C'est Moi, Camden!

Here he is! Camden Carter Mona. He was born on 11/11/07. He was 20 inches long and weighed 6 lbs, 13 oz. He is only about an hour into our world in this photo and he's a little drowsy.

So here's the story. Thursday evening we went out to Ichiban for Tessa's birthday. I'll have to save a moderately unflattering review of this aging establishment for my other blog. Chelsey said she was as uncomfortable as she had ever been. The discomfort was the very beginning of false labor. Whomever invented this term is a sick sadist. There is nothing false about it.

After midnight or so Chelsey had contractions every hour that would wake her up. In a kind gesture she did not wake me up to tell me. I would be without sleep soon enough. By morning the contractions were regularly spaced about 5 minutes apart. Wow! Time to go to the hospital? Well, no. They weren't all that strong yet. We double checked our bags and kept wondering if this was really happening. As she moved around that morning the contractions became less and less regular which is a sign that it was the aforementioned "false" labor. The contractions gradually became stronger over time to the point that she had to concentrate on breathing and couldn't sleep but still they were not regular and not mind-blowingly painful so the hospital told us to not come in. This went on all day Friday and all day Saturday. Friday we both called in and said we weren't coming to work and Chelsey's parents began plans to head up to our house. Once they arrived on Friday we all pretty much sat around waiting. Saturday we tried to be patient. We also went to Babies R Us for a little last minute shopping hoping some movement might speed things along. We stopped at Target too and I added a new triceratops figure to my collection. Back to the story! Saturday night we watched some TV downstairs and were getting frustrated. How long was this going to go on? We were coming up of 48 hours of "false" labor that didn't seem all that false to Chelsey.

What we were waiting for was "early" labor. In early labor the contractions are stronger and very regular. Getting up and moving around doesn't make them go away or change their timing. At about 11:30 at night on Saturday the 10th we called the PETU (Prenatal Evaluation and Treatment Unit) hotline once again. How long can this go on? They assured us that we would know when the real deal started. You can't come in until either the contractions are three minutes apart or your water breaks.

We went to sleep. Okay, okay, I went to sleep and Chelsey dosed between painful false contractions. This would be the third night of this. After midnight things changed. Chelsey's contractions became much more regular and really strong. So this is what they were talking about! After a few of them she woke me up to tell me and have me start timing them. I think they were about 7 minutes apart. On the third one I was timing Chelsey said she felt something pop. Time to go to the hospital! I grabbed out bags and headed downstairs. I knocked on the guest bedroom door and told Chelsey's parents to meet us at the hospital. We called my parents on the way there.

We were admitted into the PETU area and the evaluation began. It was probably around 2:00 in the morning. They checked and said Chels was at about 1.5 of 10 as far as being ready to give birth. Hmm, with all that effort since Thursday night that wasn't as much progress as she was hoping for. The good news for us was that her water had broken. That's a "free ticket" into the hospital so they couldn't send us home. because the contractions still weren't super regular or 3 minutes apart they would have sent us back home. I can't imagine! The doctor recommended sleep as the best remedy. He gave Chelsey some morphine and another drug to help her sleep so we could both get a good night sleep (2 hours) and be ready for the delivery. I won't go into details but anti-nausea medication was recommended as well.

In the morning they put Chelsey on an IV to get fluids into her in case she wanted an epidural. In case? Was it ever in question?

Everyone continually complemented Chelsey on her focus and breathing. I guess they had had some pretty terrible women in that week that held their breath with every contraction. I think Chelsey is super tough. She didn't show how much pain she was in. She made it look easy. They told her they don't give epidurals until people are dilated to 4 and since she was just at 1.5 in the wee hours of Sunday they figured she had a way to go. The contractions weren't terribly regular and she was handling it so well I think they were surprised when she said she wanted the epidural NOW!

It took some time to set it up and considering how much she hates needles she was fantastic. It was a much more forceful procedure than I had imagined. It takes some real strength to get that needle in there. It took three tries in three spots. Did I mention how awesome Chelsey is?

Shortly after the epidural was in they decided to check to see how far along she was. They looked shocked. 8 cm! No one could believe she had come so far so fast with so little complaining. Again, Chelsey is awesome.

I quick ran out to tell our families that we were getting really close to the end now. Since she had moved so fast forward I didn't figure it would take too much longer. I was right. In the mean time they had her moving from one side to the other in the bed as the epidural hadn't numbed everywhere. There was one spot on her right side where she could feel everything. Overall she felt much better but that one spot still hurt like mad. In what seemed like not too long we were at the time were we were ready to push. It was time to get this baby out. The area where she could still feel moved from her right side to her left side and they thought it might be where the baby was pushing on her.

We (okay she) tried pushing for six or so contractions but she just didn't have the strength or control with the epidural. They decided to dial it back a little. That helped and she was able to push better. Up to this point they kept telling us that the baby was doing really well. His heart rate would go up every time she had a contraction which was a really good sign he was coping well. When she started to really push something happened though. His heart rate dropped with every push. This is certainly not a good thing. They figured she had about an hour left of pushing and they weren't sure he would make that. They decided she needed a c-section.

Things moved incredibly fast at that point. All of a sudden the room was full of people. They handed me scrubs to put on while they prepped her. It seemed like by the time I got dressed they were wheeling her out of the room and down the hall toward the O.R.

