On Wednesday March 9, I was 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant and I went in for what would be our last doctor's appointment. After a successful version the week before, we were anxious to see if Ephraim had stayed in the vertex position. I went in and was checked again and the doctor shook his head. I went in for another ultrasound and sure enough Ephraim had flipped again. I was really worried that this would be the end of it and we would be scheduled for a c-section, but the doctor said he was willing to try again. But, we were on a more scrunched time table. The version needed to happen before the weekend and the baby needed to be out before the weekend. The next two weeks coming up were spring breaks for the various school districts and many doctors were going to be off including my own. Also, because I was now in the 39 week range, I was eligible for an induction which I had not been last week, and they did not want me to go through the weekend this far along with a breech baby in case I went into labor naturally, so it was time to get the baby born vertex or not. My doctor was busy and could not find a time in his schedule to schedule the version and induction so he said he would talk to another doctor, the one who had taught him how to do inversions and see if he was available. I went home and waited for phone call with the plan. They called back and a new doctor was available, a female doctor. We scheduled a version for the next day on Thursday March 10th. The plan was to attempt the version again, and if it was successful, induce, and if it was not to go ahead and perform the c-section. Either way the baby would be born.
I fasted beginning at 10:00 on Wednesday and woke up to get to the hospital at 6:00am on Thursday March 10th. We were taken back to the triage room where we got ready. The nurses prepared everything and then we waited. The nurses switched shifts and we waited. We waited until after 8:00am to finally see the doctor. The doctor came in and introduced herself to us, there was some more waiting and prep work but then it was time to attempt the version. The nurses gave me the shot to make my heart go faster this time instead of putting it in my IV. I felt its effects more this time but not very severely. They laid me down and prepared the ultrasound. Low and behold, Ephraim had flipped AGAIN, but this time he flipped vertex. No version needed. The doctor apologized for giving me the shot before she performed the ultrasound because it wasn't needed. They got me ready and wheeled my bed down the hall to a labor and delivery room.
The doctor came in and broke my water. They wanted my water broken because with less water there was less ability for Ephraim to flip around some more and less likely he would flip back breech. Unlike the last two inductions I had, the water breaking was just tiny. The nurse started me on pitocin and the waiting game began.
We waited a long, long time. Things seemed to be progressing slower than they had the last two times. I was feeling some contractions but it wasn't very bad. We watched the morning television junket. I watched the 11:00 hour, the hour that all three of my other boys were born in come and go, and still no Ephraim.
We talked to Patti on the phone, Emily came and visited but had to go back to Birmingham to teach a class, Mrs. McQueen came and visited. Noah was working on school work on his ipad. He had to take the next two days off before interim but he still had projects to grade and work on.
I got the epidural, but he turned it on very high. I lost all feeling in both legs. Normally I would just lose feeling in one leg, but this time I lost it in both completely. I could not move at all. The nurse turned up the pitocin and then my water for really really broke. I was having to constantly change out towels because of the amount of water filling them up.
Around 2:00 the nurse came in to lay me on my side to encourage the contractions. It was so hard for me to move, she decided to call back the anetheseologist to turn down the epidural. He came in and turned it off, but said he would come back to adjust it.
When the nurse tried to turn me to the other side because she didn't like how the baby was reacting to being on my left side, she went ahead and checked me. It was time.
No need for the aneteseologist to come back, it was time for baby. Everything went super quickly from then on. The doctor came in and Ephraim was struggling in the birth canal. His heart rate wasn't doing very well. The nurse called in for another nurse to help but the other nurse never made it in time. It only took about two pushes, but Ephraim came. They took him to the warmer but his breathing wasn't great.
He was breathing way too fast. The baby nurse considered taking him to the nursery, but she decided to put him down for some skin to skin time first to see if that would level off his breathing. Before Mrs. McQueen and mom could come back, we had about thirty minutes of just quiet skin to skin time to settle out his breathing.
Mom, Mrs. McQueen and Isaac came to the delivery room to meet Ephraim. We had some more time down there. They all left and we were put in the wheel chair which was extremely difficult to do since I was still so numb from the epidural and we went upstairs to our well baby room.
The hospital stay was the easiest one I ever had. I was in little to no pain at all and had no problems at all.
