Colton's Delivery Story Continued...

Here is the continuation of Colton's delivery story...

Saturday December 6th (36 weeks and 3 days): I woke up at around 1:30 in the morning and got up and went to the bathroom. I kind of felt like I may have had a contraction, but I ended up ignoring it and went back to bed. At 2:30 am I woke up, felt what I can only describe as a punch, heard a "pop" and the fluid started flowing. My water had broken. I quickly nudged my husband to wake him up and to get out of bed or he was gonna get wet. He jumped out of bed and went and got a bunch of towels to try to clean up some of the mess that was leaking onto our mattress. Somehow I needed to get out of bed, so hubby put some towels on the carpet so that I could walk into the bathroom without getting fluid on the carpet. I headed toward the shower and got in a rinsed off what I could. The problem was that every time I moved, more fluid came out! I put a pad on to catch what was leaking and got dressed. Nick had been running around getting everything else ready to head to the hospital. By the time we were leaving the house it was around 3:15 am. That was when the contractions really started.

We have an approximately 7 min drive to the hospital. In that time frame I probably had 2 contractions. While they weren't long and didn't hurt much, they were definitely there. We got to the hospital and got checked in. We were escorted to the labor and delivery room. When I was put on the monitor to check Colton's heart rate and my contractions, everything was great. My contractions were about 2-3 min apart. The nurse checked my cervix and we were dilated to 5 cm. The fluid kept on coming with every contraction. My contractions ended up doing something called coupling. I would have a contraction followed immediately by another contraction and then I would get a break. Toward the end, it seemed like they would come in threes. The nurses checked my cervix about every 2 hours. When they checked I would be dilated by about 1 cm more.

Toward 10 am I started getting the triplet contractions and getting more and more uncomfortable. I was doing everything I could to not cry out in pain. They were getting so bad. I just kept breathing through them and basically dancing with my hips to keep the pain away. Finally I was feeling the urge to push. When the doctor and nurse check my cervix I still had a little bit of of cervix left. It took probably another half hour for that to go away and I was able to start pushing. I only had to push for 20 minutes. Colton was born at 11:47. When he was born he pretty much shot out and Dr. K almost didn't catch him. He was put on my abdomen and Nick quickly cut Colton's cord and he was given to the awaiting NICU team.

Because of my career and knowledge, I had asked some of my colleagues to attend Colton's delivery. Under normal circumstances a 36 week delivery would not have required attendance by the NICU delivery team. I was extremely glad that I had asked them to attend. Colton was not breathing when he was born. He always had a good heart rate, but needed a breathing tube placed. We were able to see him before he was taken up to the NICU for further evaluation.

It was about 3pm when we were able to see him for the first time. Colton was on a warmer bed with a breathing tube that was hooked to a ventilator. He had IV's placed in his umbilical cord. And he wasn't moving. My precious baby was not in good shape. We were told that Dr. B, a geneticist, was going to be coming to look at him and to see what kind of tests she thought we needed to run. His blood count was running low and he may need a blood transfusion. Dr. B came in later Saturday night and gave a list of labs that she thought may be needed to figure out what was wrong. They were only able to draw two of them because of his low blood count. Colton had a transfusion on Saturday night. Colton did great the rest of the night.

Tomorrow I will try to get you updated through Tuesday. We have been trying to get into a routine with Colton's care and my pumping.

Colton Matthew

Colton Matthew was born on Saturday December 6, 2014 at 11:47 am at 36 weeks and 3 days. He weighed 6 pounds 11.4 ounces and was 19 1/4 inches long. Here is his story.... (be forewarned... there is some TMI information in this post).

The remainder of his prenatal and delivery story starts at my 35 week OB appointment. We had scheduled an ultrasound to check on his growth and see how he was positioned. When they did the ultrasound we noticed that the tech was spending a lot of time on his feet and measuring the amount of fluid he had around him. When we got to the other room and talked to Dr. K she was concerned. There was a possibility that Beanie had bilateral club feet. The amount of fluid surrounding him had also increased dramatically. One of the causes of increased fluid could have been my gestational diabetes. So, Dr. K wanted us to go and see Dr. H who is a specialist for moms and babies. The first appointment that we could get was for Thursday December 4th.  

