Notes on the pregnancy: The pregnancy itself begins the story of his birth. At about 15 weeks or so I had a major bleeding episode that landed me in the ER for 12 hours with a threatened miscarriage. We walked out still pregnant, but with quite a few more fears. I went on bed rest for a week (and then flew to OK for my sister's wedding). The night of her wedding I felt the baby move for the first time and a small bit of hope. The follow-up ultrasound showed the bleeding had stopped, but also that there was a two, rather than three vessel umbilical cord. This meant monthly ultrasounds to make sure everything was going alright as well as a host of meetings with high risk doctors and geneticists who tried to explain all the various things that having a two vessel cord may indicate are wrong. We elected to not do further tests as the pregnancy had already been threatened enough and nothing we might discover would change the Doctor's treatment or our decision. One concern in this situation is having enough amniotic fluid to cushion the umbilical cord so I had weekly non-stress tests starting about a month from my due date and one of these begins the birth story.
On January 18, 2007, my non-stress test showed very low fluid levels. I distinctly remember a Doctor (not mine) saying-- "You are going to have a baby today!" I also remember not believing her --- which turned out to be spot on. She then gave me instructions about how to proceed to the hospital for an induction. I called Brent, walked over to my office to close up shop, and then drove home to pick up our bags. We made a leisurely trip to the hospital discussing our lack of a name and how nervous we were.
The induction begins with IV fluids, meetings with various Doctors and anesthetists as well as being hooked up to monitors. I had to have monitors from the start due to worries about the umbilical cord issues as some babies in this situation do not tolerate labor well. For the first about 30 hours (yes hours, not minutes), they attempted a very gradual induction using Cervadil. Basically, not much happened all this time other than some mild contractions, Brent and I watching the heart rate/contraction monitors and no progress. My Mom, meanwhile, had time to fly across the country and be quite surprised to discover when she arrived 24 hours after I was admitted that there was no baby. By 8pm or so on Friday evening, the 19th, they had decided to move on to pitocin as the current path was doing nothing. We agreed that I'd take a shower and a break while they worked on set-up/planning, etc...
As I got out of the shower and back into bed, my water broke. By 9pm, I had regular progressing contractions and a tiny bit of pitocin, which they ultimately turned off as things were moving on their own. I went through my normal, crazy, notion of needing to tolerate the pain of the contractions on my own for awhile, but a couple hours into that asked for an epidural. I didn't really realize it would take another hour for that process. Sigh. The person doing the epidural was clearly new and the first try ended with spasming leg/hip muscles and a re-do. I'd say all of this was wrapped up around midnight. Shortly thereafter, my own Doctor came on call and said if I had the baby by 8am she would actually be the one there to deliver him. (Hurrah!) By 12:45, I was very uncomfortable again and they gave me a another dose of meds into the epidural.
Soon when I was very medicated, a Resident stopped by and discovered what I was probably actually feeling was a need to push. I could feel absolutely nothing by this point, but we worked it out and about 45 minutes or so later at 1:53am on January 20, 2007, his due date, our adorable son, Brendan William, was born weighing 8lbs 4oz at 21 inches long. He was greeted by a large medical team both for him and for me into the glare of what I can best describe of spotlights in GW hospital in a room overlooking Square 54. He was my inauguration day baby; born in Washington, DC. His Grandma B, Daddy and I witnessed his arrival and were over joyed and in awe. Oddly, I remember one of the first things Brent said to me was that B had my elf ears and I loved that he noticed that little thin in their very first moments together.
The medical team did all their tests then and in the days that followed and all the scare about the umbilical cord was for naught. We had an perfectly lovely, healthy, beautiful baby boy. The days to come were filled with challenges, particularly related to breast feeding attempts and lack of sleep, but that moment in a dark DC night changed us into parents and changed our lives forever. We love you sweet boy!
Pictures of the whole deal are available here. Just such a beautiful baby boy. Brent titled the email telling everyone of his birth "Cutest.Baby.Ever" and I still wholeheartedly agree... no offense M.
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