Ford Birth Story Part 3

Umm....ok. Sooo, I'm very unexpectedly and unpreparedly having a baby tonight, and my doctor won't be here for it. Alrighty. Well, as a mother of 3 kids already, I was pretty used to just rolling with the punches and if you know me, you know I'm a pretty laid back person in general, so I didn't let it rattle my cage. Of course I was bummed that the doctor who had been with me through 9 months of pregnancy was not going to deliver my baby, but I was willing to roll with it and excited that we would actually meet our baby boy within the next 24 hours. My doctor told me she had filled in her colleague on everything that had occurred that day and she would be heading to the hospital right away to meet me and get the induction process going. With the minuscule amount of battery juice my phone had left I called my husband and told him we would not just be staying at the hospital overnight for monitoring...that we were going to be having a baby! He was excited and anxious to get back to the hospital as soon as possible. The nurse came in & wheeled me down the hall to a REAL room...Praise Jesus. I could not wait to get out of that tiny, rock hard triage bed I'd been in for the last 8 hours. My Dad accompanied me to my room & texted Marty the room number he could find us in since my phone had now officially died. I remember my Dad saying something about meeting Ford tonight and I assured him it would be the next morning. After all, I was only 1 cm dilated last time I was checked and it was already almost 7pm. I had a long way to go. Marty showed up a few minutes later with my bag and phone charger and we settled in. We were ready to get "the party" started. We all made calls & texts to let everyone know we were being induced and Baby Ford would probably arrive some time in the early morning. My Mom was on her way and so was my friend Shannon, who would capture everything on film for me...well not EVERYTHING....but most things. They both arrived around the same time and we were ready to have a peaceful evening hanging out in labor and delivery. American Idol was on in the background and I remember thinking, "I wish I could turn it up a little and there wouldn't be so many distractions. I'd like to see what's happening." My doctor's colleague came in to introduce herself & check on me. She was very sweet and had such a nice, kind face. She said they would start pitocin and she would be back to check on me soon. The nurse came in with the pitocin and hooked it up to my IV. Here we go. No turning back now. I was already contracting pretty regularly, so getting that little bit of Pitocin was just enough to really kick start my labor. I remember my nurse saying, "Wow. You're on the lowest level of Pitocin and contracting very well. I'm not sure we'll even need to bump you up much." At this point was when I was thinking, "Alrighty...where's that anesthesiologist? Let's get my order in. And while we're ordering...can I get a burger and some tater tots up in here!? I haven't eaten ALL DAY." I had an extremely long and painful wait for my epidural with Ty and I didn't want that to happen again. The doctor came in to check me and see how all my contractions had been progressing things. The words, "Still a 1." came out of her mouth and I was not a happy camper. As she finished her exam, all of a sudden I felt a warm gush of fluid. I thought my water broke. Nope. Blood. More blood. And lots of it. She didn't seem panicked and so no one else did either. She remained calm. But as I could feel the liquid keep coming & coming, I started to get worried. Surely this is too much blood for me to be losing. This can't be ok. But still she remained calm. She told me she was going to break my water and make sure the fluid looked clear and that the blood wasn't coming from there. Clear amniotic fluid. Ok. Good sign. Then she said she was going to put a heart rate monitor on the baby's head so we could keep a very close eye on his heart rate. We had been having trouble with the one on my belly because he kept moving away from it, so I figured that was why we would use the better one. As soon as that monitor went on his head everything changed. It went from a somewhat calm with just a little bit of worry situation to complete chaos & panic. I could hear it. The sound of his heart...barely beating....hardly there....so slow. I will never ever forget that sound. Within a few seconds of hearing that sound, the doctor looked at me and said, "Lindsay, we're going to have a c-section. Right. Now." As cliche as it sounds, at this point is when I really had an out of body experience. It was as if I was watching myself and my family in a movie. In an instant, my room became loud and crowded and chaotic. I'm not even sure how many people came rushing into my room when the doctor called for the so-and-so code, but it seemed like 37. And to contribute even more to the feeling of this just being an experience I was watching and not actually going through, everyone around was talking about me like I wasn't in the room. "Unhook her from that!" "Move her over here!" I remember looking over at my poor husband and just seeing him breaking. I can't imagine what that felt like for him. To see all these people manhandling his wife, screaming & running around and he had zero control over what was happening. I think it was easier to be in my shoes at that point. As they wheeled me out of the room I looked up at him and said, "It's going to be ok. We're gonna be fine." We began our marathon run down the halls of the hospital and all of a sudden there was a man running next to my bed asking me all kinds of questions. Had I ever had a reaction to anesthesia....Was I allergic to anything? I was able to answer all of his questions but the only thing I could think of was my husband. Where was he? I asked the man, "Is my husband coming? Is he going to be in the room??" He answered that they were going to be putting me to sleep and he would not be allowed to come in. Ugh. That was one the lowest moments for me. Knowing that neither of us would really be there to witness our last baby being born. That was almost enough to get waterworks going for me. But I held it together. I just thought, "I can't lose it now. I've gotta stay calm." They got me into the very bright, freezing cold operating room and literally thrust me onto the operating table. For 6 months after I had Ford I had soreness in my lower back, like a bruised feeling, and I swear it was because of that transfer. They ripped my gown off of me and began to drape my belly with lots of heavy blue sheets. I remember the door opening & closing a bunch with people running in and out and once when it opened I caught a glimpse of my husband sitting in a chair in the hallway. All alone. Again, almost enough to make me lose it, but again I held it together. "This is no time to be a sissy Lindsay!" One of my most vivid memories of lying in that OR for the few seconds I was in there and awake was the clanging of metal tools...lots of them. And the counting. They were counting the tools, "One! Two! Three! Four!....," loudly and quickly. I remember thinking, "Lord please let them knock me out soon. I am ABOUT to lose it and I cannot lose it. I do not want to hear one more thing going on in this room. No more counting. No more yelling. No more watching people run around like their lives depended upon it. Knock me out!!" The anesthesiologist settled in by my head and the doctor got into her position by my side. I could still see everything going on. You know that blue sheet they put up to block the patient's view of the surgery? Well, they didn't put one of those up for me since I was about to be knocked out. I could see my belly protruding through the hole in the blue sheets and all stained orange from the betadine. The doctor had her hands up ready for gloves and she looked at the anesthesiologist and yelled, "I'm not scrubbing! Let's go!" Then everything went black.