Just outside the doors to the O.R. area they made me wait while they got her ready. I think it was about 5 minutes but it seemed like an eternity. I tried to keep my cool.

I asked someone to tell our families what was happening and a nice nurse said she would do that. What I didn't know at the time was that she said something pretty stupid. She said I would be out in 20 minutes to talk to them. Why would she say something stupid like that? She had no idea what would happen or when I would decide to come out. She should have said that someone would be out as soon as possible but it can vary and they should be patient and not worry. - 10 points to Methodist hospital for having a tactless nurse on staff.

When they came out to bring me into the operating room we casually strolled into little evaluation room outside the actual O.R.. The nurse explained that this is where they checkout the baby as soon as he comes out. We next went into the O.R. and I figured they were going to get started at some point but they were already well started. They had a screen of light blue fabric set up just below her neck to block the view of the actual surgery. I thought it would have been interesting to see what they are doing and I don't think I would have freaked out but later when I was waiting for her to come out of surgery, having seen it probably would have made me even more freaked out.

I came in and sat on a stool by Chelsey's head and told her everything was going to be okay. She was doing pretty well. She could feel some stuff and there was even a little pain but they were working fast. I think they may up the pain killer factor once the baby is out because she remembers less after he came out. I was only in there a few minute before they had him out. It all happened very fast. We heard a little squeak and at first thought it was him but realized it was a suction tube. Come to think of it, it may have been them suctioning out his mouth because a few seconds later we heard him cry. Some one in the room called it as 25 after and thus, little Camden was born.

This was just the beginning of the odyssey. They showed him to Chelsey in a flash as they rushed him out of the room. Two nurses put him on a warming table and started to check his vitals as they cleaned him off. His cord had obviously already been cut but it is cut off really long in the operating room just to free him. They let me cut it much closer to him since I didn't get to do that part. It was kind of cool though just symbolic at that point. They had a heart/O2 monitor that wrapped around his foot and it was really poor and couldn't get a good reading. -10 points methodist hospital for having shoddy monitoring tools. The nurses were trying to listen to his heart (especially since the monitor wasn't staying on.) The nurse doing it couldn't hear anything and so she mouths the words "I can't hear his heart" to the other nurse like I'm an idiot who can't read lips. Mouthing the words made me more nervous rather than less nervous. -10 more points for another tactless nurse. The same nurse, let's call her Tacky 2, suggested that the problem may be that there is some air in his chest between his heart and the stethoscope and this little space of dead air might be muffling the sound of his heart. That would have been the tactful way of explaining it though. Tacky 2 explained instead that sometimes when a baby first cries they can tear a hole in their lungs that lets air into the chest. Ohhh, good. That makes me feel better about my two minute old son. You can't hear his heart and you think he might have a hole in his lungs. -20 more point just for Tacky 2 being allowed to talk to other humans.

They took him across the hall to the Intermediate Care Nursery where they could hook him up to machines that they didn't pick up at garage sales. Right away we could see that his heart was beating away. That was a relief. They had two concerns. First, his oxygen was just a little low so they wanted to give him a little oxygen and second his heart was actually beating too fast. It was about 206 bpm and it should have been down below 160 or 150. It would spike up high any time someone moved him or poked at him. Eventually he calmed down and things got to where they should be. I stood over the warmer and talked to him as he watched me. My voice seemed to calm him and I hoped he recognized it. After all, he has been able to hear for quite a while now. Eventually they wrapped him up and asked if I would like to hold him. Well DUH! I held him and the whole experience was quite emotional. I still hadn't heard anything about Chelsey. I also didn't have the best sense of time. This is why the first nurse, the one who talked to our families (let's call her Tacky 1) shouldn't have promised I would be out in 20 minutes to talk to everyone. Even if everything had gone perfect and he had gone to the regular nursery I still would have wanted to hold him. After a quick check they would have offered to let me hold him and the odds of me going, "Nawwww, I'll pass, let me go hang out with my family instead." would have been nill. So, ya, Tacky 1 made silly promises that made our families basket cases. After an hour or I finally was resting with Camden in my arms but our families didn't know where either of us were and no one would tell them. They feared the worst.

Finally my mom tracked down Chelsey and then tracked down me. I was sitting there in the nursery wondering if anyone had told my family anything and I was going to talk to the next nurse that came by. A woman popped her head in and said I had some very anxious family members who would like to know if they could come into the nursery. Of course! My mom came in all in tears and again it was pretty emotional. She snapped the photo at the beginning and this photo below before speeding off to tell everyone we were okay.
I told her I needed her to go tell Chelsey we were both fine and Chelsey was enormously relieved. -30 points to Methodist for a family member having to play detective and be the one to tell Chelsey that her baby was okay. In all fairness, they get +500 points for keeping the baby and Chelsey alive. Many many of the staff people were awesome and wonderful. It was really just Tacky 1 and Tacky 2 who made us mad.

Shortly after the pictures were taken they were okay with the baby's vitals so they let me wheel him down to Chelsey's room. Chelsey was overwhelmed when we came into the room. Family was hot on our heels and I didn't even have a chance to talk to her. Everyone was snapping photos that I'm sure were unflattering and finally I pretty much told everyone to leave by refusing to pose for any pictures myself. I still hadn't talked to Chelsey. We enjoyed the moment and after some time set down to deciding on a name from our short list.

That's how Camden came into the world.