up-side-up

Maesyn Marie turned one week old yesterday (on her actual due date)! So how did she get here? I'm going to write it all down, more for me than for you, feel free to skip the reading- I'll post pics later.

On Friday the 14th of November, we woke up and went about our day as usual. Kids were sent off to school and one to Grandma's so that Matthew and I could run some errands that needed to be tended to. We went out in search of an automobile that will better fit our growing family. After becoming discouraged at our findings, in the price range we are keeping to, we went to lunch. Let me tell ya- Matthew introduced me to something new... Mongolian BBQ- can you say, "Yummy?" Oh, I am such a rookie! If only I'd known how high you can stack a bowl of raw ingredients! Next time I'll be more impressive at packing in more good stuff- but is was so tasty...
After lunch we headed back home to take a nap- my back was hurting a little bit, but no contractions or anything.

I forgot to mention that this was suppose to be my last week at work. The 14th in fact was to be my last day before my induction (scheduled for the 19th)... But Wednesday morning I awoke with a fever and chills, feeling generally cruddy. So I called out sick and stayed home feeling miserable. Thursday I felt better, kinda like death warmed over- and Friday morning I felt quite a lot better in the morning- but by the time we returned home from pricing vehicles and getting lunch, I wasn't feeling great I lay down for a nap. During the nap I kept waking up about every 15 minutes with significant low back pain. I would change my position and try to go back to sleeping. I woke up around 3:30 pm and decided to go and meet the girls at the bus stop... the other option was to go soak in a hot bath because my back hurt really bad- just a constant low back ache, not on and off. Also, I was feeling feverish again- shivery and unable to warm up. Anyway, I walked to the bus stop and retrieved the little stink bugs and we went down to Grandma Dianne's to say hello. I asked my mom what back labor felt like and she said it sounded like that might be what was happening- I had also noticed contractions starting and so we timed them. 5 minutes apart.... 3 minutes... 5 minutes..... She suggested I call my doctors office, I kept saying, "no, let's wait and see if it stops... " The last thing I wanted to do was to go to the hospital for a "false alarm..." It didn't take long until I did call the office and ask their opinion on what to do next- "Why don't you go ahead and start toward the hospital." Matthew came in from work right after that and we went home and got the "hospital bag" and left the girls with Grandma and Grandpa.

Once we arrived at the hospital and got to L&D they, of course, put me on the monitor and my contractions had spaced out and weren't all that impressive. I'm thinking, "great, just what we didn't want to do... they're gonna send me home!" However... little miss Maesyn was a concern. Her heart rate was running about 210-215 bpm... and that's not okay. I was running a low grade fever and they decided to keep me and see if we couldn't get a more reassuring strip on her with some IV hydration. After 3 attempts, I finally had an IV in me... of course right in the right AC... the bend of my right arm (not a great place for IV's because bending your arm messes up the flow of fluids)... but alas, beggers can't be choosers. They started a liter of LR and also some PCN G because I was GBS + this pregnancy, which was a first for me. So the goal was to get in 2 doses of the antibiotic before the delivery- can I just say that I had NO idea how badly that crap burns going in? OOOWWWW!!!!

They then moved me from triage to a labor room and paged the anesthesiologist for my epidural- yes, I get them and I love them, and I don't really care what anyone else chooses to do with their pain, I choose not to feel it. It wasn't terrible at this point, but it also wasn't pleasant- so I figured as long as we were doing this I may as well get settled in and comfortable. So in walks "Chip," the friendly anesthesiologist. He begins to ask about my lab work... oh, what? No labs? That's right, during all of the IV drama, the one good stick decided to stop flowing for lab work. So they called a phleb to come and draw for platelets- Dr. Chip asked me if that was okay, if I could wait until we got the result and I joked with him that it would be fine as long as he promised me a fantastic epidural once we got to it- he did and so we waited. About 1/2 hour later he was back placing the epidural. It all felt fine but apparently there was a smidgen of trouble getting it placed- and I only know that because Matthew made a comment in the middle of it that he would stop watching so as not to jinx it.

I forgot to mention that I have oxygen on at this point, so during the placement of the epidural I was fighting with my O2 mask and trying to keep my IV arm straight and my back rounded out all at the same time. Anyway- it's all good... so now I'm laying on my left side letting the epidural take effect on that side before we flip me and even it out. With the oxygen on Maesyn's heart rate began to settle down into a normal rate, but she still was pretty flat- just not showing the variation in her heart rate that we like to see. Eventually that came as well. The thought here was this, my being sick since Wednesday had just worn her out too- and that's what we were seeing. I'm so glad that we went in, we had no idea that she was having trouble- so it turned out to be a good thing to go, even though my labor pattern wasn't' enough alone to have warranted it.

So an approximate time line- girls get off the bus at 4:10pm, left for the hospital around 5:10, arriving there at 6-ish, to L&D by 7, epidural in by 8? It's a rough idea... So the epidural is working and they have let me take off the oxygen. Then around 10:30 or so I start to feel the contractions on my left side only, it was strange... so Dr. Chip came back and gave me a bolus- oh, somewhere in all of this my blood pressure tanked. It fell into a consistent pattern of 60's/30's to 70's/40's... and Maesyn's heart rate began to accelerate again without the O2 on- I said that if oxygen was going to be her drug of choice that was fine by me... as long as that's the hardest stuff she gets into! So back on the o2 mask went for the duration. Trouble with my blood pressure was that they were needing to give me ephedrine to help keep it up- but that can make hearts race- which we didn't need to have happen for Mae... it all worked out though I got 2 IV doses and one shot in the hip- which after the bolus into the epidural line was totally numb. My right leg just went totally dead, I couldn't feel it for anything, where as my left was heavy, but I could move it somewhat... My first dose of antibiotic was at 6:30, second was at 10:30 and my OB came in around 11 and broke my water because I wasn't changing- I came in dilated to 3 cm and 60% effaced and my contractions weren't strong enough to change it. Dr. Klomp had started pitocin earlier, maybe around 9 ish(?), and they were gradually increasing the rate to help strengthen my contractions and progress my labor. Now that 2 doses of antibiotic were in, we had a green light whenever she wanted to be born, that's why he waited until after the 2nd dose to break my water because we thought I'd likely go quickly once that happened.

