The waiting period allowed us to get some sleep before heading over to the hospital (which inevitably results in cranky pregnant lady being tethered to a bed for hours on end while awaiting the final pushing, etc. We were able to take our time. Lyndsay took a warm bath, I gave her a foot rub, we took a nap, got up, went to breakfast, and then proceeded to mosey up to Mercy Anderson Hospital.
Upon arrival at the hospital, we were greeted by the triage nurse for the birthing center, Renee. She was a former US Army nurse, working at military hospitals in their birthing centers before retiring and working for Mercy.
Renee was great. She worked efficiently, cracked sarcastic jokes the whole time, and put both myself and Lyndsay at ease. To top it off, she spent the rest of her shift caring for Lyndsay rather than handing her off to one of the nurses at the birthing center nurses' station, despite this not being the way things are normally done.
The one bad mark on our time with Renee was the difficulty she and her nursing cohorts had in getting an IV hooked up. As it turns out, Renee is usually the "go to" person when someone else is having difficulty getting an IV started, but, apparently, Lyndsay unlucky to have especially difficult-to-find/use veins, forcing Renee and company to have to stick her 5 times before everything started running smoothly.
Once Renee put us into a birthing suite and got the IV running, Erin, the Nurse Midwife on call at the time (and the only one Lyndsay didn't like from her OB/GYN practice of choice) came in and put her on Pitocin to bring on active labor. Erin didn't stay long, as she was apparently ill and didn't want to expose us to whatever plague she had going on, for which we were thankful.
As the morning progressed, Lyndsay's family started to show up, various nurses came and went, the Pitocin continued to drip, and Lyndsay continued to dilate, have contractions of irregular intervals and duration, etc. Once she reached 7 cm dilation and was having pretty hefty contractions, Lyndsay asked for her epidural to be started.
The nurse who was on at the time, Patti, called for the anesthesiologist to come in, and informed us that he is "very good".
"Sweet," I thought. "Let's hope this goes better than the IV."
The anesthesiologist arrives, gets his workspace ready, and the room is cleared of all visitors but me, and he proceeds to work on Lyndsay's epidural.
Let me step back a minute to tell you that this man had no bedside manner whatsoever. He was cold as ice. While disconcerting at first, upon further contemplation, turns into more of a positive than a negative.
Unfortunately, Dr. Knock-em-out's cold, calculating demeanor didn't help him (or Lyndsay) at all on this night. Every time he would attempt to place the epidural needle, he would hit bone. It took him seven attempts before he was able to place the epidural. By the 5th time, Lyndsay (who, up until this point, I had seen cry due to pain exactly twice...both times due to arthritis in her back) was in tears and the cold, unapologetic anesthesiologist was apologizing and wincing. I know my face had to flash the anger and frustration I was feeling at the time, but I kept my cool.
Eventually, the epidural was placed (about 5-6 inches higher on her back than is customary), and Lyndsay was finally comfortable and able to rest a little bit. The waiting game resumed.
As a side note, somewhere along the way, Lyndsay stated that the crucifix on the wall (Mercy is a Catholic hospital) was creeping her out. I devised a solution:
At a little before 11:00 pm, Erin returned to check on Lyndsay. She was a shade over 9 cm dilated at this time, and not quite ready to start pushing. Unfortunately, Lyndsay's dream of giving birth on the 13th wasn't to be.
Stay tuned for Tomorrow's Installment
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