Brewer's Birth Story

I've been struggling with writing this post, partially because it takes time, (which I have very little of except when nursing and you can't really type then), and partially because there's no way to put the past 8 weeks into words.

So, I thought I'd start with Brewer's birth story.

We went in to be induced on Monday, February 28, 2011, at 3pm.



I anticipated things would be pretty low-key for most of the evening, but my family had different ideas. My grandparents, parents and Brian's parents showed up about 2 hrs. after we got to the hospital, and the madness ensued. (Truly, we were happy to have people there- sitting alone would have been really boring and allowed me to concentrate on what was happening way too much.)



At 7pm, a new nurse came on duty who would end up being a huge blessing. Around 9pm, she came in to put me on some oxygen. This took us by surprise, and all she said was "This is just to make sure that I don't worry." Okay.... This led into a night of craziness.



Basically, Brewer's heartrate would drop with contractions. I had been on a very low dose of pitocin, but when the contractions were hurting his heart rate, they would turn it off for an hour or so, and then turn it back on after awhile. Then they would have to turn it off again, and so on...

At 6am, my midwife came in and broke my water. I progressed for a few hours but Brewer continued to do pretty poorly. My midwife came back in around 11am or so (I was at about 9 cm), and was concerned about letting me continue much longer. She said we had no idea how long it would take me to progress since I've never labored before, so she wasn't comfortable letting me continue, so she would give me 5 contractions to see if Brewer's heartrate would stabilize. As she was saying this, I had a contraction and she said I failed....

The second contraction went fine, and the third contraction was so bad that we didn't get a 4th or 5th. To determine how Brewer would handle pushing (to see if there was any reason to not move forward with a c-section immediately) she had me push with the next contraction.

I made some good progress with the contraction, but Brewer's heartrate was not improving. My midwife decided that she would let me continue to push for a little longer, but that we needed to move to the OR immediately so that if we needed to get Brewer out fast, we would be ready.

Within 2 minutes of her telling me this, a team was wheeling me into the OR and a nurse was throwing scrubs at Brian. (I later found out that some of you received a text at this time saying "OR now- pray!" from Brian. In fact, one of our great friends, Eric Stout, got this text in a meeting and actually ran out of the meeting so he could pray for us. Let me tell you, God heard EVERY prayer!)

In the OR, I was moved to a skinny table with no place for my arms or stirrups. There were at least 20 people in the OR with all of the docs, anesthesiologists, nurses, nursery docs and NICU docs, just in case Brewer needed extra help. Since I was having to wait for my own contractions without pitocin for help, the contractions were only every 5 minutes or so. Typically, you lose some progress between pushing with contractions and waiting for the next contraction. Somehow, I didn't lose any ground during these really long waits. I could see the other OB standing at my feet with a scalpel, ready to cut Brewer out of me. And I pushed. And somehow, out he came!



The cord was wrapped around his neck twice, and Brian got to see the whole thing up close and personal since everything happened so fast.

Brewer was perfectly fine, and no NICU assistance was needed. I tore a little and required a tiny episiotomy since I was only at a 9 when I started pushing.

When I saw him for the first time, I told him that his lips were huge and he had zits... Loving first words from a mother to her son... ;-)

He was/ is precious and wonderful, and I couldn't love him more. I can't believe 2 months have gone by!