The Bonner's Blog: November 2010

The next nine days were no picnic, and I met women on the antepartum floor who had been there for months. God Bless them. My days started around 6 AM with one of two awesome residents coming in to see how my night was, and if I was contracting, having headaches (hello I am the headache queen), bleeding or leaking fluid. I later joked with one of my nurses that if I was having any of those symptoms wouldn’t I call someone?! She told me I would be surprised how many don’t say anything. I would try to go back to sleep and next thing I’d know it would be 8 AM and here came breakfast. I quickly learned later not even to attempt to go back to sleep after 8 AM because soon after that I’d have my day nurse come in and do vitals and listen to the baby, then my doctor would come in and check on me, and then sometime between 9 and 11 AM I would be put on the monitor. The monitor likes to beep when it’s not plugged in and so when they move it from room to room, it beeps LOUDLY. And if the lady next door to me got put on the monitor before me then it would be a good hour before it would be my turn because her little one did not like to cooperate. The monitor is looking for contractions and if the baby is in distress, and the doctors wanted to see two accelerations of the baby’s heartbeat on the monitor in a 20 minute time period. In the mornings, Lil Bit would snooze and so I’d have to wake her up by eating or drinking something, but in the evenings when it was time to monitor again, she was wide awake. Depending on the day, I’d also have an ultrasound. After 12 PM vitals and lunch, the afternoons were pretty quiet and so I’d try to rest or cross stitch. The techs and nurses were great the whole time as they’d quietly sneak in and see if I needed anything as I wasn’t allowed to walk down to the family room to get ice or even walk around the floor. Late afternoon vitals would come and go, dinner, then shift change at 8 PM, as well as getting put on the monitor. One of my gripes the was my room was small, while the L&D and postpartum rooms were three times the size of where I was, and if someone is stuck on the antepartum floor for weeks on end why would they have such small rooms? The other gripe was the TV channels weren’t the greatest. I would of killed for Food Network as an option to watch. It didn’t help that I was in the hospital in September when no new episodes of TV shows were on. I did have my laptop, but the internet didn’t have the greatest speed, so if I tried to watch something on Netflix the picture was choppy.

Time in the hospital went about as fast as it could, and I asked each of my nurses what exactly was I going to expect when it was time to deliver. The whole process of getting induced, having the epidural, delivering, scared me to death. If I had a choice, I would of opted for a c-section because I wasn’t afraid of having surgery. Go figure. Anyway, I had one nurse who was a doula, and she was great in explaining to me exactly what to expect. That was the day before I delivered and she was also sweet to come in and tell me around 7 PM Thursday night that L&D was full and they may take me take me down later than 7 AM the next morning. She knew I was nervous, and didn’t want my nerves to go into overdrive when they didn’t come to get me when they said they would. Like I said, every nurse I had and the residents were great. The only bozo I encountered was a dietician who came to talk to me Thursday afternoon about how I lost weight in the week I had been there and wanted to talk to me about my lack of eating. She absolutely infuriated me and I asked her if she looked at my chart, and it was obvious she hadn’t. I also asked her if she would have an appetite if one day she had gone for a routine checkup, and was told she would be induced because her daughter had possible IUGR and could end up in the NICU. I don’t think she would of felt like eating much either. By the time I got done reading her the riot act, she couldn’t get out my room fast enough.

Finally Friday morning arrived, and shortly after 7 AM one of my nurses came in with a look on her face. I knew what she was going to say: L&D was still full and they had no idea when or if I would be taken down. I had made it this far what was a few more hours or a day?! About an hour later my nurse came back in clapping like a cheerleader and said they had a room ready for me. Hallelujah!

The induction started around 10:30 AM and I was already dilated to a 4. No wonder why they didn’t want me walking around! I was told I would experience cramping at first and they would up the pitocin every 30 minutes until my contractions became more regular. All I felt was some bad back pain that would tighten up and then subside every 5 minutes, and honestly I thought I was suppose to be feeling cramping in my stomach. I remember around 11:30 I was getting uncomfortable laying on my back so I moved to my side and watched Robert play some game on his iPad. I did have one pretty intense contraction that waved around to my stomach that got my attention, but I kept telling myself I can handle this, that I didn’t need the epidural yet. At Noon my doctor came in to check and see how far I had progressed and she looked at me and asked me if I wanted to have a natural childbirth (very sarcastically because I told her to write it in my chart in big black sharpie pen that I didn’t want to be in pain or throwing up my toenails) because I was at a 6. Well no wonder why I wasn’t having any fun. They paged the anesthesiologist, but unfortunately I had to wait 20 minutes for 2 bags of fluid to go in. That was the longest 20 minutes of my life. And then when Dr. Feel Good came in, he tells me I have to sit up on the edge of the bed. This was one of my fears of the labor and delivery process. I didn’t want to be sitting on the edge of the bed wailing in pain like you see on TV, and then passing out, dying and throwing up—yes in that order. Of course I was having a contraction when he came in, and I had to wait for it to pass, and of course I was contracting once I got to the edge of the bed. I told Robert to leave the room because not only am I afraid of passing out, dying and throwing up, I’m afraid he’s going to pass out. But he stayed and I remember thinking I was positive I was cutting off the circulation in his arm because I was holding his hand so tightly. Dr. Feel Good explained every little thing he was doing, and that man was fast! In no time at all I was all warm and fuzzy without a care in the world.

Now this is where I’m told I should not brag about my labor and delivery experience. When anyone would come into my room, I would ask about labor and delivery. One of those questions would be how long would it take, and they all would say I would definitely have the baby by Friday night. That was not the answer I was hoping for because they were basically telling me I would be in labor for 8-12 hours. This is all I’ll say. The induction started at 10:30 AM and Morgan was born at 2:03 PM. I really don’t remember much after I got the epidural in because I did become very shaky, which I was prepared for. My blood pressure dropped and they made me lay on my side until it was time to push. All the anxiety and fear went away except for when a hand full of people came in and my nurse asked someone to “get a table open.” I thought I was about to have an emergency c-section, and Robert actually thought the same thing. Turns out all that meant was it was time for another nurse to open up the tray for all the instruments. Before I knew it, they were placing the baby on my stomach and everyone was rejoicing. She let out one small cry and opened her eyes. She was pink. Beautiful. Perfect. I was holding a part of my soul.

Morgan Rebecca Estes Bonner was born on September 17th, 2010 at 2:03 PM weighing in at 4 pounds 8 ounces and 16 ½ inches long. It was important for me for her to have a family name. I was named after my grandfather, Harry Estes. His middle name was his grandmother’s maiden name, Rebecca Estes. While Morgan favors her father, I will sometimes see a look in her that makes me think of her great-grandfather. I suspect it is a similar look I gave my Mom which made her ask Papa if she could name me after him. And now whenever she makes a certain look, like when she’s sleeping seriously and looking exactly like Robert, or biting her bottom lip and looking like me, I try to imprint those images onto my brain.

I am so incredibly grateful that she’s a part of my life.