Miles to Go Before We Sleep

Well 2012 has been a whirlwind of craziness, we were married on February 18th of this year, found out we were pregnant in April of this year, found out we were having a baby boy in August of this year, and now we have a beautiful 7 pound, 20 inch baby boy named Miles Dale on December 28th of this year.

Miles

Miles was due on December 30th, however we opted to be induced on December 26th.  There were a couple drivers behind the decision, one being concern about his size as his last sonogram on December 3rd showed him weighing in around 6 and a half pounds and the second being that in terms of getting time off work, the last week of December and first week of January worked well for that.

Leading up to the 26th we were both incredibly anxious with both excitement for and fear of the inducement, as we counted down the days Christmas came and went.  Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were both wonderful but we both had our minds on the 26th.  We both expected the 26th to be an incredibly slow day as we did not have to be at the hospital until 8pm, however we were very wrong.  The day like most started early with us both getting up around 8am and then both going our separate ways to get ready for the evening.  Callie got herself a massage and her hair braided, while Matt packed and cleaned the house.  Late in the afternoon we finally managed to catch up with each in order to eat a big lunch.  We hit up the Pasta House in Edwardsville to carbo load and then took one final trip to the store for some last minute supplies.  By the time we were back from all of that it was nearly time to leave for the hospital, giving us just enough time to double check everything, load up the car and just after 7pm we were on our way to St. Lukes.

We arrived at St. Lukes right at 8pm and were quickly assigned a very nice room (5708) in the maternity ward and were off to the races.  Callie spent the next 2 hours getting hooked up to all the crazy machines and had the first round of medicine applied (Cervidil) to soften and ready her cervix while Matt reorganized the room and settled in. The plan was then for a solid 12 hours of rest while the Cervidil went to work.  Well it turned out that rest was not really a part of the plan as the nurses were checking in nearly hourly to see how things were going and checking the baby monitor as well, which seemed to be continually slipping out of place.  As we plodded into the next morning with barely any sleep we were both highly optimistic about Miles arriving soon.

Finally the first round of medicine had been completed around 9:30am on the 27th and Callie was switched from Cervidil to Pitocin, which is designed to increase contractions now that her cervix had been softened by the Pitocin.  Also thank you to John and Kim for bringing some breakfast for Matt (Bread Co.).  As you know we are both planners, so at this point our plan was to help encourage Miles to drop and further increase contractions naturally by walking.  However, that plan fell through as the Callie and Miles monitors would not work in the hallway.  As you can see our limited planning was not quite going as expected.  In regards to the monitors, at times we had trouble with them picking up a signal with Callie laying in the bed right next to them, so that was frustrating as well.  Now being limited to the room did provide some positives as it allowed us to continue watching The League (just starting season 4) and then also start re-watching Arrested Development for the 5th or 6th time, we love that show.  This also gave Matt a chance to try the hospital cafeteria which he felt was pretty meh, not terrible, but not really good either.  Also as a general note, Callie was not allowed any food through all of this, her last meal was the lunch at Pasta House on the 26th.  By 2pm Callie had finally dilated to 1cm which started to get our hopes up further for a delivery on the 27th.  Well as the day continued no further progress was being made. Also thank you to John and Kim for brining some dinner for Matt (Potbelly).  Finally our doctor, Dr. Wagner, was able to make it over from his office and normal appointment schedule, this was just after 7pm, and check the progress.  With no additional progress having been made despite Callies rather intense contractions, still at 1cm, the decision was made to go ahead and break Callies water to speed things up. This would now combine the bodies natural process with the Pitocin to further increase the contractions and dilation.  With the water broken around 7:30pm the countdown to delivery had now officially started with the doctor and nurses saying that Callie would ready to go within the next 12 hours.  Over the next three hours the contractions increased considerably in terms of both frequency and pain.  During this time Callies pain threshold was exhausted and she was finally allowed to be given an epidural.  Around 10:30pm on the 27th Callie could finally lie down without constant pain and after 30 hours of near sleeplessness this was greatly appreciated by all.  

With the epidural now in place and the water broken everything started to speed up as expected.  Moving quickly to 2cms by midnight, 5cm by 3am, 7cms by 6am, 9cm by 7am and finally to 10cm at 8am.  Over the course of the night we continued to get very limited amounts of sleep as they checked on Callie hourly. A few of the hours were particularly non sleep-able due to the amount of activity in the room such as at 3am when they had to put in place an internal baby monitor.  With the magic number of 10 being hit the pushing could be started!  Dr. Wagner arrived around 8:30am on the 28th and we began pushing on a regular basis.  This was a very tiring, frustrating, and concerning time as every time Callie pushed Miles heart rate dropped quite a bit, thankfully it would recover but this was not a good thing.  Due to the heart rate dropping after about an hour pushing it had to be abandoned to ensure the his safety as well as Callies.  This lead to the decision to perform a C-section.  The primary drivers for this decision being that the pushing was very hard on Miles and that he was not descending which they speculated was the result of the cord being around his neck.

The decision to perform a C-section was not welcomed by either of us, but 37 hours after arriving at the hospital we were in no mood to argue and just ready to have him out.   This was a terribly nerve wracking experience for the both of us, as while c-sections are common, they are still pretty serious surgery.  Once the decision was made everything went very quickly by 10am we were in the operating room with Matt dressed in scrubs and Callie on the operation table.  With the last 38 hours wearing on us, Miles cry as he was delivered was an incredible feeling.  He had a plenty loud and continuous cry but calmed down and pinked up quickly once he was under the heat lamp.  Miles came out at 7 pounds and 20 inches and perfectly healthy, which we are both incredibly thankful for.  Callie while not overjoyed about being unable to use her ab muscles came out of the surgery just fine and is working on recovering.

With Miles here we have been kept as busy as ever.  After the C-section we had to move rooms (now 5551) since we will be staying two extra days to allow Callie additional recovery time.  A ton of family and friends have visited and a huge thank you to everyone who has visited/texted/called/emailed/facebooked/google plused to wish us congratulations.  And we have had to start adjusting to a baby in our midst at all times and needing fed every couple hours.  Thankfully we have managed to get more sleep than the previous days in the hospital, but having to wake up every few hours for feedings or vitals checking does not allow for the best sleep you have ever gotten.  Miles and Callie are both still doing very well and we are anxious to take Miles how are start adjusting to our new reality as a family.