The Journey to Becoming a Mommy: Part 3: The C-Section

After the wild ride down the hall with consent forms being signed on the way, we finally got to the OR. It's funny because the OR was literally right down the hall, but it seemed like it took forever to get there.  By the time we got in there I had started to cry out of fear for Makenna and for myself. This was not the plan... I was supposed to have a run of the mill vaginal delivery, not major abdominal surgery!! Not to mention the fact that I was about to be put under. I have a MAJOR fear of general anesthesia and being intubated! But I was very happy at the same time because Shelley worked there, so she was going to be able to be in the section with me. I knew she wouldn't be right by my side because she had to help with everything, but at least someone from my family would be there... Kristy saw me crying and calmed me down by pointing out that crying was just going to stress me and Makenna out more. Kristy is awesome, have I mentioned that yet?
Anyway, it was like a TV show in there! Everyone was rushing around and getting stuff ready soooo quickly! I was greatly impressed. Now for a shout out to Dr Moralas: He helped them transfer me to the OR table. I don't see many surgeries, but I do know that usually the surgeons don't help with that. As everyone else was rushing around getting me prepped, Dr Moralas got the doppler and started looking for Makenna's heartbeat. It took a few minutes, but he finally found it (THANK GOODNESS)! He had the ultrasound brought in to double check it and sure enough it was there and in the 120's!!!!!!! (It was still lower then mine though! Mine was running in the 140s the whole time. I'm pretty sure anxiety had something to so with it.) Best news ever!! That meant that they had time to stop and redose the epidural and they wouldn't have to put me under!! YAY! As soon as they knew I wasn't going to be put under someone went to get Michael and my Mom scrubbed in to come in. At some point as they were redosing the epidural I remember someone asking Dr. Moralas if he was going to get scrubbed in. He said he wasn't yet, he was going to sit with me and keep monitoring baby girl's heart rate. And sit with me he did. He talked with me and kept me (somewhat) distracted the whole time as they finished prepping me. Then it was time. Michael and Mom walked in. By this point I was MUCH calmer and what Dad said in the blessing he gave me kept running through my mind: "everything will be ok in the end." Michael sat by my head, and Mom got to stand at my feet where she could literally see everything. I reached out of Michael's hand and he was shaking like a leaf! I asked him if everything was ok and he responded "NO! I'm freaking out!" I told him not to freak out because everything was going to be fine. When I said this the CRNA that was behind me laughed and told Michael that he should be comforting me, not the other way around!
--One side note real quick: While I was being prepped I guess I focused on the caps Shelley and Kristy were wearing. I remember telling them how cute the cap was once, but Shelley told me later that I siad it like 5 different time, but in my defense, their caps WERE really cute, you'll see Shelley's in some pics later.--
And so the cutting began. They said the words you always hear them say "Now you're going to feel some tugging." The whole experience was really eeiry for me. I have seen so many C-Sections that I basically knew what they were doing when, and I was going step-by-step in my head. It got to the point where I thought "Ok now he's about to pull her out" and Dr. Moralas said "Here comes her head!!" The Next sound I heard was literally the BEST sound I have ever heard in my entire life: Makenna crying!!!! They didn't have to stimulate her or anything. She came out pink and screaming. Michael and I looked at each other and both burst into tears. She was finally here! Makenna made her grand entrance at 6:05pm.
Michael went to the warmer to be with Makenna and my Mom came and sat with me. Mom told me how afraid they all were when I was taken from the room, and how she and Michael just hugged each other and cried together, and how she reminded him and herself of the words Dad said in the blessing. This just hammered it into me of how lucky I am to have family that loves me and how lucky we are to have the Power of the Priesthood to help us out.
Then the Stats came in: Makenna's Apgars were 9 and 9: AMAZING for a Section baby, She was 7lbs, 7oz and 20 inches long. She was healthy. She was beautiful. I was a Mommy, Michael was a Daddy. He brought my little angel over to me. She took my breath away. She was soooo perfect. I cannot believe that something so perfect came from me. We were so blessed. I was in love. And I didn't think it was possible, but seeing Michael holding our child made my love for him expand so much! How could I be so lucky?
Michael and Makenna set off for the nursery while Dr. Moralas finished me up.
Then the 3rd surprise of the day happened. As he had me opened up he discovered that my right fallopian tube had never attached to my uterus, and was very swollen. He wasn't going to take it out because it would increase the chances of bleeding. I was going to have to have another surgery to get it out, but the longer he looked at it, the worse it looked to him, and he decided it needed to come out today. I don't know this for sure, but in my heart I think the whole reason it ended up going to C-Section was because God wanted this to be discovered. Dr Moralas said there was a good chance it could rupture if left unattended, and it also gave me a greater chance of having an ectopic pregnancy. This wouldn't have been discovered if he hadn't opened me up. Anatomy ultrasounds I had did not discover this. The cool thing about everything is that Dr. Moralas had Shelley take picture of the tube so I could see it! He knows me so well lol! I am amazed that we got pregnant on accident because our chances were (unknowingly) down to 50% because my tube wasn't connected. God is great! He knows what we need even when we don't know it!
During the time when this was all going on I all of the sudden felt really heavy and felt like I was losing the urge to breathe. I even told Mom to make sure I kept breathing. Then the CRNA said it was because she just gave me a dose of fentanyl. I never liked narcotics!
Then Dr. Moralas stiched up my uterus and glued me shut and it was over. I was alive, Makenna was alive and healthy, and it was time to go back to my room.

