Olson

Early on the morning of Sunday June 9th (one day before my due date) I woke up concerned that I hadn't felt hardly any fetal movement in the previous 12-20 hours. I told John I wanted to go to the hospital for monitoring and that I thought he should just stay home with the kids, who were still asleep. As I drove myself the 30 minutes to Mountain Point Medical Center in Lehi I started feeling sharp pains in my lower back every several minutes. Turns out that was back labor starting! I parked and headed inside anxious to find out what was going on.

In the triage room I got all set up with the hospital gown and monitors on my belly. We were relieved to find baby's heart rate but it wasn't looking great and I was told they wanted me to stay at least 45 minutes to make sure everything was ok. During this wait, the nurse started taking my medical and past labor and delivery history. After answering a ton of questions she stopped me and said, "Ok, so you are telling me that in both of your previous labors you and your babies had a chorioamnionitis infection, the babies went into fetal distress, you hemorrhaged after delivery, and both of the babies had to spend a week in the NICU?" "Ummm yes..." was I all I could say. She said she really didn't think I should wait any longer to have this baby and the monitor confirmed that I was in very early labor, with contractions coming every 7 minutes. I was only dilated to 2 cm but she talked to the doctor and they both recommended that I stay and be induced. I was happy to comply! At 40 weeks I was soooo done being pregnant and the thought of waiting around another few days was awful. So I stayed!

Once in my room I decided to change back into my own clothes, a dress/nightgown type thing that was way more comfortable than the scratchy gown I was wearing. It would end up getting cut off of me later. Before long I had my IV in and the pitocin was a flowin'. I had talked to John at this point and suggested he stay home until after Avril's afternoon nap. In the afternoon he packed the kids up and drove them to my parents house and then came to me in the hospital. My mom had been able to come visit me earlier that morning for an hour or so. I asked the nurses if many women come in to have babies all alone. A resounding NO was the answer. I told them not to worry about me and promised that I had plenty of people that loved me, they just weren't here right now. 

John arrived just as my epidural was kicking in. The pitocin induced contractions had really picked up and I was ready for a catheter honestly. It's so hard to go to the bathroom with all the monitors, blood pressure cuff, IV, etc. At one point I counted that I was hooked up to 9 different things. At the time of my epidural I was 3 cm dilated. 2 hours later when they checked me I hadn't progressed at all, which was concerning to the nurses and it was decided that they would begin internal monitoring. I'm not really sure how the 2 are related, but during the process of hooking up the internal monitors everyone started freaking out and suddenly there were like 7 nurses surrounding me trying to find the baby's heart rate. They were worried about my heart, they were putting the oxygen mask on me, they were moving me around desperately trying to resolve whatever was going on. I heard them call the anesthesiologist, indicating that I would be getting prepped for an emergency c-section. I was freaking out. No one was telling me what was happening, I was just making the most sense of what was going on as I could while they desperately tried to get baby stable. They gave me a shot in my leg that stopped my contractions and gave baby a break and time to recover and get his heart rate stable again, which worked and everyone calmed down. It was really scary to me and I had a big cry after everyone left and John was holding my hand telling me everything was going to be ok. 

The shot they gave me made me shake violently for the next few hours. It was awful. By the time everything was over my jaw, neck, and shoulders were so tense and sore. I wanted a deep tissue massage so badly. Somehow after all the commotion, I had dilated to a 6, which was unexpected but welcome news. After a while they started the pitocin again and everything progressed smoothly and in a couple hours I told a nurse I was feeling a lot of pressure and the urge to push. She took one look under the sheet and called for the doctor to come quick, telling me to try not to push just yet. Doctor Sean Haskett was in the room in a few minutes and Olson was out in 2 contractions, about 5 pushes total. He was 8 pounds 3 ounces, 22 inches long, and he screamed the way babies are supposed to, yet a sound I have never heard before from my own babies. It was beautiful! I got to hold him right away, also something I've never experienced before. That's when the dress got cut off me because the IV and epidural made it impossible to take off properly. It was 7:40 pm when he was born and he stayed with us in our room until about 11 when I decided to have him spend the night in the nursery. I told John to go home and get some solid rest, that it would be near impossible if he stayed with me which was absolutely true because I didn't sleep at all until about 4 AM. I did hemorrhage again after this delivery and it took about 5 different interventions to get it to stop. 

Monday the kids came to the hospital to meet Olson and it was one of the sweetest things I've ever witnessed. They absolutely adore him. Tuesday afternoon we headed home as a family. It's been a whirlwind of family in town, dinners from so many kind neighbors, sleepless nights, and the occasional mental breakdown. There's so much more to say but zero energy to get it all written down right now. Just soaking up my time with this sweet newborn. He'll be 5 like next week.