I'm an Auntie Again...

I'm exceptionally tired. Greg called at seven thirty yesterday morning to let me know that Trisha had dialated to four centimetres during the night and that they were putting her back on the drip at eight thirty am. In a rush I got dressed and headed down to the hospital. By the time I got there, another woman in full labour had come in eight centimetres dialated and they had turned Trisha's drip off. We visited, paced and waited and finally at two pm the doctor came and put Trisha back on the oxytocin. By five pm Trisha was five centimetres and the doctor felt that she was progressing well and that she should be ready to push by ten pm if all went well. As Trisha's contractions grew stronger and more productive, I rubbed her back and hips with massage oil as Greg counted with her and reminded her to breathe through the contractions. I was absolutely amazed as she was so focused and quiet. By six o'clock she had dialated another centimetre and was in more pain so she was offered the gas to help her through the contractions. It was remarkable to me that she had come this far with no pain relief with her contractions coming fast and furious in pairs every two minutes. By eight o'clock Trisha was eight centimetres dialated and the pain was getting too much so she opted for the epidural. Unfortunately the medication never took perfectly the first time and within twenty minutes she had to have a second dose. After her epidural was working, the nurses suggested that Greg and Trisha get some rest before she had to start pushing so I took the opportunity to grab a tea and read a bit of a book in the waiting room. At ten pm when I hadn't seen either Greg or Trisha's mother Sue, I headed back to the birthing room and walked in to the doctor examining her. At this point he decided she was ready to push so I ran to find Greg and get back as soon as possible.

Trisha started pushing at ten o'clock. By eleven, the doctor realized the baby was still not in the correct position and that Trisha was going to need some assistance. He discussed a forceps delivery with her and told her it would depend on the baby descending further down the birth canal and let her know he had also called the ob/gyn to examine her. Within minutes, I knew something very serious was happening as the ob/gyn began to examine her. He asked for a scalp clip to monitor the baby's heartrate and asked for the ultrasound machine to be sent in. When he inserted his fingers to check the baby's position, he asked when the last time Trisha's temperature had been taken and after checking her temperature informed her she had developed some infection around the baby and that baby was in distress. At that point he told her that there was no way the baby could be born vaginally because she was stuck on Trisha's pubic bone because of the way the baby's head was facing. Within seconds, Trisha was being prepped for an emergency caesarean, thankfully she already had the epidural in place or it would have been under general anesthesia. I can't describe how worried and emotional I was at that point. Trisha was exhausted and bitterly disappointed that after all she had done to birth the baby that it had come to this. However, by this time and with the worry of the baby being under distress, the birth took a back seat to the safety of mother and child. As she was wheeled down the hall to the operating room I began to shake and realized just how worried and upset I was for my beautiful sister in law. It felt like it had been such an emotional journey already. At one point during her contractions, I had joked about how I would have to get my newborn baby fix from her children, Trisha began to cry. She told me she missed Calvin and how sorry she was that my beautiful baby had died and that I wouldn't be having any more babies. Thankfully her back was to me at the time because I was massaging her so that she didn't see the tears that I just couldn't stop running down my face. And now I was scared for her and the baby. I felt so helpless going from being part of the experience to having to wait for her to come out of surgery. We had been told that her section would only take about twenty minutes because she was already catheterized, shaved and the epidural was in place. The time seemed to drag as me and the rest of the family sat in the waiting room. When an hour had passed and still no sign of Trisha or baby I was becoming more and more fearful. Finally, Greg and the nurses came rushing down to the nursery with the baby, a beautiful pink baby girl they named Alayna Nadine. As Alayna was getting checked, poked, weighed and put into the system, Greg explained that the spinal did not go well the first time at which point they had given Trisha a local anesthetic as well. The local, the spinal and the medication she had already received in the epidural froze her well past her chest and as Trisha had a sip of water in the recovery room after her surgery she choked and couldn't cough. For those reasons, the birth had taken a majorly long time and Trisha stayed in recovery until three am. When she was out and brought back to her room, I told her I loved her but had to go. I was and am so tired still from all the emotional stress. I am beyond happy for my brother and sister in law and so proud of them for handling their birth experience so calmly after all they ended up facing, realizing that in the end, the birth is just a means to an end and all that matters is that their beautiful baby girl was born alive and well. Thanks so much for all your well wishes, prayers and kind words, they were truly appreciated.