Tales of a Mountain Mama: 2007

Short: Mika Christine was born at 7:05 am on Tuesday, August 7th, 2007 by emergency c/s after emergency induction. She was 6lbs 12oz, 19 3/4" long.

Long: Mika's birth story starts at our weekly Dr. appointment on Monday, August 6, 2007. I was 41 weeks pregnant therefore had to have a BPP (Bio Physical Profile). It was fun seeing her on the ultrasound again, and I totally ruined the NonStress Test part of it by laughing through it (thanx Zarik and mom!). Well, when we saw our midwife after all that, she told us that we had less than 1% of amniotic fluid left* and had to have the baby now. We were definitely in shock. She said she'd start us with Cytotec and we'd go from there. I said we'd head straight to the hospital, after we grabbed a bite to eat, and she said no no no no, you can eat at the hospital. You're going straight there. So straight there we went. We had 2/3 of our hospital stuff, and sent my dad to our house (45 min away) to get the rest of it.

*After getting my hospital records, I found out the reason for all this was that there was an infection in the placenta and it had come half-way down the umbilical cord. Most likely this was why I didn't go into labor, too - my body wasn't getting the correct signals/hormones from the placenta.

We get there and head straight to our room about 3pm. I take a bath, eat, get all hooked up to all the different wires and tubes, and get my first dose of cytotec at 5pm. My dad was back with my stuff by then along with my sis and 2 bro's (Mom and Zarik were with me the whole time). We hung out until my second dose at 9 when dad and the siblings all left. Contractions started in really intense after that. Baby really didn't like that and they immediately hooked me up to fluids and started in on the "turn on your right, now on your left, sit up, lay down more" to get her heart rate stable. The contractions were right on top of each other so I asked for Demerol. That took the very edge off for 15 minutes and ended with a 12 peak contraction. An hour or so after that, after almost no break from the contractions, about 3am I finally asked for the epidural. About 4 am the funniest looking, shortest little anesthesiologist came in. I was sitting on the edge of my raised bed as he came in and remember thinking I would laugh if it didn't hurt so much. He looked at me, looked at the nurse and said "Can we lower the bed? I'm not as tall as some of my colleagues", ROFL. He did a FANTASTIC job! First time, totally numb. RIGHT after he walked out, my midwife walks in. The nurse was so cute. She looked like a deer in the headlights and said in a nervous voice "she just got an epidural". My midwife was fine with it, but it was cool seeing how much the nurses respect her and what she does. Well, after looking at baby's heart rate she decides I need an internal monitor to better get an idea of how she's doing. She "broke my water" and said "Look! I got a palm-full of water. Isn't that great?" Yeah, wonderful. I would have rather had a gush!! After watching baby for a few contractions she decides to do pitocin for a couple contractions since I was still at a 4. It was on for 1 contraction, she turned it off and said "I'm calling Dr. Baer to get his opinion. We may be looking at a c-section here." He got there, took one look at all the data, looked at us and said "You're going to have a baby in 30 minutes. How do you feel about that?" We were ready to have here here safely, and I think we'd been preparing ourselves since the original appointment for this.

In the OR they cranked up my epidural, but it wasn't fully numbing me. They threatened general anesthesia, so the anesthesiologist said "let me know if you feel any PAIN when they start cutting." Great. It was still the funny looking guy, and I still kinda wanted to laugh, but at this point I was having trouble breathing. Suddenly I turn to Zarik and ask "did they just pull her out?" He was surprised and said yes. I could feel everything, just no pain, thank God. After baby was pulled out, Zarik was looking at me, then baby, then me until I could finally say "GO!" and he went to her. They took my O2 off (I'd been on the whole time), we got a couple of pics, then I got Zarik's attention 'cause I couldn't breathe w/out the O2 and they put it on again. I had to stay in the OR an extra 10 min because the epi almost went into my lungs while Zarik carried Mika to the nursery.

I got to really meet our 6lb12oz, 19 3/4" long girl an hour later. I was still pretty numb but with Zarik and a nurse's help I was able to hold her even though I was JUST getting feeling back in my arms. It was definitely love at first sight and we didn't put her down at all (practically, lol) for about 2 weeks. We couldn't believe we were finally parents!! God is good!!