Maverick Michael

I’ve tried to sit down and write this I don’t know how many times, I just haven’t figured out the right words.

With the way our journey has been I shouldn’t have been surprised that the birth of our little man wasn’t exactly the way we would have planned it, but if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s to trust God’s plan and leave it all up to him.

On April 28th we walked into our 37 week appointment. Our bags were packed and in the car just in case my blood pressure was high, but neither of us expected to need them.

Our appointment started with a biophysical profile sonogram. During this sonogram we learned that baby boy hadn’t made enough big movements during the 30 min sonogram and didn’t practice breathe for 30 seconds. Neither of these seemed of concern to us because his heart rate looked great and I had been feeling him move all morning.

When we saw the doctor my blood pressure looked great so we both assumed we’d be sent home and wait until our appointment the following week. However, the doctor informed us that since baby boy didn’t pass 2 of the 4 tests during the sonogram she wanted to send us to labor and delivery while my blood pressure looked good instead of waiting until my blood pressure was high and he wasn’t passing the tests.

We were taken to labor and delivery and hooked up to monitors for baby and I both and told they were just going to monitor how we were doing then the doctor would make a plan on how to move forward. Once hooked up to the monitors baby boy started moving around like crazy and my blood pressure started creeping back up.

Since I was only dilated to 1cm the doctor decided to start me with Cervidil (a 12 hour medicine) at 6 pm to see if we made any progress with it before deciding on the next step.

At 6 am on Saturday they came back in to check me and I was only at 1.5cm dilated. Since my BP was starting to climb back up the doctor wanted to try a different medication to see if we could make more progress before starting the Pitocin. We started the Cytotec (a 3 hour medicine) around 8:30 Saturday morning to see if we made any more progress. After the 3 hour mark with it I hadn’t dilated anymore, but I was more effaced so the doctor decided it was time to start low dose Pitocin at 12:30 pm Saturday.

After being on the Pitocin drip for a few hours my IV infiltrated and my arm swelled up from it no longer being pumped into my vein. The nurse came in and started a new IV but as soon as she went to check it, it infiltrated as well. At this point she called for IV therapy to come up and place the IVs. They placed one in each arm just in case it happened again and they weren’t there to come back up to the room.

At 4:30 we finally got the Pitocin going again, but because it had been stopped we had to start back over at 1 unit and work our way up to 8 units (we had been at 6 units when we had to stop it).

At 6:40 pm Saturday my water broke and we had hoped that would get labor moving along quicker.

9:20 we ordered the epidural. At that point I was still only dilated to a 2 with minute long contractions that were coming every couple minutes. The nurse had told me that if we did the epidural it was likely that my body would finally relax and I would see quicker progress. They told us that they would page the anesthesiologist and he had 30 minutes to get there from the page.

By 10:45 I was dilated to 3.5 cm and the epidural was finally in. Unfortunately as soon as they had me lay flat to let the epidural settle I was nauseous and started getting sick, they pushed IV zofran which helped.

At this point I was able to sleep a little bit between the nurses coming in to move the monitors around. I don’t remember what time it was but the nurse came in and explained we were going to try getting me into a different position because baby boy was having late decels. After trying multiple positions and pushing more fluids the decels weren’t going away, and they were having difficulty seeing my contractions on the monitors to know if they were early or late decels.

Around 2:00 the nurse came in and said they were paging the OB to have her come in and see what her opinion was since the decels weren’t improving. At this point I knew in my gut we were going to be headed for a C section.

When the doctor came in and checked me I was dilated to 6 cm, unfortunately she said that because this is my first baby it could potentially take another 4 hours to reach 10 cm and she didn’t think baby would be strong enough if we waited until then so she was recommending a C section.

At this point everything moved at lightning speed, but also in slow motion. We called both sets of parents and let them know what was going on. They brought in the gown for my husband to wear and started prepping me. They wheeled me back to the OR and told my husband where to wait until they were ready for him to come into the room.

They helped me move from the hospital bed to the C section table and started getting me prepped and draped. The anesthesiologist told me he was going to top off my epidural to make sure I was numb, which caused me to get sick again.

As I was laying there I remember not being able to keep my eyes open. I thought it was from the lights above me or from the fact that it was approaching 3 am and I hadn’t slept much since being there Friday. They brought my husband in and I remember him and the anesthesiologist telling me over and over to keep my eyes open and keep talking. At one point I saw on the monitor behind my husband’s head that my blood pressure was 94/44 and I knew I couldn’t let my eyes close.

At 3:26 am we heard baby boys first cry. In the moment everything we had gone through was worth it. They checked him out and handed him to my husband who held him next to me as they closed me up.

Around 5:30 am we got back to the recovery room where we would stay for an hour to continue to monitor me and baby before we were taken to our room for the rest of our stay.

Our journey may not have been according to our plan, but it was the way God planned it. Even when they were telling me about baby boys heart rate dropping with each contraction and seeing it happen on the monitor I knew that God was hearing my prayers and I just need to keep trusting him. If this all would have happened a year ago and you told me to trust His plan I don’t think I would have been able to. I would have feared the worst and doubted God’s plan for us, but after everything we have been through trusting God is the only thing I know to do at this point because His path for us never ceases to amaze me.

Even with all the ups and downs that came with labor and delivery, our boy is healthy and is making fantastic gains already. He may have been born 3 weeks early but you wouldn’t be able to tell based on where he is already.