I had been given strict instructions NOT to go into labor on Monday.
Joel’s senior residents had graciously scheduled his calls earlier in the month except for Monday, since all the second years were splitting up the holiday weekend. Joel asked a couple of people to switch, but who wants to take Memorial Day, and besides that, what were the chances of me going on that day anyways, compared to any other day?
Apparently, pretty high.
We had just gotten back from the Hitz lake house (yes, we aren’t the most cautious parents, but we had timed how long it would take to get to the hospital) at 11:30, and spent the next hour unpacking and calling Verizon’s insurance to replace Joel’s droid he dropped that night. We finally went to sleep at 12:30am, and thus began my nightly ritual of waking up every hour to hour and a half. Joel went to work at around 5, so that he would “at least be done with rounds if I went into labor in the afternoon”. Well, at 6am, I woke up with the thought, “did I really just pee my pants?! I always wake up in time!” But when it kept trickling, I knew that something was probably not quite right. My first thought was “Oh, Joel is going to kill me.” My second was “So much for taking my son to the parade!” My third was “God, your timing is perfect, but this is definitely not the perfect timing for the rest of us!” So I paged my husband and when he answered, I told him that I thought my water broke. I wasn’t for sure though, hehehe. You see, I had already gone into labor when my water broke with Liam, and with Aiden, well, I was a bit nauseated- but that was about it. Still no contractions besides my stomach doing butterflies in the little space my child had left it!
After calling my mom and mother-in-law to give the heads up (and sending out the universal prayer text message to people I thought may be awake before my baby would be born), I called up Sherice who had offered to watch Liam. Joel had said he would come home and pick me up, but Sherice said, that who knows how long that could take, so she figured when she swung by to pick up Liam, she could just take me to the hospital as well. At 7am my mucous plug finally started coming out, and Sherice took me to Botsford shortly after that. I still hadn’t had all but a handful of things that I figured were contractions (Liam was posterior and all back labor), but I thought maybe once I stopped running around, they would start. Wanting to go natural, I had wanted to stay home a bit longer, but it felt good knowing Joel would be nearby, and I figured if Liam came out in 6 hours, surely it would only be a couple for Aiden!
I got checked in just after 730am. It took a little bit longer, because they had an emergency c-sec that they had been focused on. When they checked to see what was going on, they were like “oh, yah, you’ve definitely ruptured”, but “you are only a 2+”… in other words, same as my last OB appt that past Wednesday! They hooked me up to the EFM to make sure the baby was doing ok and told me that they would have the doctor check on me when she was done with the c-sec. Only after that could I get up and walk around. So I was left for probably the next hour by myself, wondering why I wasn’t having uncontrollable contractions- only a random tightness every once in a while (and half the time, I only noticed that because Aiden’s heart beat would go down for about 15-30 seconds or so). At 9am, Dr. Wickham came in and checked me… guess what? I was only dilated to a measly 3, apparently had been having contractions every 2 minutes, but they were so light, they barely made a blip on the monitor AND I was high blood pressure (I was afraid to tell them that I’ve always been low, and the hbp was probably due to the fact that I was only 3 cm dilated…). She gave me permission to walk around, but said that if something didn’t start in about an hour, it was pitocin and the routine IV for me! So laps in the OB wing I did- and I finally got my tour that I should have gotten before! Walking supposedly is supposed to trigger contractions too. Well, that whole hour, I probably had about 8, none too bad (though I did the textbook “stop and ride them out”). They sent me back to bed to check if I’d dilated, and I was STILL only a 3… so much for the walking. They then went through the whole, “we are going to have to start you on pitocin because we are on a time limit since your water broke and the risk of infection is higher… yada yada yada” speech. I asked what there time limit was. They told me 18 hours! I was not impressed and wished I hadn’t come. I told them Joel wanted to talk to them about it first, and I paged him. He said he’d be down (he didn’t come down for another half hour).
Now, I felt really kind of lonely. Looking at the clock, I could not figure out how it had already been 4 hours and no baby! Wasn’t your second labor supposed to be quicker?? And the worst part about it was that as much as I knew God was by my side, and I truly wasn’t alone, there was no one present in the room with me, and I couldn’t even text/call anyone, because out of all the areas for my cell phone to not have service in the hospital, it was the OB unit! Go figure J Thus began the “transition” period of a long mental battle. But once again, God showed His grace, love and nearness, that when I was at my lowest points, all of a sudden my phone would randomly vibrate. Even though it was in the same spot the whole entire time, every once in a great while it would get a fleeting bar of network service, enough for me to get a note here and there of encouragement from those I love (I received 3 during that hour)! These truly were a blessing and I know little miracles of love from God.
