon as he latched back on to mom. His lack of intake obviously affected his lack of output, and as the day began to draw to a close his lack of urine was an indication that we would have to leave him in the NICU for another night.
It was hard to watch him struggle so much, but at the same time we knew that he would pull through in the end. It's just that after so much work to get him here we just wanted to hold and cuddle him. We hoped that as time passed he would eventually get hungry, but we think that he was so lethargic that eating was just too much work for his little body. For the last couple of feedings, when he failed to drink from mom, he was passed on to Dad with a bottle, who wasn't as warm or comfy as Mommy. With some coaxing and the recitation of a few German poems we did manage to get some food into him.
That night after the last feeding we returned back to our room ready for bed.. The Nurse on call had proposed that we skip the 3 am feeding and try and get some more sleep. She promised to keep a good watch on him and feed him when the time came. Needless to say were a tired after 4 days in the hospital, and more than a little frustrated at the slow progress with everything. Before we laid down however, prayers were said, and relief came, and shortly after that Mommy and Daddy fell asleep.
Day 5: Going Home?
And so here we are. It has been 5 days since we first came here, and the hospital has told us that we will need to check out some time today. The only thing still up in the air is the question of whether or not we will get to take him home today.
So far his feedings have been much better, and Benjamin's been peeing like a champ. They've removed the IV and he's been putting on weight. His skin is a little yellow from the bruising on his head, but all signs are looking good. The Neonatalogist who has been observing him the last couple of days ordered an ultrasound of his head as a final test, and we are just waiting to hear back from the results.
So here's to some crossed fingers and silent prayers. Hopefully we'll be taking him home in the next couple of hours, because that's where he belongs.
* Just two seconds after I wrote that last sentence Dr O'Donnell and Dr. Parsons just knocked on our door and told us that he gets to come home today :D
