Tucker Ronald-Bruce Burgess
Born Sunday May 27th, 2012 2:38pm
8.9lbs, 21.5 inches long
On Saturday May 26th my husband and I headed out
to the strawberry festival. I hadn’t had any labor symptoms, but joked that I
was going to walk my baby out. We walked around the festival in the heat for
about 4 hours, and then went to lunch at a Mexican grill. We got home around
6pm, rested, and then I fixed dinner. I took a nice long bath then got up and
was walking around the house looking for batteries for the remote. It was
9:33pm when I walked back to the bedroom to put the batteries in the remote
when I felt a trickle down my leg. Then more trickles. I knew it wasn’t pee,
but I wasn’t sure it was my water breaking either. It was nothing like I had
heard people describe. I wondered if it wasn’t just bath water that had somehow
stayed inside of me and was now leaking out.
I walked around a little bit more and the trickles continued. I walked out to
the living room and calmly told Nick “I think my water just broke.” He had a
moment where he panicked. He was playing video games, so I told him he might as
well finish the round. No reason to lose just because my water broke. He did
finish, because apparently his team was winning, then he got my bags and took
them out to the car. At some point he also put down towels in the passenger
seat. He had joked earlier that if I went into labor while he was deployed to
drive the truck to the hospital and if I had to drive the car to at least put
down some newspaper. I called my mom to
get verification that it was my water. Talking to her, as it often does, made
me cry. She agreed that it definitely could be my water and we should go to the
hospital to be sure.
Nick and I headed out to the car and our dog, Haley, rushed out with us. The
poor thing didn’t understand why we weren’t heading to bed. After all, it was
past our 10pm bedtime. I called my only friend that was still in town due to
the Memorial Day weekend. As luck would have it, she didn’t answer and I got
nervous thinking she was also gone. I left her a message and told her my water
had most likely broken and that it would great if she could swing by in the
morning and take care of Haley. She called back a couple minutes later and said
they had been in a movie that just let out. She was thrilled.
After hanging up I realized we had left the house without my
purse which contained my ID. Thankfully we were only a few miles down the road.
Nick turned the car around and we headed back home. I went to grab my purse and
Haley didn’t meet me at the door. I worried that she didn’t actually go back
inside when we left the first time and was somewhere outside in the dark. I
kept calling her name and eventually she came out of the bedroom. I hugged on
her and told her to be good; she gave me a kiss and we got back on the road
again.
We got to the hospital around 11pm. I’ve never been to the
hospital that late so I was unaware I needed to enter through the emergency
room doors. I really didn’t want to be there, but you are required to go in
that door to check in with security then you are buzzed through to the other
side of the hospital. As we were walking down the hall I started to feel silly
because I was having no labor symptoms and was no longer leaking fluid. I was
sure they were going to send me home and tell me to relax. We arrived at labor
and delivery and I told them I thought my water had broken. A very bubbly nurse
was assigned to me and said she would get that checked out. I filled out the
necessary paperwork and was given a room. I changed into the gown and gave a
urine sample. I had the foresight to put my wet panties in a Ziplock bag and
bring them; I was concerned that once I changed panties and put on the pad I
had stopped leaking. The nurse came in to check my pad, it said negative for
amniotic fluid, but my panties said positive. She did an internal check which
came out positive, I was officially admitted. She said I was unchanged from my
Wednesday appointment, still 1cm/50% effaced/-1 station.
She called my doctor who advised her to give me an Ambien to sleep, and then he
would assess the situation in the morning. 5am came quickly; before I knew it
the nurse was back taking blood and checking my progress. I was still
unchanged. She called the doctor again who suggested Pitocin. I was induced
shortly thereafter.
I had been on Pitocin for about 4 hours and had progressed to 4cm and 60% when
I asked for a dose of IV pain medication. As soon as the medication hit my IV I
felt like I was three sheets to the wind. I was very loopy, but able to rest
between contractions. I would sleep and then wake up to breathe through the
contraction and hold Nick’s hand. Nick was entertaining himself by watching the
History Channel for most of the day. I was hooked up to a baby heartbeat
monitor and a monitor that was intended to track my contractions, but that
monitor kept slipping off. The nurse would come in and say “You aren’t getting
any credit for your contractions.”
Aside from getting up to go to the bathroom I wasn’t allowed
to walk around because my membranes had been ruptured for over 12 hours. Nick
was very sweet and would change the bed pad every time I would get up. Sometime
around 1pm I asked for another dose of pain meds because the contractions were
coming on top of each other. I had been told I wouldn’t be able to have pain
meds once I reached 8cm. The nurse checked me I was 6cm and 70%. She came back
in a few minutes later to tell me that the pharmacy was bringing more Nubain
and it would be a feel minutes. I’m not exactly sure how much time passed, but
the nurse did not check me again before administering the medication. She
offered me a popsicle at that time, according to Nick I would fall asleep and
nearly drop the popsicle between contractions so he had to keep taking it from
me.