Now, I'll admit that I was nervous about the possibility of having to have a c-section this time when I saw that Maesyn wasn't tolerating labor very well. My nurse was pretty worried too, I think. Her name was Amy and she'd been working on her own in labor for about 6 months, she's a new grad of a year and had 6 mos orientation- so she's been in labor about a year... she's still new. I liked her and give her credit because she would call in another nurse whenever she wasn't' certain of something and that's always reassuring. I feel bad though because I know she was worried about my blood pressure, she kept asking me if I felt dizzy or nauseated, etc... I just kept saying, "I don't feel like it's 70/30... when my patients have a bp like that in dialysis they are totally symptomatic... and sometimes unconscious!" I just didn't feel as bad as I looked on paper (that's why you treat the patient and not the monitors...) Anyway... so moving right along- I was going to say, a c-section kept worrying me and the fact that this labor was not going as smoothly as my first 2 had made me nervous. My dad had offered to give me a blessing prior to leaving the house for the hospital, but I said, "no, let's see what happens..." Then, of course, I wished that I'd had a blessing. So, my OB and Matthew gave me a blessing prior to delivery- I'm so thankful for the priesthood.

Not done yet... between midnight and 1:00 am I began to feel my contractions again... only worse and all over, not just one sided. Both of my legs were completely dead, totally numb, I would have denied even having legs if I couldn't see them attached to my body... so I couldn't figure out why I was hurting and it was getting worse with every contraction. I waited to say anything because I wasn't' sure they could, or would do anything else at this point with my BP still in the tank, already having had a bolus, and my legs being so numb. But I seriously was not going to handle this well- so I told the nurse and was in tears trying to "breath through the contractions"... not fun. Dr. Chip came back and gave me something, it didn't help, so he came back again and said, "now I'm giving you the good stuff..." and I said, "What?!? You've been holding out!!!" Thankfully, the "good stuff" worked. That was the last of my epidural problems- I was dead from the waist down for the next several hours. I could still sense when a contraction was starting and I could even recognize pressure on my perineum- so around 2:30 I told the nurse that I was feeling pressure there, she checked me and I was complete. Dr. Klomp was paged back to the hospital. When it came time to push my mom took one leg and Matthew took the other, it's so weird not to be able to feel them at all. Even to look down at them, they didn't look like my legs, and they looked so heavy- I kept apologizing to them for having to hold them- it seemed like an immensely overwhelming task. I started to push, not sure where I was directing the effort exactly because of the numbness- and the first comment was, "Oh my! She has McKenna's hair!" At 2:59 a.m., Saturday November 15th 2008, Maesyn Marie Gibbens joined us- pink, crying, and covered in thick vernix. She was so little! 6 lbs. 3 oz., 19 1/2 in long, 8/9 apgars- her umbilical cord was so short, maybe 12 in long- the doctor just kept saying how short it was and Matthew had a very tiny spot to cut. One of my worries this whole pregnancy was a cord accident- I guess I needn't have worried! If only I'd known, she didn't have enough length to have hurt herself- she was on a short leash so to speak.

The hospital stay was pleasant. We got up to our room and settled in for a little snip of sleep and then mid morning Saturday my parents brought Jocilyn and McKenna to meet their sister for the first time. It was pretty cute because we had totally decided that Maesyn looks like a blend of her sisters, with Kenna's hair and Jocilyn's facial features. So when they met her they each said, "oh! she looks like me!"

Welcome to our family Maesyn, we've been waiting for you, and are so happy that you are here! Daddy is in love all over again (Matthew is so sweet to watch with his girls, and this one has him wrapped tightly around her petite little finger)... I'm so blessed and so thankful that Heavenly Father watched over us in labor and has now entrusted us with another of his choice daughters- it's a task having them, but there is comfort knowing that He'll be a part of her rearing as much as we will involve Him...

Thanks to all of you friends and family for your well wishes and prayers.... pictures to follow in the next post- those are the best part of any post!

Every year the Gibbens side of the family has a Halloween Party. I don't know exactly how long this tradition has been running- but the original clan (Matthew and siblings) get quite excited about it...

His brother even came to town from CT for this- partly because it was too expensive to fly down at Thanksgiving- but still...

So, one of the games involves making a spider out of pom-poms and pipe cleaners and then racing them across a table using nothing but a straw and all of the wind you can muster... This is Matthew's favorite event- he worked the night of the party this year, so he missed it and his brother, Jeremy, took the championship

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Here is a game where each child has a peanut tied to the end of their string and it sits (as you can see) on a plate in the center... I think there was music playing and when it stopped grandpa would have an inverted bowl and come crashing down on the plate and "catch" the peanuts that didn't make it out in time. If your peanut was caught you had to "pay" a peanut from your bowl, and when you're out of nuts... well, you're out...

I just thought that Raenne (sp?) made a cute little Tinkerbell... her costume didn't last long because it was too itchy... but was cute while it lasted! This is one of the cousins that grandma babysits and so she use to see Joc and Kenna all of the time when they were still going to grandmas for daycare... it's cute, Raenne calls them "Joc-in- cousin" and "Kenna-cousin"... it's just cute...