Nice to meet you, Babyboy Beaubien

This post is long overdue, so, appropriately, it is extra long. The story starts on Thursday, August 16, 2007. Pictures are here.

At Jessica’s 38-week check up, her blood pressure was high, so the doctor decided it was time for her to stop working. High blood pressure is one of the signs of preeclampsia, but she did not have any of the other indications (protein in blood or urine, blurred vision, headaches, dizziness). However, they wanted to see her back the next day, which was Friday the 17th since the symptoms can progress from day to day. This was a bit of a wake-up call for both of us (mostly for me), so I spent Thursday night getting all of my stuff packed for the hospital and making sure the car seat was installed right in my car. Friday morning, I loaded up the car will all of our labor/delivery/recovery/postpartum gear so that we would be ready for anything.

On Friday, her blood pressure was even higher. There was a point in this appointment where it seemed like there was a 50/50 chance that it would end with us going straight to the hospital. It turned out that her blood pressure was under control when she was laying down, so her doctor ordered bed rest and scheduled another appointment on Monday to do a final check for inducing labor on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning (the 21st or 22nd, which would have been exactly 39 weeks). They gave her strict orders that if she were to experience blurry vision, headaches, or dizziness over the weekend, she should call the doctor immediately.

Late in the day on Saturday, Jessica developed a headache, so she did call the doctor. Since we didn’t have any way to check her blood pressure, the doctor wanted her to go to triage and get checked out. So we went (we didn’t have much going on since Jessica was stuck on the couch all day anyway). They took blood and urine samples, both negative for protein. Ultimately, they gave her a few Tylenol and we went home.

After another boring day of bedrest on Sunday, we went to bed around 11pm. Jessica woke me up at 2:45am asking for towels because she thought her water had broken, and she was having some contractions. I brought her some towels and we turned the lights off thinking we’d try to get some rest (this is what they tell you to do in the Birth/Labor Education classes). It seemed like her contractions were coming fairly close together, so we started timing them. It’s actually pretty hard to time contractions while you are sleeping, so we turned the lights back on and got dressed. We really started timing and keeping track of her contractions at 3:15 or so–they seemed to be 30-45 seconds long, 2-3 minutes apart and getting more intense. Around 4:30, she was having some trouble talking through the contractions, so we paged her doctor, who instructed us to go to the hospital.

At 4:50am on Monday morning, we headed to the hospital through the rain. We were well ahead of rush hour, so it only took us 35 minutes to get there. By 5:30am, we were all set up in triage a few beds away from where we had been Saturday night. Things seemed to move much slower there this time, though. After some time, they did a cervical exam and found that she was at 3cm. The nurse and resident attempted to verify that Jessica’s water had broken, but they could not. This is still somewhat of a mystery, but later evidence seems to confirm that it had actually broken at 2:45am. They were still really concerned about the preeclampsia, so they wasted time getting a “better” (more painful to obtain) urine sample and more blood. All this time, the contractions were getting stronger and closer together. Jessica was becoming very interested in pain relief at this point. Her first choice was some kind of narcotic, because she did not like the idea of being stuck on the bed with an epidural, but they would not administer one because the baby was not active enough (he was sleeping), so she decided to wait until we got to the labor and delivery room and see how it was then.

It was hard to keep track of the time, but probably around 6:15 or 6:30, they finally said “You might be in labor. We’re going to call your doctor and see what she wants us to do.” Thankfully, the doctor determined that it was a good idea to admit Jessica, so we made our way to the labor and delivery room. We got settled in there a few minutes before 7am. The nurses seemed to be changing at this time, so for about 10 minutes nothing much happened aside from more painful contractions.

Jessica was still very interested in pain relief at this point, and her doctor showed up, so there was another exam–she was at 8cm by this point. There was still time (though very little) for an epidural, but our doula cautioned Jessica that it could drag things out and make it take “another 7 hours” instead of “another 2 hours”. This did not seem to be encouraging to Jessica, but the doctor left so that she could “think about it”.

Ten minutes later, Jessica decided that, yes, she did want immediate pain relief and by the way “I really feel like I want to push”, so the nurse called the doctor back in to check her again. It was about 8am, and the doctor confirmed that it was in fact time to push (and too late for any pain relief). At this point, they also determined that the baby was “OP” (Occiput Posterior, i.e., “facing the wrong way”–this makes for more pain and a more difficult delivery). Nonetheless, the pushing started. After about 10 minutes, the top of the head was clearly visible. A few more pushes, a lot of yelling, and 4 minutes later at 8:14am, the baby was out. I looked it over and announced that it was a boy.

I cut his umbilical cord, and they promptly cleaned him up and set about measuring him and checking him out. He was 6 lbs and 10 oz, 20.5 inches long, has 5 long fingers on each of his 2 hands, and 5 toes on each of his two big feet. We weren’t completely decided on a name, so he was Babyboy Beaubien for the next few hours.