Taking Makenna to the Warmer

Michael cutting the remnant cord

 My beautiful baby girl

 Mom sitting with me. She could see Makenna, I could not. I hadn't seen her at all yet. (Please excuse the extreme swelling in my face. I had a TON of IV fluids at this point and was swollen ALL over.)

 Michael's first time Holding Makenna

 My first time seeing my little angel/first picture of the 3 of us

 My family

 Telling her how glad I was that she's here.

 Soooo happy

 She's beautiful!

 Headed to the nursery - Michael's scrubbed in look makes me giggle!

 7lbs 7oz

 Proud family

 Showing her off

 Getting checked out

 Daddy and Daughter

 Proud Aunt (thanks Shelley for being the photographer) and Daddy. Isn't Shelley's cap cute?

 Happy Daddy

 Meeting Mema

 Long feet

 Michael got a pair of his scrubs stamped with her foot prints. These scrubs will now be retired and saved for the next foot prints of the next baby.

 Happy family seeing baby girl for the first time

 Isn't she perfect?

 Raelee seeing Makenna for the first time. She brought her a care bear.

 My first time holding my little baby

 I was VERY loopy at this point and do not remember this pic being snapped.

 She takes my breath away

 Bath time

 I love her itty bitty head

The Journey to becoming a Mommy: Part 2: The Induction

***** WARNING - - -This post will contain some slightly graphic details, and some of them may make you hurt when reading them*****

