keeping up with the krochaks: November 2011

Sorry to be MIA for awhile, but as you surely already know, baby Aubrey has arrived, and decided to show up a little after noon on October 31st, otherwise known as HALLOWEEN!

hello, world! (or should I say "boo!"?)

I wanted an October baby because it's my favorite month of the year, but when I said I liked the idea of an October birthday, I wasn't thinking Halloween! Granted, I love Halloween - it's almost my favorite holiday - but I was a bit nervous about having a baby on that day, because her birthday will always be shared with Halloween. I hope she's able to embrace it! Surprisingly, Aubrey joins the ranks of several very famous celebrities also born on Halloween, including 80's rap icon Vanilla Ice (1968), Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz a.k.a. the "King Ad-Rock" (1966), The Hot Chick Rob Schneider (1963), comedian John Candy (1950), Little House on the Prairie star Michael Landon (1936), and former CBS anchorman Dan Rather (1931). Wow, you're in great company, Aubrey!

As we mentioned in our last post, we went in at 8:30 a.m. on Sunday, October 30th to induce labor. Things started off rather excitingly, as I promptly passed out while the nurse inserted my IV into my left wrist. It hurt (lots of stinging) in a way that made my body go all weird and pass out, and dropped my blood pressure to 63/33. Needless to say, I awoke to a room full of nurses and doctors to welcome me back to reality. Talk about getting everyone's attention! (at the time, we were the only couple in the L & D wing) The IV was much more successful in my right hand when I was given a numbing shot first. :) Shortly thereafter, we started me on petocin (an IV drug that induces contractions) to see how my body reacted. Since it went well, we then we started on cytotec (a pill to thin and soften the cervix to prepare it for dilation), which took a couple hours to work per dose. Throughout Sunday, we had family members come in and out to visit and bring food to Jason (and Meggie brought me Popsicles!), and watched football (hooray for the niners winning!). Late in the evening, the nurses recommended that everyone get some rest. My contractions were getting stronger so this whole "trying to sleep" thing was not really working, but I did my best to relax. A couple hours later, POP!, my water broke, and we were in business. It then took about an hour to get the anesthesiologist in for my epidural, which he had to administer twice because of my compressed vertebrae (boo, hiss!), and by then I was getting heavy doses of petocin to speed things along. Wheeeeeeee! By this time it was about 3 a.m. on the 31st so we knew we would have either a Halloween or November 1st baby.

let the induction begin

I progressed well throughout the morning, and by 7 a.m. was 5cm dilated. This was accompanied by amazingly uncomfortable back labor, which the midwife conjectured was being made worse by the fact that the baby was face up, rather than face down (I was very into pushing the epidural button when this pain got worse). Unfortunately, however, by 11 a.m. I was still dilated at 5cm and had been fighting a fever that wasn't responding to Tylenol. In addition, the baby's heartbeat had been sporadically lost by both the belly bands and an internal fetal monitor, which was concerning the nurses, midwives, and doctors. A midwife came in to tell me these things, and let me know that she was going to alert the doctor on shift and have her discuss options with me . . . only to have the doctor come in my room 20 minutes later decked out in scrubs, ready to take me to the OR for a c-section! It's kind of a blessing that we didn't have to decide between trying to progress and having a c section, because that would have been a tough choice so off we went to the OR a few minutes later.

daddy's ready for the OR!

The c-section was definitely a strange experience (being half awake during surgery and feeling them tug and jiggle your body without really feeling it was bizarre, to say the least), but we were happy to meet our baby. Jason was so awe-struck that he pretty much blanked on taking any photos or even going over to see Aubrey after they removed her from my belly! Silly daddy. Once he saw her, though, he told me how beautiful she was, and even brought her to see me briefly before they took her to be bathed, tested, etc. while I was put back together.

heeeeeeeeere's aubrey!

40 minutes or so later, I was wheeled into recovery where I was able to hold Aubrey for the first time, and it was fantastic (I'm glad I was relatively lucid despite all the drugs I had been on for the past 28 hours! ha!). Even though we ended up having a different birth experience than we had hoped for, and had to stay in the hospital a little longer than planned, we still got to meet our beautiful new daughter (and in this case, sooner than we otherwise would have!) so the result was well worth it.