Welcome, Maren!

Our sweet baby girl, Maren Rose, came into the world on Monday, July 7th, 2014 at 9:57pm.  We couldn't be happier to welcome her into our family.

I went in for my weekly check up and ultrasound on Wednesday, July 2nd, Dylan's birthday.  After a fairly routine ultrasound complete with a growth profile, since I was hoping that I wouldn't be coming back the next week, and a check up that showed very little process, the kids and I were set to make a follow up appointment for the following Monday, when Lindsey, Dr. Wagner's medical assistant, came back out to find me and let me know that Dr. Wagner needed to see me again.

After reviewing the ultrasound, Dr. Wagner saw that Maren's expected weight (5 lbs, 8 ounces) had dropped below the 10th percentile for someone at 38 weeks, indicating that she was not growing enough in utero and it was time for her to come out that day, if possible.  Dylan had made it quite clear to everyone at the clinic that it was his birthday and his party was scheduled for that evening, so that wasn't going to work.  Since the baby had passed all the biophysical indicators that the sonographer was looking for, Dr. Wagner was comfortable waiting until after the holiday weekend for me to be induced.  That gave me one last day of work to wrap up the loose ends and the long holiday weekend for John and I to pack for the hospital and prepare ourselves for our third baby.

The kids spent the Sunday night before at Nana and Papa's house so we wouldn't have to get them out the door on Monday morning too, so it was nice and quiet when John and I woke up on Monday morning.  I was told to call Maple Grove hospital on Monday at 6 am to make sure they had room before we headed to the hospital.  Fearing the worst, I called and there was space!  John and I got ready and left the house.

After a quick stop at Starbucks (what I thought would be my last meal before baby), we arrived at the hospital.  It felt strange leaving for the hospital with no strong contractions and no broken water.  It was kind of surreal that by the end of the day we'd have another baby and finally know if it was a boy or a girl.    

My nerves kicked as we were shown our delivery room.   Since it had been 5 years since I had done this, even the thought of the IV being put in scared me, much less the epidural or pushing out a baby! We started with the IV and Dr. Wagner was going to put in a balloon that helps to dilate the cervix, but I had made some progress over the weekend, so instead she broke my water to get things started.  After that, I was started on pitocin.

This is when alarms started going off.  The IV pump kept going off every 5 minutes saying the line was interrupted, which it wasn't.  After a couple hours of alarms, the pump was finally switched and didn't go off again.  But then the nurses were having a hard time finding the baby's heartbeat and they noticed that it would drop when I would have a contraction.  After a number of adjustments to the monitor and turning from one side to the other to get the heart rate up, I decided it was time to go for a walk.  I was feeling cooped up in that room after 6 hours of very little progress.

Walking helped a lot!  By the time we got back to the room, the contractions were much stronger and it was time to get the epidural.  I think at this point I was dilated to a 6 or 7.  For as scared as I was about the pain of getting the epidural, it was as easy as I thought it had been previously.   However, baby wasn't enjoying laying down again.  And while most babies thrive when mama is turned on her left side, our baby was only comfortable with me on my right side.  Her heart rate was still dropping noticeably enough during each contraction.

At this time I was hooked up to the IV and pitocin, a blood pressure cuff, and the contraction monitor.  Shortly after receiving the epidural, I also got a catheter and in utero monitor attached to baby's head to better monitor the heart rate, since the external monitor was causing us trouble.  I can't remember exactly at what point it was, but they also determined that I should receive some oxygen to help baby.  It was at this point that I started to get really nervous about baby's health.

Unfortunately, dilation stalled, just like it did with Reagan, after the epidural was given and I sat at a 6-7 until close to 8:00.  John and I passed the time reading and looking through the baby name books we brought for a boy name, just in case.  The nurse had us thinking it was going to be a boy because of the heart rate issues we were having.  She told us they call them "Wimpy White Boys" because the boys seem to have a harder time during labor.  Dr. Wagner had come to check on me after her other appointments at the clinic were done and went to grab dinner with Kim. It was funny to have them texting me while I was at the hospital asking if I had dilated any more while they ate dinner and talked about me!

What I didn't know was that Dr. Wagner was preparing the teams for a c-section upon her return.  I was happy to find out that I had dilated to an 8 while she was out and she was determined not to let me have a c-section.  So at an 8, I started to push with the hopes that my cervix would dilate to a 10 with the pressure from the baby.

For an hour, Dr. Wagner sat with us as I pushed through every contraction.  Eventually, we got to a 10 and baby was ready to come out.  What I wasn't ready for was the call to the special care team and the respiratory specialist.  The nurses all wore pager/intercom devices around their necks and my nurse put in the call to the special care team that we were ready for them, to which I heard the reply of "Are you ready for the C-section?"  That was when I found out Dr. Wagner hadn't had very high hopes of a vaginal delivery.  Because of the placenta/umbilical cord issues/baby's size, they were worried that something would be wrong and that she would need some extra care.

Maren didn't exactly fly out like her brother did, but it was significantly less pushing than we had to do with Reagan.  I would say I pushed for about 30 minutes and finally baby came out, screaming (and proceeded to cry for the next 4 hours)!!  Guess we didn't need the respiratory specialist, but I sure was glad they were there in case something really was wrong!

As she came out, Dr. Wagner grabbed her by the feet and held her upside down for us to see if it was a boy or girl.  At first I almost forgot that we didn't know, I was just so happy she had come out alive and crying!  When I looked and saw it was a girl, I started crying.  I was so relieved that everything was okay and it was a girl!  She was briefly put on my chest while John cut the umbilical cord and then swept away to the special care team to get weighed and cleaned up.

Our little peanut came out at a healthy 6 lbs, 1 ounce and 19 inches long with only a little hair and bright blue, alert eyes.  I couldn't believe how little hair she had after her brother and sister had healthy heads of hair at birth.  Had she been full term, I'm sure she would have been almost as big as Reagan who was only 6 lbs, 9 ounces, it's just that Reagan wasn't monitored with weekly ultrasounds when I was pregnant with her.