Parker Braun has finally arrived! 

I feel a strange obligation to throw out all of the details of the birth since I made so many posts about the pregnancy! (These posts and this original post were lost when we reformatted my webpage last year.) 

Saturday - WAIT.  I really need to back up to Friday.  Friday I woke up and I felt like I was leaking amniotic fluid.  So I stopped by the doctor's office on the way to work - and she checked and hooked me up to a monitor for a while.  Not leaking, no contractions.  So I went to work, I wasn't comfortable and the exam gave me a lot of cramping and bleeding.  I didn't stay long at work.  Friday evening, during Stewart's t-ball practice, I noticed some contractions but I didn't really time them.  I took a bath and did the relaxing that has been recommended, and I kept having the contractions.  I laid down to go to sleep and I continued to have them and they were about 10 minutes apart.  So I finally decided to call the dr and she recommended that I come in to get checked out.  I was hesitant to wake up the boys - I didn't want to drag them in for a false alarm.  So I got up and got dressed and I paced in the bathroom while I considered going in by myself and calling them if I got admitted.  During that time, the contractions stopped.  So I went to sleep. 

Saturday, March 29th.  I woke up wet and stayed wet all day.  It was gross.  I felt like I was definitely leaking amniotic fluid because I noticed it came out when I changed positions or stood up or walked etc.  But I was also hesitant to call because I knew I would get the whole, "come in and get checked out."  So while I waited for more contractions or the big splash, we ran errands, went to home depot, out to lunch, I did a ton of laundry, and we cleaned the house.  While I was cooking dinner, I realized that when I pressed low on my belly, I could get it to come out.  I took that as a pretty good sign that it was for sure amniotic fluid so I called the dr and got the after hours and requested the dr call me back.  While I was waiting for her call, Stewart stepped on a screw and cut his foot.  Lots of crying and ice packs and consoling - and I missed the call back from the dr. and she left a message with the whole "come in and get checked out."  But dinner was ready and I while I was trying to decide if I was going to go in - I tried to get the boys to eat.  Something told me we had to go - so I threw the rest of our things in the bags and we loaded up and drove to Reston Hospital.  We got there around 9:45 and spent the next 20 minutes at registration doing the paperwork. 

On the way in, I noticed some contractions started and they didn't go away when we walked in - and I kept having them during the registration processes - and they were getting stronger.  I thought - this is a good sign that we won't have to go home!  The lady gave us the paperwork and was showing us the way to labor and delivery when all of the sudden - warm wetness started flowing down my leg.  And it kept coming.  and coming.  and coming.  It was the most gross feeling ever and it made me very embarrassed because I had absolutely no control.  I felt like I was peeing.  Each and every step made more come out.  There was a janitor following us with a mop as we walked across the hospital.  (I refused the wheelchair.)   

We got to labor and delivery and we were taken straight to the room - I got changed and guess what!?  MORE PAPERWORK!  I would say another 30 minutes of paperwork and questions while the contractions started getting stronger, longer, and closer together.  She checked me around 10:45 and I was only dilated to a 3, so there was no rush to do anything.  After she got my IV hooked up she checked me again because I was having seriously strong contractions and I was dilated to almost a 7.  She got the anesthetist in and he administered the epidural.  It sucks sooo bad that something so helpful has to hurt so much.  Arching your lower back while bent over in a c-position is probably the most painful position to be in when you are having contractions.  Everything was taking a long time, so I asked Bill had run out to the truck to get our bags - and the CAMERA - I wanted him to go early because I knew I was going to need him later.  But when the anesthetist showed up Bill hadn’t come back yet.   We had to sit Stewart outside the room on a chair.  By himself.  I felt so bad but there wasn't anything else to do.   Bill came in, dropped off the bags, saw the needle, saw me bent over in agony, and he went and sat with Stewart.  Leaving me and Glenda (the nurse) breathed through the contractions, and then crying when I started up, and she was kind enough to let me squeeze the heck out of her hands.   

