It was finally induction date and even though we all wanted this to happen naturally, we were all excited and happy the day had arrived. Victor would finally make his appearance, and I would get to hold the little baby we've been waiting so long for.
I had made a solid plan of what made sense for us to be there and it looked like this. When we first arrived at the hospital to check her in, they weren't aware this was a gestational carrier birth, so it was extremely awkward as we walked in. After we got the hospital staff familiarized with our unique situation, they started her on a cervical thinning and then we left for the night. We chose to leave because for one we didn't have a room at the hospital and it would have been a lot to stay in the same room with her, especially since nothing was really happening until the next day, and secondly we had our hotel room 13 mins away and it made sense for us to give each other time and space to get ready for the big day.
It was definitely incredibly hard to sleep that night, and I remember feeling awful when I missed her messages at 3am, but in the end it was just her giving me small updates. They decided to start pitocin only after 10am since her cervix wasn't ready yet by first thing in the morning. We arrived to meet her at 11 am and that's when we stayed for every minute of this wild ride. Since I had experienced child birth before, I was extremely shocked by some choices offered by the hospital staff. The first is that she was offered the epidural at only 4cm dilated. I question this decision because in the end she was pumped to the max of pitocin and over 15 hours of epidural didn't help the situation, but I'll get to that later. Secondly is that even the methods of cervical thinning they offered and the way the staff was handling the whole birth was extremely off.
Fast forward to many contractions later and we are still only at 7cm dilated and things were moving very slow. I understand that once it became any bit painful, our GC chose to ask the anesthesiologist for more pain meds, but every time that happened it slowed down all the contractions to a halt, and then the nursing staff would pump up the pitocin to get things back going. It seemed counterproductive. For me, and with Logan, I chose an unmedicated birth via Hypnobabies. I only got the epidural when they announced I needed an emergency c-section because Logan was struggling with oxygen. Off course I respect her decision to be medicated, but I started to become worried when we spent hours at 9cm dilated and it wouldn't budge. At one point they called it 9.5, and that's when the nursing staff was worried and already could see there were some complications happening. The doctor was then called in to try practice pushing.
BEWARE...some parts are a bit gtraffic moving forward. So if it's too much skip to the last paragraph.
The doctor didn't acknowledge our GC at all. It was the most awkward interaction between a birthing doctor and a pregnant lady that I had ever heard of. The doctor was also pregnant herself, so it seemed so cold for her to be so distant in the moment she needed someone to guide her the most. The nurse on duty was also very cold mannered and it was her that kept guiding our GC to push. They attempted this for 30 mins and as she's pushing the doctor literally seemed to be ripping her cervix apart. It was awful. Rich and I sat there in agony over the whole thing, and there was nothing I could do or say in that moment to help her. After 30 minutes the doctor stops, takes her gloves off and says this isn't working and she recommends a c-section and walks out. With no other word. Our GC really didn't want a c-section, so we discussed her trying again in 30 minutes to push, but she was so medicated that her body seemed like it didn't have what it takes, at this point the nurse was the one that let her have another chance and the doctor never came back in. Our GC asked for a different position, but again with her being so heavily medicated, the nursing staff didn't feel comfortable because she had no strength in her legs at all. At this point we knew nothing was budging and the nurse said the only way was to do a c-section. Our GC again talked to me and asked for her to keep trying in one hour.
At this point it's midnight and the nurses came back in the room and had a piece of paper that said if we wanted to keep trying to push, it was against medical advice and we were signing away all liability. That was absolutely not what we wanted at all. And with all of our contracts it stated our GC had to do what was medically advised to her for the safety of the baby. The nurses came in and shut off the pitocin machine and said the babies heart rate was struggling. I then had a very tough conversation with our GC that seemed like things were wrong with the baby, and we needed to act based on medical advice. We asked the doctor to come back in, and she then for the first time in 1.5hrs said that when she was first practice pushing she saw the meconium was already showing all over her cervix and that baby was in distress and most likely already inhaled some meconium. I WAS SHOCKED. How was this the first we were hearing of this??? I couldn't believe it. We officially decided to do the c-section right away and our GC wanted me to be in the room with her.
It was an unbelievable feeling being there with her. I was so conflicted by her pain, but I knew that it would bring me the joy of holding my baby. I will not kid you on how the doctor and nursing staff were talking about the doctor's baby shower while doing the entire c-section, and our GC's cover was practically over her entire face. Having gone through this myself, this was absolutely unexcceptable treament to this situation. This might be the worst hospital I've ever been to. I held her hand and with my other hand I try to keep the sheet from being over her mouth. When Victor finally came out he wasn't breathing at all, which I know is normal, but with the risk with the meconium and heart rate, I was definitely freaked out. They had the Nicu team there who took him right away, and after what felt like a lifetime, but it was close to 2 minutes, we finally heard him cry. They continued to care for him and then after a few more minutes they were able to let me see him. I even got to cut the umbilical cord. Baby Victor Alexander born on 12/14/2023 at 1am weighing 8lbs 9oz.
The nursing staff seemed so inexperienced at this place that even when they were taking his little footprints she scraped his entire foot peeling the skin with the clipboard and when I questioned it, all she said was it will grow back. Honestly baffling. When I finally got to take him to the room so Rich could meet him it felt like we finally had achieved a bit of peace and quiet in the middle of the chaos, and our now family of four was complete. Rich and I were so happy to hold him in our arms and know that we now could keep him safe and all decisions moving forward were ours and no one else's. There is more to the story of our stay at the hospital, but I'll save that for another post. I'll also share how our GC met baby Victor and how things are going now. It did seem wild at the moment, but I'm just happy to put all of this behind us and know that that wasn't his whole birth. His birth was surrounded by so much love, support, care and efforts from all of those involved. People close to us and afar. We felt the love and appreciated every minute of it. So Thank You ❤️
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