Birth

I haven’t been writing as much as I would have liked during residency. I’m hoping to start writing more as I finish my final year. I have started many different posts but never posted them. This has always been a way for me to get things off my mind anyway. If you’re new here, Hi, welcome to my blog. I have been “blogging” since high school, but always seem to change sites or whatever and then don’t put the energy into transferring old stuff to the blog. Maybe one day I’ll bring all that over from the previous website.

Anyways, I’m hoping to finish this post in one sitting and publish so people can read my and baby H’s birth story. I’d love to have this be a picture filled blog post, like posts I’ve made in the past, but posting a ton of pics of my baby on the internet seems weird to me. I apologize for any typos, run on sentences or whatever. I’m a new mom, sleep and brain rest aren’t super common around these parts.

So first, pregnancy. My pregnancy was pretty uncomplicated until 3rd trimester. I have many friends that have struggled with pregnancy loss and infertility so I’m not trying to be insensitive when I say– I was surprised how fast we got pregnant. I was worried with my weight that it would take much longer to get pregnant. I did lose about 20 pounds in the couple months before I got pregnant and that could definitely have been a help. I was on my ICU rotation intermittent fasting and eating very little carbs. I would have loved to get pregnant sooner, but went to Mexico for my 30th birthday and Zika was a potential risk.

**I should also mention that we visited a Ixchelmayan ruins which is the goddess of love, fertility and the moon on Isla Mujeres if you’re into that sort of thing.**

I got my IUD taken out right after my ICU rotation, at the end of December, and found out I was pregnant in early March. (I got pregnant in February, our second month of trying.) I started having nausea around week 3 of gestation. By the time I was 4 weeks, I got really sick after eating Mexican for lunch and wanted to know if I could take some zofran (prescription anti-nausea pill) . I was trying to avoid taking zofran during the first trimester, went to the restroom to take a pregnancy test before seeing patients in the office in the afternoon. There were 2 lines on the pregnancy test, the second line was very faint, but there. My friend confirmed with me that yes, this was a positive test. I could not hide my excitement. I couldn’t rush home soon enough to surprise my husband.

Everything after that was pretty normal. At 31 weeks and 5 days (on a Sunday) I was at the hospital –rounding all day, seeing patients. This was my 7th day working in a row out of 12. I was the upper year in house, meaning I was covering our hospital until 7pm… I went to the bathroom and noticed that the pad I had been wearing (for stress incontinence and pregnancy discharge) was soaked. Seemed strange that it would be so saturated, when I didn’t remember peeing myself, or feeling like I peed myself. I texted my husband and tried to figure out if my membranes were ruptured (my water broke) or not. Went back to the floor to see the rest of my patients and then still felt that I was leaking some fluid. Started freaking myself out, called my OBGYN. Because I was still early, my OB recommended I get checked as soon as possible (I was working in a hospital.) I called Joe to cover the hospital for me while I got checked out. The midwife on call did some tests and I had convinced myself that I either had an infection or had peed myself and was just being paranoid.

But, as it turns out, one of the tests was positive– pretty specific for ruptured membranes, so I was admitted, placed on a mag drip, given steroids in anticipation of the baby coming very early. I talked with NICU about having a premature baby and how long he would have to likely stay in the NICU, how much support he would need etc. This was all before my husband could even get to the hospital…

We were admitted for 5 days. I had canceled my baby shower which was supposed to be the following weekend. My fluid levels remained stable and I was allowed to go home with frequent/ close outpatient follow up (at least 3 appointments a week) I was able to work remotely and do telehealth visits for the next 5ish weeks. This allowed baby H to cook a little longer.

At 37 weeks exactly- Monday (early term) Baby H preformed a little differently on the monitor. I had to have prolonged monitoring because he kept moving so much and was so excited they had difficulty finding a baseline heart rate. Multiple times the nurse said that the remote MFM doctor (specialist) considered sending me to the hospital for even longer monitoring. I missed my OB appointment that day because I had to stay late at the MFM office for the monitoring so they only let me go home knowing that I had an early morning appointment with my OB the next day… I had to cancel my telehealth appointments that day.

So, it’s Tuesday, I rush to see 4 telehealth visits before I can go to my own visit. I tell my OB what happened at the visit the day before, and she puts me on the monitor in their office. No big deal, I had been on the monitor so much in the last 5-6 weeks, everything seemed fine, I wasn’t worried. But of course, we had a non-reactive NST for about 40 minutes. So I was squeezed into a lunch time appointment with MFM (30 mins away) for a biophysical profile. This is an ultrasound test that can better determine how the baby is doing. Well, it didn’t go well. At. All.

The baby scored a 2/10, and the 2 points were for fluid. (ironic?) So the MFM doctor tried to call the closest hospital to get me set up for a stat (emergency) C-section and was going to call ambulance to take me there. After talking with the doctor, we agreed he would send me to my OB’s hospital, but that his receptionist would drive me. They did not want me to drive while I was upset and get in an accident. (this was very thoughtful and speaks to how serious this was.)

I tried to remain calm as I told my husband to please bring my stuff to the hospital and that it’s possible that the baby may be here by the time he gets there.

I am typically not a very religious person, however– these moments brought me closer to god than I have ever been. I just kept praying that he would be okay.

This wonderful woman with a clean car brought me to the hospital (I’m terrible with names.) Baby H was placed on the monitor and looked great. At this point, with decision making– we decided to induce labor. This was a much better option than a stat c-section in my opinion. So they check me, place the cook catheter and the ball gets rolling. I wasn’t able to be very ambulatory due to the need for continuous fetal monitoring, and if you’ve ever worn a fetal heart monitor, you know how annoy it is when you sneeze and the baby comes off of the monitor. I started having a lot of cramps/ contractions with the cook catheter and couldn’t walk them out like I wanted to. The nurse suggested I just go ahead and get my epidural since I was going to get one anyway.

I’ve never taken a benzo but I definitely felt relaxed after the epidural went in. A few minutes later, I felt like I was going to vomit and asked for some zofran. My nurse was absolutely amazing. She saw that my blood pressure was in the 70s/40s and pushed meds to bring my BP up without issue. No RRT was called if you get my drift. Overnight, I had the cook catheter in– which essentially helps your body go into labor by physically dilating your cervix. I made it to 5cm and they broke my water in the morning. They were cautious with the Pitocin at the beginning because I was making change with the cook and I had a BPP of 2/10. But then I got to the max dose of Pitocin by around 4ish on Wednesday with no change. 5cm was as far as I got. We took a break from the pit and decided it was time for a c-section. I could have tried a little longer on the highest dose of pit, but the concern was the need for a more urgent c-section in the middle of the night without the break in the pitocin could lead to postpartum hemorrhage, which I obviously wasn’t interested in. I received tranexamic acid as hemorrhage prophylaxis.

After participating in an estimated over 200 c-sections, I can say having my own was an experience. I am so grateful for my doctors and the amazing job they did. I say that because I am alive and so is my son Harper. And that’s all that matters. And while the pregnancy and birth did not “go as planned,” I am grateful that my body was able to grow a tiny human and that medical advancement brought him safely to me.

Harper was born on 10/21, 1 day after Charolette was born to Chaniece and Anthony Wallace. Chaniece was also a resident physician who developed preeclampsia and also required a C-section. Chaniece passed away on 10/22/20 after giving birth to her beautiful daughter. Chaniece is black, and even though she was a physician, she still lost her life at a time that was meant to be one of the best times in her life. Black women are 4 times more likely to die from pregnancy complications. As physicians, we must do better. Please donate on the gofundme page for Chaniece’s family. https://gofund.me/8489bc59