Birth Story by Numbers

Cash Hartman Heffernan

Born: September 18th @ 1:15am

9 lbs 12 oz

35 hours of labor

Cash is King at the Heffernan house. Since time is limited I thought I would do a quick play-by-play of the epic labor and write up an official birth story later when we have the routine down and life settles a bit.

Here is our birth story by numbers...

42 total weeks of waiting for this little one to join the world.   
1.5 weeks of extreme impatience in waiting on my part.  Cranky is an understatement.
5.9 was the fluid level on Tuesday when the ultrasound doctor encouraged induction.
8 oz of castor oil prescribed by the midwife to help induction on Wednesday.
2 hours induction massage gets mild contractions going.
1 whole roll of toilet paper used in less than 24 hours due to the castor oil. If I ever need to be "cleaned out" I will know exactly where to look. Not pretty. Not. Pretty. At. All. (Ok, I'll just tell you. I totally shit my pants one time. It would give no warning!)
1:40 pm Thursday - Midwife Heike breaks my water.
24 hour clock starts to tick to give birth at the birthing center or I must check into a hospital. "Oh we got this," I think.
3 pm - Contractions start. 
11 hours before my contractions get to 4 minutes apart.
4 am - Meet midwife at birthing center where the room welcomes me with low lights and candles. Dreamy place to give birth.

Cervix doesn't move past 7 cm for 6 hours.  Contractions slow down as my mental stamina takes a beating.
All signs point the hospital to make the 24 hour cut off. Off to the UW Nurse Midwives we go.

20 minutes of tears to Scott on the drive to Kirkland to UW not because I couldn't birth at the birthing center but because I don't know if I have it in me to go on.

  
2 hours to decide I am to mentally afraid of the pain the pitocin will bring and want an epidural. 
45 minutes it takes the anesthesiologist to get the needle right for the epidural.  
7 pokes in the back all while hunched in the epidural position and having contractions. Someone please shoot me now. Monster bruising.
4 minutes for the spinal block to kick in and make me feel like a whole new woman. Laughing returns when Lisa informs everyone that my Doppelgänger is Oprah?

  
4 pm the picotin starts. That is 25 hours of contractions w/out meds. If I am not dead from the first shot from before, please finish me off now.
30 minutes of watching my family eat the yummiest looking pizza in the labor room. Everyone was hungry and had really stuck with me through this all! I was so happy they were eating but the pizza looked really good. Hungry and really tired at this point.
8.75 hours of pumping pitocin, waiting, and readjusting those dang baby heart monitors. My team stays strong for me and keeps me positive.

12:45 am - Aimee loses it and Scott, Shannon, Meghan and David are all there to witness the breakdown. I can't go on. I am trapped in this hospital bed and the nightmare keeps getting worse. This must end or I will cut the baby out myself.
12:52 am - Nurse gets the midwife because she can obviously tell she is not dealing with a sane pregnant woman anymore. With the strength of the contractions there is no reason I should be still at 7 cm so there must be something more going on inside with the baby. She recommends c-section. Hooray! They couldn't get me on the table quick enough! I am overjoyed to see the end. The "prize" that I have been waiting for 33.5 hours. I had started to believe there that there really was never going to be an end to this.
1:00 am - They wheel me into the OR to get prepped. Scott gets his awesome OR outfit and hat on and looks sexy as ever for our new child. I am all smiles as they wash my belly for surgery. I let everyone know that Scott is the one to tell me the sex and I don't want anyone blurting it out after I've waited this long (I said it nicer than that though). The c-section epidural shakes begin.
15 minutes of baby surgery. The shortest 15 minutes of this whole experience. So easy!
Timeless moment when they told Scott he could look up and see them holding the baby and I saw his eyes light up, tear up, and watched the birth of our baby boy through his eyes.  

*** Best moment of the whole gut wrenching experience. ***

1 second before I started crying. He comes down close to my face, with tears in eyes to tell me we have a son. More tears.
1 snip of the ambilical cord.
Baby weighs in at 9 lbs 12 oz. Oh boy, oh boy! 
7 cm shaped yamika-like cone on top of Cash's head. He was trying to get out but got a little stuck. I decided he wasn't grounded anymore since it wasn't technically his fault.
2 minutes before the room gets a little intense.
10 times I hear the words blood loss, uterus not contracting, blood transfusion. Ahhh what the cuss? THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE THE END. How does this nightmare keep getting worse?
45 minutes of finding my Zen place or I am going to FREAK OUT. "Stay calm, Aimee. Stay calm." Can't look too long at Scott or I am going to lose it. Can't look at my baby because it is all I can do to stay focused on not totally breaking down. Scott loses it when he goes to tell my awesome support team that baby Heff is a boy and there is something wrong with me.
4 times I puked red jello while they were doing who knows what to my body. Might have a hard time eating jello for a while.
10 minutes of distracting my thoughts away from the idea that if something is in fact wrong with my uterus maybe it means I will never be able to have children again and someday I know I will have to deal with that grief if it were so.
90 minutes before they can get my uterus contracting again and sew me up. 
2:30 am - Cash is finally placed in my arms and I am wheeled and welcomed back with tears from my family in the labor room.

A weekend of tears as I think back on the crazy, emotional, mental, physically, and spiritually exhausting week I had waiting for and delivering Cash - the freaking cutest baby of all time.

All in all, it was the hardest condensed experience of my entire life. My blood loss was less worrisome than they initially thought. I lost a little over 1 liter which is about the same amount as a vaginal birth. After many attempts to get my tired uterus contracting again with meds, their hands, and other measures, they were able to fold it in half and tie it together with suture material and it eventually contracted by itself. Our bodies are amazing. Thank heavens for modern medicine also. They believe I will be fine to have children again which is far from my mind at this point in time {wink} but am relieved to know that all the plumbing is back in its functional positions and that is not a worry for now.

Cash is amazing. Because he is huge and his head is strong, after he feeds and I am burping him he lifts his bobble head and does this face that looks like a glow worm. It melts me every time I see it and makes it easier for me to love him when he is freaking out, crying inconsolably and can't calm down at 2am in the morning.

Parenthood indeed comes with all kinds of mixed emotions.
I have never felt love like this before.
I have never felt fear like this before.
I have never felt so blessed in my whole entire life.

More to come, friends... I have got a baby to feed.