Those Crazy Ihles......: Thomas's Birth

He's only 4 1/2 years old, but since I wrote up Amelia's birth story awhile back, I figured I should do the other two as well!

In January of 2009, John and I decided that we were ready to give Amelia a sibling. We decided we would wait about six months because I was on some medications for the severe post-partum depression that had been left in the wake of Amelia’s birth and my doctor was weaning me off of them.

In February, I had to go to the gynecologist’s office for some unrelated tests, and was scheduled to return in 2 or 3 weeks to go over the results. The Sunday of the week that I was to return for my test results, something just felt “off.” As a woman of child-bearing age, I of course had a few pregnancy tests sitting in my bathroom cabinet just begging to be peed on. So I figured “what the heck” and took a quick test while getting ready for church that morning. I went to the kitchen to make my morning coffee and almost forgot about the test on my bathroom counter. I went back into the bathroom to check the test and almost choked on my coffee. It was positive. What?! That wasn’t supposed to happen! At least not for another 4 months!

John, who was completely unaware of my covert peeing mission, was a little thrown off when I came out with my test stick and demanded that he tell me if he saw one line or two. “Oh, I don’t know, I can never read these things,” he said. I remembered that I had one more test left in the pack and that it was a digital test, the kind that actually says “pregnant” or “not pregnant” when you pee on it. So back to the bathroom I went after I finished my coffee to try again. Five minutes later the answer was clear. I was definitely “pregnant.”

I was in shock. John was cool as a cucumber. “Well, we were going to be trying for this in a few months anyway, we’ll just have our baby a few months sooner than we would have.”

“Yes,” I said, “but we were going to try and pay some more bills off before then. And your job just changed and your paycheck took a huge hit. The timing could really be better.”

“It will be fine. Everything happens for a reason,” he said.

When I returned to the gynecologist’s office a few days later, the doctor gave me my test results and asked if I had any questions. “No,” I said, “but I did just get a positive pregnancy test a few days ago.” She congratulated me and told me to set up a prenatal appointment on my way out.

It was a rough pregnancy. The gestational diabetes came back at around 11 weeks. By 14 weeks I was on insulin to help control it. At 37 weeks my blood pressure was inexplicably out of control and I was forced to go on modified bed rest for the remaining two weeks until my induction.

30-something weeks pregnant.

I was to be induced on Monday November 30^th, just days after Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving was long, uncomfortable, and exhausting for me. I remember sitting in the recliner at my father-in-law’s house, worn out but laughing with the in-laws over the visible movements of the baby rolling around in my tummy. He was such a mover and you could really see every movement as he rolled from one side to the other.

Saturday November 28^th I had to go to the hospital for my final non-stress test. We had to do it at the hospital since the doctor’s office was closed for the holiday. I was hooked up to the monitor, as well as the blood pressure cuff. My blood pressure was high again, so the nurse told me that she would have the on-call midwife come in and check on me. Kim came in and asked me how I was feeling. I told her that I had been having contractions off and on, including some strong contractions the previous morning for about an hour. She checked my cervix and found that I had made some progress from the previous appointment and said, “I think we’ll go ahead and admit you and get this party started.” John and I looked at each other in a slight panic. We hadn’t made any arrangements for Amelia’s care. We didn’t have my bag. We were expecting to have two more days to get things in order. John said, “Well, I guess we won’t be making it to Thanksgiving dinner at your grandparents’ tonight.” Kim said, “Oh, well in that case, just come back in tomorrow and we’ll do it then. There’s no emergency, we can wait until tomorrow!” That was a relief!

Sunday November 29th was a very busy and special day for our family. I didn't sleep much at all the night before in anticipation of this baby’s arrival. John and I woke up at 5:00 am to get everything loaded up for the hospital and get on the road. Nana came over to stay with Amelia, and we made the drive up.

At 7:00 am we arrived at the hospital to check in and went on up to the labor and maternity ward. They got me all checked in and started my IV so that they could get the Pitocin drip pumping. A little while later, our midwife Kim stopped by to check in and let us know she was there. She checked me to see what my progress was and found that I had made a little bit of progress from the previous day. She said we needed to keep the Pitocin going for awhile to get the baby dropped down in place before we could break the water. Her concern was that if she broke it while he was still up in there too far that he would come down on the cord and then we’d end up in an emergency situation.

We walked around the halls for awhile, trying to keep the contractions productive. We walked so many laps, and our LD nurse thought it was so funny because she would watch the monitor that showed her my contractions and she couldn’t believe I was still walking. Apparently they were registering quite large on her monitor, but I was able to walk through them for quite awhile. She commented as we walked another lap past her station, “Do you not feel that?!” I also rolled around on the birthing ball for awhile to try and coax the baby down into the proper position. That seemed to work pretty well, because not much after that, Kim came back to check on me again and said that he had finally come down into a great position and we were ready to break my water. So at noon, after a few hours of very mild and totally manageable contractions, Kim broke my water and that's when the fun got started.

Almost immediately my contractions started to pick up in intensity and speed. They made me stay in bed for about an hour to keep a close eye on my blood pressure and the baby’s heart rate. I did my deep breathing and did really well with getting through each contraction. They had to turn down the Pitocin a few times to slow the contractions down a little because they were coming right on top of each other. At around 1:00 they finally allowed me to get out of bed and they filled up the whirlpool bathtub so I could lie back and relax away some of the contraction pain.

The bathtub helped my pain a lot and I continued to relax in the tub for about an hour. Right before 2:00 I told Kim that the pain was changing and that I was pretty sure it was time to get out of the tub and back into the bed. I got light-headed and needed to rest after one final contraction, and then I tried to get up. As soon as I stood up in the tub, the next contraction started and I was immediately sure that standing up had been a mistake. I knelt back down in the tub and Kim told me to stay right there while she went to round up some gloves, because she thought I might have the baby right there in the tub. When the contraction finally passed, Kim told John to grab my other arm and they were going to rush me back to the bed. They threw a blanket around my shoulders and rushed me as quickly as they could across the room. Good thing they did because as soon as I got back into the bed the next contraction started. Kim told John to go ahead and put some gloves on because she was going to let him do a little more than just cutting the cord, but about that time she went to check me and see how dilated I was and found instead that this baby was already on his way out. She told John to push the orange button to get the nurses in the room and they immediately rushed in. On the next contraction Kim told me I could push slowly, so I pushed slowly and his head came right out. Kim yelled a quick, “Okay, stop for just a minute, we have a little problem.” The problem was that the umbilical cord was wrapped TWICE around the baby’s neck! His heart rate had been strong and steady all day, so that was completely unexpected. Once she moved the cord from his neck she told me I could push again. I gave one more push, and at 2:04 pm Thomas Richard quickly entered the world. They immediately put him on my tummy and the first thing I noticed were his huge Hobbit-like feet! He had good strong lungs and used them for quite awhile as they got him cleaned up, but he relaxed quite quickly after they gave him back to me. I was immediately in love with him. The End.