They checked back a few times, but were gracious enough to wait until Joel arrived after 1030am to discuss to the doctors about pitocin. He asked them to give me a few hours to just relax and wait, and then rushed off again when he was paged by the ER. So I was alone again! But again, God was faithful and good, and gave me a new nurse, who had been around the block long enough that she had seen the Botsford days before 90% of their patients came in wanting an epidural! She told me she was going to not just dim some of the lights, but turn them all off and let me relax and sleep some and take charge of myself… I was the final authority and don’t let any of them tell me what to do!
Soon after the lights went out, and all I could hear was hymn music and Aiden’s heartbeat, I had a contraction. A little while went by and I had another, this time a bit stronger. The third and fourth radiated around my backside a little bit. They still weren’t unbearable though, but I did have to press on my back some. I tried getting comfortable laying down, but it only seemed to intensify the pain in my back, so I got up and went to the bathroom, where I could sit down (not sure why I bypassed the rocking chair and couch, I guess I figured it was a “just in case”, a good mimic of squatting “which is supposed to open your pelvis”, and most importantly, I could detach myself from the efm, which was starting to intimidate me! I had a few contractions there when I was interrupted by a surprise phone call from my sister who somehow figured out how to get a hold of me through the Botsford phone network! It would have been great to have talked to her, but I wasn’t in the mood to stand by the corded phone and felt like I had to go to the bathroom! Well, when I ran back, I was shocked to find out that I had an urge to “bear down”. Again, I was throw off, saying to myself “oh this is not good”. Another contraction/bear down… “Oh this is really not good”. Visions of a swollen cervix and emergency intervention started flittering through my head. I ran over to the phone to have the poor operator once again page my husband, when I had another contraction, and I left the phone off the hook and ran back to the bathroom “just in case” my urges were for bowel movements- but it was becoming quite clear they weren’t. Panicking, I figured the nurses might want to know something was going on… so I got to pull that little red emergency cord :)
My nurse Cindy came in, and I was like, “umm, Cindy, my past few contractions I’ve felt the urge to push. I’ve held up but they are getting stronger.” She decided she might want to get the stuff ready just in case, said she’d head out to let the doctors know and she’d page Joel. Well, they got me back to the bed, which only made the urge worse. The first person checked me and thought I was a 10, the intern checked, thought I was just over an 8, but told me that Aiden was definitely trying his best to come out. She told me to hold off and wait, Dr. Wickham was on her way.
Well, the good news is, is my husband made it for the delivery. :)
Unfortunately, Dr. Wickham didn’t.
A healthy Aiden Josiah Virkler was born only a few contractions later at 12:41pm, with half-hearted pushing on my part, since they kept telling me to pant it out and not push. Apparently he really did want to come out; according to the intern, he had his arm up by his head… I can just picture him doing a superman move determined to come out of my birth canal! His little stunt did cause some 1st-2nd degree tears of my perineum though, as well as caused me to feel that burning sensation of crowning, something I never did with Liam (least not that I can remember!).
Since he came out so quick, Joel didn’t even have gloves on and wasn’t able to catch him, but he was able to cut the cord. Aiden weighed in at 7 lbs, 4oz. He’s 20in tall and had a APGAR of 9/9. Dr. Wickham showed up about 15min later… since I was only dilated to a 3 just two hours before (without any real consistent contractions), and all the other women in the unit were on epidurals, she figured she had time to run home and clean up her house a bit. :) Apparently, Aiden decided to fool us all- I hope this is not a trend!
So yup, that’s my long, drawn out second “not your typical” labor story. Sorry it’s long winded, I didn’t feel like writing two versions and figured my parents would want the long one!
Now I’m off to enjoy my little one, while my husband naps as we wait for my mother-in-law to bring by Liam to the hospital and we can all go home as a family of four! We are so stinkin’ blessed abundantly above all we could ever ask or think!! Thank you all for the well wishes, love and prayers- we (especially me) definitely felt them!
Don't worry. I'll post more pictures soon :)
Liam kept trying to make sure Aiden's covered hands wouldn't get in his face :) Already a watchful big brother!
My amazing l&d nurse, Cindy
