The following day (Monday, the 3rd), I got up early again to get back to my wife. On the way to the hospital, I stopped by McDonald's to pick up breakfast for the two of us. When I got there, Tary's roommate was still asleep, though not for long. She eventually got discharged a few hours later.
As for Tary, not much had changed from the night before. There were more countless trips to the bathroom and no stones could be found anywhere...
I brought my laptop in hopes that I could somehow keep my mind distracted. I connected my laptop to the Ethernet port on the wall but I could not get online. I tried borrowing another Ethernet cable from one of the nurses. No luck. I tried fiddling with various settings but I knew deep down, there was something wrong with the Internet connection in the room and I was just wasting my time. I tried working offline but it was fruitless. Who was I kidding? How can I get any work done when my wife is suffering a few feet from me?
So I took up my post again alongside Tary and helped her shuttle back and forth to the bathroom. Later in the morning, things got worse. Tary was now complaining about intense pain around both of her kidneys. After a visit from the doctor, he suspected that there may have been stones in each kidney! How can he possibly know that without running any tests?! At least the last time Tary was admitted for kidney stones, they had run some ultrasounds in an attempt to find the stones. This time...nothing. My frustration was starting to show.
Sometime around lunchtime, Tary noticed something different after one of her trips to the bathroom. She thought her mucus plug came out. My curiosity took over so I had to take a peek. Sure enough, it was plenty mucousy but not quite plug-gy.
Okay. Breathe. Tary and I gave each other one of those what-just-happened-and-what-will-happen-next looks. I've read that some women have lost their mucus plugs early and won't give birth until weeks later. And some women lose it right before going into labor. Besides, we still had 2 more weeks before Tary's due date...
...until about 1:50 PM. After another pit stop in the bathroom, Tary quickly shooed me away from seeing what she thought was a potentially embarrassing situation. After a few more moments, she wondered out loud if her water had broken. It definitely made sense. Her description of what happened definitely matches what we learned in our birthing class a few weeks earlier. My initial worry for Tary's kidney stones had quickly been replaced with elation of meeting our little boy sooner than we had expected.
Our minds were racing with emotions. We were happy. Despite our baby being considered at full term, we were still a little worried about him being born two weeks early. We had to get an expert's opinion. We called in the nurse who then called in the doctor. It felt like forever before he finally showed up. As soon as he went to examine Tary, a gush of amniotic fluid eliminated any doubts we had about her water being broken.
"Tary's water broke. Here we go!!!" Those were the exact words that I posted on Facebook at 3:08 PM.
We got all packed up and the nurse brought Tary back downstairs to the Labor and Delivery area. When we got there, we were introduced to a new nurse and our midwife, Kate. They hooked Tary up to the fetal monitoring machines again and our little guy was still going strong. With the baby on his way, the morphine was discontinued and some antibiotics were fed into the IV.
Tary and I were finally alone in the room and I think we were still in shock that this was happening. We never had a chance to even pack a hospital delivery bag. Tary helped me compile a list of things that I needed to get from home. Tary took a short nap while I raced home. I probably broke about a half-dozen moving violations on the way. I fed the boys (Gambit and Mavi) and quickly ran around the house grabbing the cameras, some clothes for us and baby, and few other toiletries and tossed them all into a large duffle bag.
By the time I got back to the hospital, it was about 3:30 PM and Tary's contractions had started. Wow, that was fast! One of the nurses suggested using the Jacuzzi during early labor so we took full advantage of it. As Tary sat in the tub with the water rumbling inside, her contractions were coming harder and faster. I tried my best to remind Tary to breathe. I held her hand when I could and that same helpless feeling came back again. Each contraction would send Tary's eyes to the back of her head and her face showed the extreme discomfort that she was in. I had no clue how long these contractions were lasting because I think Tary was mindful to not crush my hand. It was only after Tary reopened her eyes that I would know that the last contraction was over.
Between one of the contractions, I asked if it would be okay to go shave. In fact, I was adamant about it all day; I had to be cleanly shaven. My reasoning was that when we look back at the pictures from this day, I didn't want our little Daniel to think that his dad looked like a bum when he was born. I got the go-ahead and quickly cleaned up in the attached bathroom.
At about 7:50 PM, the midwife came in and checked Tary's cervix. Only 1 cm so far. 9 more to go.
By now, the Facebook notifications were coming in like crazy from friends and family who were dying for updates. I tried keeping up with the updates by relaying the messages to Tary. I thought it might be a nice distraction from the pain but after a while, Tary got rightfully upset with me. She needed me to get off my phone and to be there for her. (I'm really sorry, Tare. My excitement got the best of me and I got carried away.) From that point on, I had to go on radio silence...
The contractions were still coming in hard and fast. They were coming every 3 minutes or so. When given the option for the epidural, Tary wasted little time signing the required waivers. When the anesthesiologist arrived, he was like a one-man army with his own cart of paperwork, needles, and drugs. Looking back, he kind of reminded me of the scientist who tried to inject some truth serum into Arnold Schwarzenegger in True Lies.
It was about 8:20 PM now. The nurse helped Tary sit up off the side of the bed. I had to sit on a stool by the window while the doctor cleaned and prepared an area of Tary's back. He stuck some long instrument or needle into Tary's back but he seemed to be having difficulty. Tary's natural dislike for needles made her back tense up which was counter-productive to the doctor's work. He tried a few more times to get the needle in between Tary's vertebrae. I could see his frustration mounting. I was getting angry with him as he started using more force to get the needle in. It felt like forever. I was afraid I was going to have to jump over the bed and smack-an-anesthesiologist. Finally...success.
The relief was almost immediate. Tary's pain went from a 10 on the pain scale down to a 2 or a 3. The midwife suggested that we get some rest while we could. I heeded that advice and took a nap on the chair nearby. I don't think Tary slept all that much. Tomorrow was going to change our lives forever.
No comments:
Post a Comment