Change of Plans

Well, suffice it to say that Baby Boy Jones was NOT born today.

The short story is that they neglected to tell me not to eat for 8 hours before our 4:30 pm scheduled c-section and turns out all looks good in utero so we're still holding out for a VBAC.

The longer version deals with stress tests and checks, two hospitals, many nurses and one very nice and patient doctor. We went to Meridian Park for our scheduled c-section as planned, only to tell them that I ate lunch at 12:30 and them frown at me: No C-Section today! Or at least, not until eight hours had passed. And, miraculously, I felt that I was going into early labor as we drove to the hospital! The nurses could all tell that this was what I really wanted anyway, so they were very obliging in setting me up with a monitor and checking my physical signs.

I was having contractions, but was only 2-3 cm dilated and 50% effaced (which was an improvement from the check on Nov 21). But not enough to say that I was in real labor, plus the contractions were not regular and were not getting more intense. Basically they were a combination of Braxton Hicks and my hoping that they would progress. :-)

The doctor I'm seeing for this VBAC, Dr. Hall (who ultimately delivered Magdalena via cesarean), is in Oregon City. She was on the phone, had not come to Meridian Park yet as the appointed time was still over 1.5 hours away, but she wanted me to go to her hospital for her to see if I was really in labor and do a stress test on the baby - basically to see how he was doing in the womb when I was having contractions.

So now we're onto hospital number two and a slew of new nurses. We get there, check in, and immediately I get hooked up to the monitors for my contractions and the baby's heart rate. I was not having regular contractions, and they seemed to have slowed a bit, so Dr. Hall suggested I be attached to (sorry if this is TMI) the breast pump. One of the few earlier contractions showed a possible latent acceleration (I think that's the right term). This essentially means that though it is expected that the fetal heart rate go down a bit during a contraction, if it takes a long time to go back up to his baseline after the contraction is over, that could indicate he is not responding well to the contractions. And if he is not responding well to small Braxton Hicks contractions, there is a good likelihood that he will respond worse to real contractions, and that would be an indication that a cesarean is recommended.

First, Dr. Hall examined me - confirming the 50% effacement and saying I was 3 cm dilated. This conjured up a few contractions, but not as many as we wanted.

So of course we want as much data as possible, and I go on the breast pump for about 15-20 minutes. It had the desired effect, as I started having LOTS of Braxton Hicks contractions - basically every 2-3 minutes! None of them were very painful, and they were not increasing in intensity, so we knew they were not the real deal. Still, they wanted about 1.5 hours worth of these to really see how our boy would respond to possible labor contractions later.

By the time they got to a good place with monitoring the contractions, and they also wanted to get an ultrasound to check on the amount of amniotic fluid left. I was 5.3 cubic centimeters the week prior, on November 21, and needed to be over 4.5 today for them to feel comfortable. So they order up the ultrasound, but it took over an hour for the tech to make it to our room - about 7:30. She finished relatively quickly - first measurement was 9.2 cm3, and the other was 8.5 cm3, both MORE than before and definitely higher than the minimum 4.5 cm3! So we're looking good on this front, but before they would discharge me, they wanted to official report from the radiologist for Dr. Hall to see. (Dr. Hall, btw, was NOT on call today and could have left the office at 5 pm, but instead stayed to see me and monitor my results because she is totally awesome and didn't want to pass me off to one of her colleagues at this point.)

Once the report came in, about 8:15 or so, the nurse said she would forward to Dr. Hall along with her analysis that my contractions now looked fine - the baby was responding well and his heart rate was always coming back up to baseline within seconds of my contraction being over. However, I was not convinced - I looked at the printout myself and thought it might be the latent acceleration in a few cases. Of course, I'm no expert, but to be honest, I didn't trust the nurse. :-) I asked if Dr. Hall was still available to talk to us about the ultrasound and the stress test monitor results, and she - graciously enough - was still at her desk and again came in to see us, with such a nice bedside manner, I felt completely at ease.

She assured us that the stress test results were good - going through the printout and addressing each peak where I wrote a question mark. She said the amniotic fluid definitely could increase, and the measurement is not 100% accurate, but the levels we were at were very good and we have nothing to worry about there. She basically said that we could go home and come back when I am in labor, but she wants to do another stress test before the end of the week, and doesn't recommend going much past early next week (Friday latest) if I don't go into labor on my own.

Feeling EVER so much better (though we did have to wait until 9:05 to leave for the nurse to get our discharge paperwork together), we came home. I am still having these Braxton Hicks contractions even as I type, but they are not any more painful than they were at the hospital, and are not regular either. I am hoping to get a good night's sleep tonight and go into labor on my own within a few days (though I feel bad for Alex since he has class all day Friday and Saturday and may have to miss some), and we'll do a stress test Thursday afternoon again.

I feel happy about going a little longer knowing that our baby is healthy and strong in the womb, and I really really really wanted my shot at a VBAC. Of course, if we get into labor and things don't look good at any point, we will pull the plug and have a cesarean, but I'm kind of in a more comfortable place now knowing we're giving it a few more than 2 days past the due date to try, and to know that BBJ has a better chance of coming on the day he will just COME rather than us planning it.

That's the scoop! I'll post more if there is more, and thanks to everyone for your good thoughts and checking in on us.