A short 15 minutes later I was paging the nurse saying I needed to have a bowel
movement. Clearly this is code for “baby is on its way!” I had progressed from
6cm and 70% to fully dilated and ready to push in 15 minutes. The room
immediately filled with nurses. The doctor came in and talked to me for a
minute then went to go to do something else. The nurse was doing an internal
check and told him not to go far. The doctor asked what my guess was on the
baby’s weight, I told him I had no idea but had always measured a few days
behind with my fundal height. He guessed 7lbs 5oz.
Nick had originally said, over and over, that he didn’t want
to see the birth and wanted to stand up near my head. A nurse was holding my
right leg but the other nurse was still running around, so they told Nick to
grab my left leg. He did so without complaint but did say “I hope I don’t pass
out” The doctor came in and so the process began.
My nurse told me to push when I felt a contraction, but all
I was feeling was pressure so I would just push until I couldn’t anymore. The
baby kept slipping backwards due to my tipped uterus. I did 2 sets of pushes
when the doctor told me to do a half push and hold it. He performed an
episiotomy at that time. I finished that push, pushed once more, and at 2:38pm
Tucker was born weighing 8lbs 10oz, 21.5 inches, 13.5 inch head circumference.
The doctor was shocked.
The doctor waited until the cord stopped pulsing to make the
cut. Then I was allowed to hold Tucker skin to skin for a short moment. The
doctor and nurses didn’t alert me to any issues at the time, just took Tucker
over to the warming table and began the assessment. Meanwhile I was being
stitched up. The doctor’s phone kept ringing and ringing, apparently there was
a lady in labor with twins and he was supposed to be the doctor. He didn’t rush
at all, just allowed his phone to ring as he took his time sewing me up. Nick
took the opportunity to text some family to make the big announcement.
The nurses wrapped Tucker up and gave him to me to attempt to breastfeed. They
told me he was tongue-tied so they positioned him in the football hold. He
would kick his feet against the bed and pull himself off my breast. It was very
frustrating for the both of us. I attempted to calm him by stroking his back
when a nurse scolded me and said breastfeeding should be all business.
Tucker was taken to the nursery shortly thereafter. I was
brought a meal of roast beef, mashed potatoes, veggies and banana cream pie. It
was definitely the best cafeteria food I had ever tasted. After eating the
nurses helped me out of bed and into the shower. They offered me a chair, but I
felt fine at that time and declined it. When in the shower I began to get very
lightheaded, so much that I needed to crouch down and focus on breathing. I
hurried the rest of my shower then called for the nurse. They immediately sat
me down and helped get me dressed. They insisted on pushing me in a wheelchair
to my recovery room.
Nick helped me get settled in then decided he would go home for a few hours to
check on Haley, take a shower, and get something to eat. The nurses brought
Tucker back to my room. He began to cry so I attempted to nurse him again. One
of the nursery nurses came in and told me he had severe blood sugar issues and
would need to be tested before and after every feeding. She stuck his heel and
took the blood sugar reading, then allowed me to continue nursing. His levels
were very low, and then he crashed and became lethargic. The nurse took him
back to the nursery and said he would need to be given formula to get his
levels up to a normal level.
As if worrying about my baby wasn’t enough, then my nurse
came in and explained that Tucker and I did have an incompatible rH factor. I
lost a lot of blood during the delivery due to how fast he came down the
birthing canal. My temperature dropped to 95.1 and my blood pressure was higher
than I had seen it my entire pregnancy. I was immediately put on iron to assist
in getting my levels back up.
The doctor came in to check on me. He told me I had an
incredible placenta which had been filtering my blood to keep Tucker healthy.
He was born larger than expected also because of our blood incompatibility
issues, his system required extra sugar. He suspected that my tipped uterus
contributed to my fundal height consistently measuring a few days behind. He
said even though first babies usually are unaffected by the rH factor, he was
shocked that one of us hadn’t ended up with rH disease. I was advised to be
very vocal about the issue should I plan to get pregnant again. He did not say
that I couldn’t get pregnant again, but that the baby and I would need to be
monitored frequently.
The nursery brought Tucker back to me and instructed me to
page them before feeding him so they could come take a heel stick, then try him
at the breast before supplementing with formula. Afterwards I was to page them
again so they could do another heel stick and recording his eating habits. I
was advised to call the nursery immediately if I noticed Tucker acting
lethargic in anyway. After Nick returned and I shared with him everything I had
been told, neither of us did much sleeping that night.
