Labor Log (to the best of our memory)
Tuesday, 9/11/12
12:08am
Jamie is woken in the night to a gush of water. “Kelsey, my water just broke!” We call our doctor and begin the mad scramble to meet her at the hospital.
1:15am
We left for Flagstaff Medical Center
3:30am
Jamie transported to Phx via ambulance along with the air evac crew. They gave her a magnesium drip to continue to pause labor for the drive & her first ever catheter so she wouldn’t have to stop to peeJ. We couldn’t take helicopter because there was a big storm in Phx. Kelsey follows behind the ambulance in the Corolla hoping the lights and siren wouldn’t go on.
5:30am
Arrive at Good Samaritan. Jamie is checked 3 times throughout the day before being put on Pitocin and was only at about 2cm.
2pm
Pitocin is given to Jamie to augment her labor, starting with a small dose of 0.5 and increasing by 0.5 every half hour and somewhere around when we hit 8 (10pm) they begin increasing by 2 every half hour. Contractions increased as we reached 15 on the Pitocin.
10pm + (ish)
Contractions are really starting to get painful. Thanks to her Doula Joy & Kelsey she is working through the pain and resting between contractions. Her contractions came in clusters of 3 every 5-6 minutes. Doctors wanted to see more regular contraction every 2-3 minutes. Every time Jamie had a contraction Evelyn’s heart beat would drop but then pop back up between. We tried many laboring positions to keep her heart beat from dropping but it still continued in this pattern.
Wednesday, 9/12/12
2:30am
Jamie is given a contraction catheter to read strength of contractions more accurately.
3:30am
Jamie is given a bolus of fluid into her uterus to give the baby more cushion since it’s now been 27 hours since her water broke.
4:30am
Jamie is given another bolus of fluid.
5:30am
Jamie is given an epidural and her pitocin level is at 15. She has dealt with a lot of painful contracts for over 8 hours and is still at only 2-3cm. Epidural was given to relieve pain for Jamie so she would have enough energy to push would the time came. They decided to stop the pitocin for a while since Evelyn’s heart rate drops with each contraction.
7:00am
Jamie contractions are now more regular and she has jumped to 5-6 cm.
11:30am
After 35+ hours since her waters broke, Jamie is finally close to 10cm and does 3 practice pushes. Evelyn’s heart rate still drops with every contraction. They decide to wait a little bit before pushing to be fully dilated and to give momma and baby time to rest up.
1:00pm
Jamie officially begins pushing. Her contractions are now 4-6 min apart and not as strong. They start up pitocin again, this time a little more aggressively to give the contractions that extra boost, ncreasing the dose every 20 mins.
3:30pm
After pushing for 2.5 hours Jamie takes a break- Jamie, Joy Wilson-Lechner & Kelsey take a quick nap.
4:00pm
Doctor Huff (Dr. McDreamy, according to Kelsey) – advises Jamie that her pelvis is too small and after 2.5 hours of pushing we are not getting anywhere. Dr. Huff thinks Evelyn’s head might fit through the pelvis but not sure if the shoulders will and how long it will take to push the head through. Also, there are 2 NICU doctors working until 5pm then it drops to 1 NICU doctor so they’d like Evelyn to be born while there is more neonatal staff available to attend to her.
4:15pm
After a few more minutes of pushing while the doctors are on standby for surgery, we agree to proceed with the suggested C-Section.
4:35pm
Jamie’s c-section begins- Kelsey is at head of Jamie trying to encourage her. Jamie is now very emotional as this is not how she hoped it would go but it ready to meet her girl. The epidural makes Jamie shaky so she the anesthesiologist gives her a bit of Demerol.
4:54pm
Evelyn is born!! An anesthesiologist takes a picture of them lifting her out of Jamie, while Kelsey stands up to see her emerge. (Jamie is pretty sure he is traumatized from seeing Jamie’s body open on the table.) Evelyn’s chord was wrapped around her neck 3 times (Jamie hears the doctor and residents say, “Oh, we have a triple nipple!” but they are really saying “triple nuchal.”) This means even if Evelyn’s head had made it through the birth canal we would have had to do a c-section anyway. Once Evelyn is pulled out of the womb she is rushed to incubator were she wasn’t breathing. She gave out one little cry before NICU doctor tried 2-3 times to insert ventilator tube before getting it in. 5-6 medical staff (NICU doctors, NICU nurses, respiratory nurses etc.) clean Evelyn up and asses her. She is rushed to her room in the NICU with dad. On the way out Evelyn is stopped at Jamie’s head for a moment so Jamie can see Evelyn in the incubator. It was just under 41 hours from the moment Jamie’s water broke until we got to see Evelyn. She weighed 4 lbs 9oz, 19 inches long and had APGAR scores were 5 and 8.
