Birth

We are leaving the hospital today. Yay! Nolan is 6 pounds 4 oz because babies usually lose weight after birth so that is totally normal. He's very cute. I did not actually ever go into labor with him. I had been having inconsistent contractions but they never amounted to anything. When I went to my OB monday my blood pressure was high so they monitored it and then sent me to get my blood checked. They monitored me at the hospital for 5 hrs and my blood pressure had gone down so they sent me home. Then that night my headache had gotten worse and I just really felt off so I paged the OB on call who said if I really didn't feel good  I should come back to the hospital. Well thank god I did, if I hadn't gone back I wouldn't have known his heartrate was dropping because you can't feel that. When I went back they monitored me and my blood pressure yet again went up and down and I had protein in my urine which is a sign of pre eclampsia. I also had the tell tale headache. They decided they were probably going to induce me since I was 38 weeks and that was the safest plan. But before they could put that plan into action Nolan's heart decelerated 3 times and they were having trouble getting it to be stable. So they rushed me upstairs and got me on a monitor where it stabilized. But then it started to drop again and it was clear something was very wrong. 

My OB saw that his heart was falling so low that if they didn't get him out he was going to die in a matter of minutes due to lack of oxygen. So they literally ran me ER style to the OR where they had me on the table and were literally shoving tubes in me and throwing betadine on me. Apparently they had me under general anesthesia within a minute and the baby out within 12. But he came out totally fine and although he had a low Apgar (score of the baby's color and condition) he totally perked up a minute later. It turns out the cord was thin and not providing nutrients correctly from the placenta which may be caused by the pre eclampsia or it could have just been something that was already happening and if the pre eclampsia wasn't being monitored they never would have caught it. Scary times. We are both doing well now (thank god for pain meds heh) and we're going home today! My c section was what they call a true crash c section which means not only is it an emergency but it's under general anesthesia (usually you're awake during a c section) and they do crash ones very fast because it's literally minutes between life and death for the baby and the mother.  My OB has only done a few of these in her entire career, ie there are c sections that are done fast that are 'crash' c sections but ours was a true crash one where we literally had minutes to get him out alive. There were 35 people in the room at his birth, I'm sure if I was the med student there it would have been somewhat interesting but alas when it's your own body and baby it's just scary and hectic.