Wednesday December 3rd ( 36 weeks): I woke up at 4 am and had to go to the bathroom. This was nothing new for me as I repeatedly had to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. However, this time I noticed that I had some blood when I wiped. I turned around and looked in the toilet and low and behold, there was my mucus plug! I went back to bed for the remainder of the night and got up and went to work. As the morning progressed I noticed that I was feeling pretty uncomfortable and seemed like I was having contractions. I continued to see my patients and got all my orders and notes done just in case. Yes, I am stubborn like that. I wasn't about to leave any work for anyone else.  So around 11:30 I went downstairs to Labor and Delivery. I asked one of the nurses to check my cervix to see if I was dilating at all. I was not expecting to hear what I heard. I was dilated to 3 cm and my cervix was thinned to about 70-80%. Holy crap. The last time I was checked I wasn't dilated at all. I was sent home from work for the rest of the day. The contractions continued through the afternoon but later that night they stopped. We took the opportunity to actually pack my hospital bag and Beanie's bag as well. The contractions stopped overnight.

Thursday, December 4th (36 weeks and 1 day): I was supposed to work today, but we thought it would be a good idea if I stayed home. Well, I went and ran some errands. I continued to have some contractions while we ran those errands. We went to our appointment with Dr. H at 2pm. She did another full ultrasound to check and see if there was bilaterally club feet and/or anything else we missed. She really didn't see the club feet. If they were there they were really mild. My fluid level was really high so we talked about all the thing that can go along with that. I'm not going to mention those here as there is too much to talk about. Since I was still having contractions she went ahead and checked my cervix again. I was still 3 cm. My blood pressure was high again so we actually got it checked twice while we were at Dr. H's. We thought it was just contraction related. We went home from that appointment and finished wrapping Christmas gifts and getting the house ready for the Christmas party that we were supposed to be hosting on Saturday. We went to bed around 10:30 and I hadn't had anymore contractions for the rest of the day.

Friday, December 5th ( 36 weeks and 2 days): This morning I got up at 8 am because I had some appointments that I had to go to. Nick was scheduled to work today and I told him to go a head and go as I hadn't had anymore contractions and was feeling ok. So my first appointment was with the endocrinologist for my gestational diabetes. The appointment went great. My sugars have been well controlled with just diet and my a1c actually dropped to 4.7 from 5. She was concerned that I was not giving myself enough to eat, but I told her that I really was hungry or starving myself. She basically discharged me and said that I didn't have to come back. I will get checked at 6 weeks after having Colton to see if I have diabetes, but for now I don't have to check my sugars anymore. After that appointment I went home and ate lunch and took a nap on the couch with Marley. I got up and went to my next appointment which was an OB appointment with Dr. K. At that appointment, my blood pressure continued to be elevated and I was starting to spill protein in my urine (not a good thing). I hadn't had any more contractions, but Dr, K went ahead and checked my cervix since she was going to have to be in there to check for Group Beta Strep anyway. I had progressed to 4cm and she could feel Colton's bag of water and it was really tight. She basically told me that she wasn't sure I would make it through the weekend. I left the office with lab orders for the high blood pressure and orders that I wasn't to go to work anymore. I went home and laid on the couch for a little bit. I thought we were going to have company that night so I was trying to get some stuff clean in between resting on the couch. Well it turned out that there was a huge mix up and our friends weren't coming to our house, but we were supposed to go there!  Oh well... We ended up going to their house for dinner and played a board game. While we were eating dinner (which was wonderful), I felt so sick. I ended up throwing up at their house. What I didn't know was that was supposed to trigger my mind that something was going to happen.....  I felt better the rest of the night and we got home around 11 pm and went to bed.

I am going to continue Colton's story with another post as I am getting tired and it's late.