To read the first part of this story, click here:
After my family left, I was hooked up to fetal monitors as I had been during my stay. A few minutes into the monitoring, I noticed that I could no longer hear the baby's heartbeat. I assumed I had moved and the disks had moved, so I called the nursing station to let them know that there was something wrong with the monitor. The nurse arrived and as she was moving the disks around, I noticed her growing more and more concerned. I asked her if something was wrong and she didn't answer but I could tell she was panicking. I immediately started to panic but thought maybe she just wasn't placing it in the right spot.
The nurse quickly left the room and came back with another nurse who was checking the monitor and the readout and then a nurse from L&D came into the room. After repeating the same process, she asked me if I was having contractions or feeling any pain. I replied that I wasn't. She said "I'm sorry hon but I have to check you" and before I realized what she was doing, she was checking to see if I was dilated -- I was not.
Finally, I'd had enough of them not talking to me and I yelled "what's going on?" The L&D nurse said, "we've lost the baby's heartbeat and we're going to have to deliver this baby RIGHT NOW." UM, WHAT? I wasn't due for another 8 weeks and although we'd talked about a possibility of delivering early, I never thought I'd deliver that early. Everything started moving quickly. I started shaking and was trying to remain calm but couldn't get around the fact that I was going into the OR and I had no family around. I asked the nurses to call my husband but it was falling on deaf ears. I realized that I still had my phone in my hand and shakily dialed my husband and told him to get to the hospital as fast as he could. He swears to this day that I said we'd lost the baby but I honestly can't remember what I said. I repeated the process and called my parents. They were just arriving home from the hospital and immediately turned around.
I was wheeled into the OR and the nurses were busy transferring me from the hospital bed to the OR bed and cutting my clothes. The on-call OB/GYN was introducing himself to me and telling me to try to relax (I was still shaking uncontrollably) and was telling me he would do my emergency c-section. The nurses were talking to the anesthesiologist about an epidural when he said, there was no time. They had to put me completely under. I was praying to all the saints and angels that my baby survive. I had no idea if I had a little boy or girl inside of me and I wanted to wake up to meet him/her. In a scene cut from a movie, my OB/GYN came flying through the doors and got scrubbed up. The last thing I remember is telling him, "don't cut me, I don't have any anesthetics" as he was ready to go.
I woke up to the most severe pain I've ever experienced in my life and cried when I remembered that I'd just delivered my baby. I saw my husband and asked him "how's the baby?" trying to prepare myself for the worst. He said the most beautiful words I'd ever heard "she's okay they took her downstairs" and I had to stop him and so I could ask "SHE? It's a girl? She's alive?" My husband cried with me as he said "yes, it's a girl and she's doing fine." The next few hours were disorienting with me coming out of my anesthesia induced haze. It was the scariest day of my life but one of the most rewarding and I'm so blessed to say that at 10:34 PM on Sunday, December 5, 2010, my little miracle arrived in this world.
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