Introducing Tucker Ronald-Bruce Burgess

Tucker Ronald-Bruce Burgess
Born Sunday May 27^th, 2012 2:38pm
8.9lbs, 21.5 inches long

On Saturday May 26^th 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.