Once I finally got the chance to lay back and try to get comfortable - and wait for the lovely epidural nectar to kick in - the contractions hurt so bad that I was crying again.  And then I realized that I was not only crying from pain, but crying from the shame of Stewart having to see his mother so weak and vulnerable and crying.  I never wanted him to see me in pain and I had this stupid idea that I’d get the epidural and it would be smooth sailing and the birth and delivery would be gracious.  But all of the sudden, the contractions were faster than the epidural and I was crying and Bill was worried, and the contractions were making me feel like I needed to go poop?  So I mentioned that to Glenda - and she checked me again - and I was dilated to a 9.  Enter 3 more nurses quickly settling up tables and getting out stuff and everyone telling me don't push "your dr is on the way."  It's like saying don't sneeze.  Quite impossible when your body is SCREAMING P U S H.  The side effects of the epidural were stronger than the pain relief and I had awful ridiculous uncontrollable shivering - shaking - teeth rattling body shakes.  Which made me cry more because I definitely didn't want Stewart to see that.  Bill set up a chair trying to block his view and he kept telling me that he was sleeping - but I just knew he wasn't.  But I couldn't see him so I was hoping he couldn’t see me and that he wasn't trying to peek around the chair.  This is about the time that Bill got up, went to the bathroom, and threw up.  Glenda was putting ice packs on my head and Dr Felluca showed up - and I told Bill to take Stewart and go wait in the waiting room.  As much as I needed Bill, I needed to know that Stewart couldn't possibly see or hear anything that would freak him out.  Let the pushing begin!  I was 2-3 contractions into the pushing when Bill came back in and said a nurse offered to sit with Stewart so he would be with me - but Bill got green, and then pale and the best he could do was to sit beside the bed while 2 nurses helped me push.  I literally only pushed for 4-5 contractions before he was born.  Dr. Felluca flopped him up on my tummy for a quick second before they whisked him away to get checked out. 

Parker Braun Bondurant was born at 12:56am, weighing 7 pounds 7 ounces, and was 20 inches long. 

His initial exam didn't go so well - he had a fever and was having a hard time breathing.  They gave us about 10 minutes to hold him and take some pictures and they whisked him away to the nursery.  This gave all 3 of us a chance to take a quick nap.  Glenda came in about an hour later to clean me up and unhook me from everything and then we moved upstairs to maternity.  We got an update that Parker was still having a hard time breathing and that he was still being watched in the nursery.  More sleep for the 3 of us.  They eventually took him to the NICU.   

*****

That was a really long morning.   We didn’t get to see him until almost 10:00am.  Doctors would come in and give us an update – and it was always that the NICU was trying to stabilize him.  It was kindeve a blur.  At one point a doctor came in and said they wanted to treat him for meningitis.  Because I tested positive for group B strep, and because I didn’t go to the hospital as soon as I ruptured, he was exposed to my infected amniotic fluid for a long time – and that can cause meningitis in newborns.  He was having difficulty breathing and he had a fever when he was born - i guess those are two signs of meningitis.  They gave him some tests, one of them was a spinal tap (poor baby!) and none of the tests ever came back positive for meningitis but they wanted to give him the full treatment.  Two weeks of IV antibiotics.   The first few times I visited him in the NICU he was hooked up to a bunch of machines and under the salamander.  Then they moved him to the incubator.  He eventually got to be in a regular basket.  But he was always hooked up to a bunch of machines, plus he had his IV.  They eventually took the IV out and gave him a central line.  It was supposed to be easier on his little baby veins. 

Until I got discharged, I would go see him all as much as I could.  I would go in there and hold him while we both slept, and when he woke up, I would feed him and then we would go back to sleep.  Bill and I alternated visits.  Stewart wasn’t old enough to come into the NICU.  But we had a really great nurse.  She unhooked some of Parker’s machines, and rolled him over to a window so Stewart could see his baby brother.   Bill and Stewart couldn’t spend the night at the hospital so they were spending the night at a hotel really close by.  And that left me all alone in the hospital at night.  The night before I got discharged was the worst. I came back from my visit with Parker and I wanted to try to get some sleep but I just couldn’t stop crying.  I cried for hours.  Around 2am, I walked out to the nurses station and asked if I could have something that would help me go to sleep.  They gave me some Tylenol with codine.  This was the only pain medicine I had after delivery, and it wasn’t even for pain.  I just wanted to sleep.  That morning, Dr Felluca stopped by to discharge me and I was crying again and I asked her if it was my fault that he was sick and she just looked at me and said yes. 

I remember crying a lot.  I tried not to because I could see that it upset Stewart when he saw me crying.   We stayed in the hotel until my parents came into town on Friday.  I would go spend just about all day in the NICU, go back to the hotel in the evening (because Bill had to go to class) and then I would go back as soon as he got back.  The NICU nurses would call me around 2am when he was about to wake up and need to be fed and I would go up there to feed him and hold him some more while we slept.  He only stayed in the NICU for a week until he got released to Pediatrics.  Which was great.  I was required to stay with him because he was being moved to a hospital room.  He was getting 2 doses of antibiotics 4 times a day.  Between each dose, they ran saline through the line to clean it out.  I swear that pump was constantly beeping.  I was so glad when a nurse finally told me how to turn it off when his antibiotic had finished.  The pump beeped all the time.  By the time he was discharged, he had received 90 doses of antibiotics.