3:10am I got up to pee. I had a contraction (faithful friend since about 18 weeks during my quiet Kegel'd walk down the hallway midway through my sleep). Climbed back into bed, thankful for Tahlia's heavy snore-y breaths on the baby monitor. And then I had another contraction. And another. And then I started praying...bargaining turned to begging, to be precise, as I watched the clock and hoped I was making things up.
3:30 I woke Kevin up. We stared at each other...both surely verifying the dates and numbers in our heads...yep, 34 6/7 weeks. NICU translation = I can't have this baby today because we'll HAVE to go to the NICU, no friendly "trial" in the well-baby nursery.
4:15 I called my midwife and got the schpeal I expected: wait for closer than 10 minutes apart for more than an hour.
4:50 I'd had 6 more contractions. I wasn't interested in waiting the whole hour.
5:05 On our way to the hospital, contracting. It was calmer than trips to the end with either Elias or Elianna. I was, in fact, annoyed. "I can't just have one more day? Just to get to 35 weeks?" - I'd forgotten everything I've learned. And simultaneously I talked through, in my head, 1) how ridiculous Sherry (midwife) was going to think I was...crazy "history of multiple losses" lady, bugging her in the middle of the night with Braxton Hicks contractions and 2) how it was good that I hadn't gotten a snack while I watched the clock, counting my belly tightening up to rock-like status, since they would certainly be taking me back for a c-section within the hour.
7:50 On our way home after a fluid bolus took my contractions from every 3 minutes to 1 every 20 minutes. Back in the car after Sherry politely gave in and told me the symptoms of uterine rupture that I had asked for despite her gentle giggle at the request. "Come on Meg...don't even go there." It would hurt...like a knife she said. Driving home, still safe, watching for cougars. ... ... ... I wouldn't have gone with "knife" exactly.
9:45 Kevin wouldn't answer his phone at work...I was annoyed again. Thankfully my mother-in-law had come to our house after getting off of work at 3 am, to stay with Tahlia. I'd slept for about an hour through the routines of a two-year-old's morning, but not through the contractions that were back and relentless despite my efforts to shower them away.
10:15 Crying on the phone to Dr. May..."I think we've probably reached our limit Megen...it's time." ..."But I don't want a NICU baby!..." I really had forgotten everything...I'd gotten awfully, ugly selfish, - presumptuous really.
10:45 Goodbyes to Tahlia and my mother-in-law...re-hellos to the triage staff...hug and more crying to Kevin who had finally answered his phone (it took him almost 8 whole minutes...8...not 58...8...I guess I knew it was over, and needed my protector, my man, "daddy", NOW) and met me in my triage room.
11:15 Dr. May took one look at me, one look at my strip, probably one look at Kevin, and affirmatively made the plan to take me back for a section immediately following the scheduled section she was about to start.
12:00 Contractions picking up...completely manageable, but pretty glad I wasn't sitting on my couch, lying in my shower, or sitting in traffic on 222.
And then the life saving began.
Jen (triage nurse): "Do you think you're gonna make it another half hour? You look a lot less comfortable than you did while Dr. May was here."
In the span of another 20 minutes...a lot happened...I don't remember it all.
~ Jen started prepping my belly.
~ I kept breathing...no longer aware of the clock or minutes or strip, just that my contractions were getting closer and that new baby seemed awfully perturbed by all the raucous.
~ And then, "I can't, um, I don't know if I can handle this...this contraction just isn't ending...it's still building....still..." It was crushing, twisting, tearing...like a contraction - with no end, no peak, no decline.
~ Kevin: "We're worried about uterine rupture. That's a risk for her. Rupture."
~ Jen "I have some people on the phone."
~ I had been off the monitor while my belly was being prepped. When Jen tried to find new baby's heart beat once she had me quickly prepped, she couldn't. Nothing. Nothing but that horrible rumbling squeak of the doppler gliding over my skin without finding a beating heart to rest on. Then, there it was. 68. 68. That's me. It must be. No, 68 is better than dead. Maybe it's baby. 68. Is it me? I checked my own pulse. It was in the 30s, maybe 40s. Baby is in the 60s. I'm in the 30s. My uterus is ruptured. This is it. Again. This is it. This is the end again.
~ I could hear Jen yelling above my own thoughts and building sobs: "We have to go. It doesn't matter. We're going whether they're there or not. We're going now."
~ Then there were 12 people in my room.
~ I was screaming my history to an on-call OB.
~ My bed was in motion. Down those hallways...all those same hallways.
~ "Dr. Eichenlaub or May. Dr. Eichenlaub or May to the OR, stat." Once again my real life was turning Hollywood on me.
~ I tried to find Kevin's eyes...I knew this meant general anesthesia...he'd miss seeing this baby be born. I'd miss it. Dead or alive, we'd both miss it.
It takes a lot for me to say this, but IT WAS BETTER THAT WAY. If only no one had had to see it... .
(I found out after the fact that Kevin had waited outside the OR...in the same isolated, lonely, quiet little chair where he'd waited while they prepped me to deliver Elianna.)
It's incredible how much you can KNOW someone by their eyes...I'd wanted Kevin's before the end began. I was graciously greeted in the OR by Dr. May's eyes - terrified. And then Charity's and Stacey's. And Lorie's (yes, Lorie...Elianna's "she cried!" nurse...dear friend...precious baby Alicia's mom). "PLEASE. PLEASE. PLEASE." I was wailing to my co-workers, my friends, my supermen - I don't know exactly what I meant, but there were no other words. Make this go away. ? Let this baby be okay. ? Stop this pain. ? Not again.?
I do distinctly remember wanting to just go to sleep...JUST PUT ME TO SLEEP! WHY IS NO ONE PUTTING ME TO SLEEP?! I knew that every second of wakefulness was an extra second of disaster, a moment of rescuing that we wouldn't get back.
And there was that final thought, that strange experience of anesthetic, knowing that -yes, I was going to sleep, but that my very next awareness would be minutes - maybe hours - away, and that the story would be told. In my very next experience of wakefulness, I would know not only if new baby was a boy or girl, a red-head or blonde, but alive or dead. And, for that matter, perhaps my next experience of "wakefulness" would be eternity. After all, my uterus was rupturing...I knew that...maybe we'd both be dead.
...
"THE LORD YOUR GOD WILL FIGHT FOR YOU. YOU NEED ONLY TO BE STILL." - Exodus 14:14
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