The following morning Tucker was scheduled to be circumcised.
However, due to his blood sugar issues he hadn’t had a wet diaper since being
born so the procedure had to be put off until the next day. Nick and I spent
that day feeding Tucker, watching him get stuck in the heel, and relaxing. My
friend Liz stopped by and met Tucker. Shortly after, Nick went home again to
check on Haley and shower. He refused to shower at the hospital, claiming it
was too weird. While Nick was gone my friends CW and Ashley came by. Everyone
who met Tucker was instantly enamored. I was having some serious hormone surges
while talking about his birth; I would shake uncontrollably and cry.
Sometime that morning Tucker had his first wet diaper. My doctor said he would
perform the circumcision first thing the following morning. He said I was
healthy enough to be discharged, but he wouldn’t separate us. Later that
afternoon Tucker’s levels regulated enough that he only needed to have his
levels checked after eating. Awhile later two nurses came into my room and
asked if Tucker could be the baby model during a demonstration on how to bathe
a newborn for a mommy-to-be class. I agreed and was told he did an excellent
job and everyone thought he was adorable.
Tucker spent most of that night with us. The nursery nurse
came to take him at 2:30am for his 36 hour hearing test. The next morning
Tucker had his circumcision. I was administered my Rhogam shot for our rH
incompatibility. As well I needed some booster shots. The nurse said my body
metabolizes the mumps shot far too quickly, which made sense to me since less
than 4 years ago I was diagnosed with the mumps and received a booster shot at
that time.
The lactation consultant came to talk to me while Tucker was recovering in the
nursery. I talked to her about his tongue issue, latch issue, and the position
issues. She said I sounded like I knew what I was talking about. I told her I
took her class and her response was “Oh that’s why” It was comical. She gave me
the name of an ENT that she uses whenever a baby needs his frenula clipped. She
also asked that I page her when Tucker returned from the nursery.
Nick had left earlier that morning to go check out on leave at the naval base
and pick up my Grandma from the airport. She had taken a red-eye flight into
town. She was hungry upon arrival so Nick took her down to the cafeteria to
eat. Meanwhile Tucker had been brought back to my room, so I paged the lactation
consultant. She helped me with the holds and said that I had a good position,
but that he was definitely tongue tied and it was affecting his latch. We also
discussed my options for Tucker’s pediatrician. She made some comments and a
suggestion about a doctor in Franklin who had interned with her. (Side note, I
did take her advice and chose the pediatrician she recommended. I am very
pleased!) Tucker was very sleepy from his circumcision and didn’t nurse well.
The doctor came in once more and requested that I make a
follow up appointment with him at the office for two weeks. He asked how I was
feeling and talked about my blood count. He said Tucker was very strong and
kept breaking out of the Velcro holds during the circumcision. He seemed very
amused. He said that Tucker and I had both recovered well from the ordeal, but
to call if anything out of the ordinary came up. He discharged me and said the
nurse would be in to have me sign paperwork and go over any special
instructions. The pediatrician came in and discharged Tucker. Both the nursery
nurse and my nurse came and talked about discharge instructions.
Then we waited and waited. Lunchtime came and went and I
seriously regretted telling the cafeteria that I wouldn’t need lunch because I
was being discharged. Labor and delivery became very busy and I think my nurse
forgot about me. She had already advised Nick to go pull the car around and get
the air conditioning running. Nearly 40 minutes later I paged the front desk
and asked if I could have a Motrin since I hadn’t been allowed to leave yet.
They came to give me the pain medication and said it wouldn’t be much longer. I
was concerned that Tucker would soon be getting hungry as he had been strapped
into his car seat for nearly an hour.
My Grandma wasn’t going to wait around anymore. She walked
out to the front desk and asked if I could be taken down. A nurse I had never
seen came to the room and apologized, she said she would take us down. We had
to stop at the front desk to have Tucker’s security device removed. Another
nurse asked the nurse that was wheeling me down to do something. They had a
little spat, but my nurse was firm that whatever needed to be done could wait
until she returned from taking me downstairs. As she was wheeling us down
everyone was smiling at Tucker and me.
Finally we arrived at the main entrance and got settled into
the car. I was starving so I had Nick stop at Burger King to get me a sandwich
and a smoothie. I must say it tasted fabulous for being such a late lunch.
Tucker slept the entire way home, as did my Grandma for part of the way.
Finally we arrived home around 3pm. Haley barked at Tucker, but wasn’t
aggressive just slightly jealous.
Now nearly 2 weeks since delivery things are going great. We
all seem to have adjusted without any real complications.