We walked into the hospital at 5am. We had to check in through the ER. An admissions person came in and was uber rude, but I suppose I'll let her slide this time. She looked pretty sleepy. We walked up to labor and delivery. It was a weird walk because the hospital was totally deserted and also because I knew the next time I would go down the hallway would be with a baby on my lap. We got to our room and the nurses came in to get us checked in. We had our regular nurse and the charge nurse. She was in there because she had taken care of us Sunday night and wanted to help get the induction started.Then they checked my Cervix, my cervix hid a bit which made the checking of it quite painful, but I was 3 1/2 to 4cm dilated!!! Then they started the IV. This wasn't bad because I really don't mind needles. Then they started the devil Pitocin. Mom and Dad got to the hospital and then Shelley arrived shortly there after. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes but they were not hurting yet, just really tight. Dr. Moralas came in to check on my around 8am. He checked my cervix and said I was 5-6cm dilated! He decided to break my my amniotic sac to get things moving faster. It was so gross! He made a huge mess (well I guess technically I made the mess, but he caused it!). There was pools of amniotic fluid pooled all the way down at my feet! And to make matters worse, Makenna had decided she wanted to have her first poop while she was still in Mommy, so the amniotic fluid was gross looking. They were not surprised to see the meconium in the fluid since I had been in labor so long. Makenna was stressed out because of it. They kept having trouble monitoring Makenna's Heart rate because she was being so active, so after he broke my water he put an internal fetal heart monitor on Makenna. He also put in a sort of catheter and a contraction monitor in me. About 1-2 hours later I began to really feel the contractions. It was very strange because they went from tight, to slightly uncomfortable, to kind've painful, to painful, to OH MY GOSH painful in less then an hour. I didn't expect the intensity to ramp up so fast. I tried moving around the bed, went to the bathroom a few times, and then got on the labor ball. This was a pretty good position because I was able to curl over and Michael and Mom would rub my back during the contractions. I lasted this way for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. The contractions on the monitor were a level 6-8 at this point and lasting about a full minute. Before I even went to the hospital I had told everyone not to try to get me to get an epidural and to not let me decided to get one in the midst of a contraction. During an especially bad contraction I said the words. "I think I want the epidural." Mom immediately said "OK!" and Michael followed with a firm "NO!" So I toughed it out. About 45 minutes later the contractions were spiking at 10, coming every 1 to 1 1/2 minutes and lasting over a minute long. I decided I needed to go to the bathroom again and once I got to the bathroom I got hit by the most painful contraction yet. I told Mom that I just wanted to die. Everyone kept telling me to breath through them, but I was literally in so much pain that I wasn't able to breath. Then BOOM another one came. After it was over I was decided. I wanted the epidural. Shelley and Michael tried to talk me out of it, which is exactly what I wanted them to do, and Mom pointed out that I said I wanted to discuss it rationally before making that decision. After the next contration was over I thought about and decided I was 100% sure I wanted the epidural. So we got me back to the room and Kristy (AKA THE BEST L&D NURSE EVER) came in and checked me. I was only 6-7 dilated. This just confirmed the decision. Kristy warned me it would be a little bit before anesthesia would get to me, so I settled in for the wait, and by settled in I mean I huffed and puffed and cried through each contration.  Less then 10 minutes later, in walked an angel (AKA the CRNA) She got me prepped really fast, the anesthesiologist came in, and 8 minutes later I had my epidural. This CRNA likes to give an extra big bolus of the medicine to make the pain go away faster (have I mentioned that she's an angel?). 10 minutes later I was getting nice and numb. Shelley helped me get repositioned in bed and asked if I could move my legs. I said "of course I can" and tried to move my leg. it promply fell right off the bed! It was really funny! Then Kristy came in and told me my blood pressure was a little low and asked if I felt funny. I felt great! The pain was all gone! I told her this and she said that while I felt fine, Makenna didn't like my low blood pressure and was having some varibles in her heart rate. She put me on Oxygen and had me lay on my left side. She also gave me a shot of ephedrine to get my blood pressure up. My blood pressure didn't come up. I asked her a few times what my blood pressure was, but she wouldn't tell me. She did tell me that She would tell me when it was time to worry and until then for me not to worry. Dad and Grandpa gave me a blessing and in the blessing Dad said at one point that everything would be ok. Kristy ended up giving me 2 more doses of the ephedrine before my BP stabilized. It was still low but stable. Makenna's heart rate also began to stablilze. So I took a nap. After the crises was over I asked Shelley how low my blood pressure got. She said the lowest it was able to read was 60s over 30s, and a few times it wouldn't even pick up my blood pressure at all. Mom said she thought I was going to die. Pretty scary stuff. The fact that I was able to stay awake and talk with my BP that low is pretty amazing. I thought I felt fine, but once I really felt I was able to look back and see that I wasn't fine. At one point I was trying to text my boss about what was going on, and it took me over 10 minutes to get a 3 sentance text out because I was simply not able to spell anything right. I think I deleted it and retyped it 7 times before I gave up.
Back to the story... my BP and Makenna's HR was stable and I sat up in bed and rested and visited with people. Mom, Dad, Matt, Grandma and Grandpa and Shelley were there. I got checked again and was at 7cm. Then Post Partum got so busy that Shelley had to clock in and help them. She was gone for a little over an hour. by 4pm I was 9cm dilated, but Makenna just wasn't moving down like she should be. The word C-Section started getting tossed around. Kristy kept checking me and I wasn't getting past 9 and Makenna still wasn't moving down, She even had me push a few times to see if that would get Makenna moving, and it didn't. At this point I was totally maxed out on Pitocin. I was starting to feel the contractions again because I had been afraid to push my epidural button because of my blood pressure. Kristy let me push it so I was happy, and my BP didn't drop this time! Around 5:20 I got REALLY sick to my stomach and had a MAJOR hot flash and started vomiting. Right after I got done puking, Dr Moralas came in. He basically said it's time to go the C-section route since Makenna wasn't coming down and I wasn't dilating that last bit. Michael went across the room to call his parents and update them while Dr. Moralas checked me. He siad I was still at 9cm and started to try to reduce my cervix (basically pull it open). Then all heck broke loose. Makenna's Heart Rate dropped to 60 (it's supposed to stay around 120-160), then it dropped to 30, then nothing at all. All the L&D Nurses came rushing in and got me hooked upto more IV fluids and was getting me unhooked from stuff and Dr Moralas said to prep for emergancy C-Section and to page anesthesia STAT. He then touched my belly and asked if I could feel it. I could because I had been being so conservative with the epidural button. I was going to have to get put under since I wasn't numb. They were about to wheel me out of the room when I realized that Michael wasn't by me and didn't know what was going on. He was across the room on the phone. I yelled for him to come kiss me, he put on the phone, kissed me, told me he loved me, started crying and I was taken out of the room. I was calm during this, but was totally freaking out on the inside. When They wheeled me out of the room I was so afraid I would never get to see Michael again. But the thought was pushed out of my mind quickly because the nurses were having me sign consent forms as they were literally running my bed down the hall to the OR.


Hooked up to the monitors, the external monitors are hiding under my gown.

Mom and I

Me and Shelley

Anxiously awaiting the birth of our child. Still in the happy excited mode (aka before the contractions got bad)

Dad having fun on my labor ball!

Shelley documenting the low BP scare.

After Shelley commanded me to "SMILE"

This picture is of my horribly swollen feet after getting IV fluids. They were so tight they felt like they were going to pop!

Stay Tuned for Part 3: The C-Section

The journey to becoming a mommy: Part 1: Labor

This is the story of the birth of Baby Makenna. My labor and delivery was very intense and TV show like. I'm going to blog it in 3 or 4 different sections because it is simply just too much for one post. But here is one Picture to tide you over until the last post!

The time had finally come! On Sunday June 10th, 2012 I woke up with increasing back pain and contractions. I had such severe pressure down in my pelvis that I couldn't even sit down comfortably. Throughout the day the contractions got closer together and stronger. By that evening my mom and sister convinced me that I was indeed really in labor. By this point my contractions were 1-3 minutes apart. We then decided we should head to the hospital. Shelley, Mom and Dad came with Michael and I. We got to the hospital and checked into triage. They hooked me up to the external monitors and checked my cervix. I was 2 1/2 dilated. So they called Dr. Moralas and he said to have me walk for 2 hours. So walk we did. We went 2 ish miles outside the hospital and did stairs. By the time the 2 hour mark hit my contractions were so painful that I would have to stop walking while one was happening. We headed back to L&D and they checked me again and my cervix hadn't changed. But her head had moved down a little bit and my amniotic sac was buldging. They then said the dreaded sentance that no pregnant woman ever wants to hear: "You are in labor, but it's very early. Go home and get some rest." I took the news well(ish). I made it all the way to the car before I started crying. I was so frustrated!! The next morning I went to see my OB at 9am. I had still been contracting all night long and was already starting to get worn out. He checked my cervix and I was 3 to 3 1/2 dilated. Since I had been in labor so long already he recommended we schedule my induction for the next morning. So that's just what we did. I went home and took a long nap and the Michael and I double checked the hospital bags to make sure we had everything we needed. Then we went to Babies R Us and bought some last minute items. We got home and tried to go to sleep, but were not surprised that we weren't able to. So we played Halo and then finally slept for about 3 hours. At 3:30am the alarm went off and we woke up for the last time as just us. As I got ready I had such a weird feeling. Just knowing that this was the last time I would shower and eat breakfast without having a baby to worry about was very eeiry. We said a prayer and headed to the hospital.

Stay tuned for Part 2: The induction