INTO THE WOODS

Born: January 1, 2012 at 5:42pm

8lbs. 2oz. and 20 in.

Reuben's Birth Story
(Written by Daddy with help from Momma)

**This is very long, so feel free to scroll down to pictures.**
We just want it here for posterity.

Sunday morning, New Years Day, we awoke just before 8 AM and Am went down to use the bathroom hoping to go back up and continue sleeping a little longer. However, upon going the bathroom, she was surprised to find out first-hand what it meant to have a “bloody show.”

She ran upstairs to grab her glasses and told Lance to come and see what was going on too. We excitedly went back downstairs to re-evaluate and figure out what this meant.

Feeling that it was indeed the “bloody show,” we went and read on the Internet to find out what that really means. Since it said that the baby should come within a couple days to a couple weeks, we decided to go back to bed.

However, before even having the opportunity to go back to sleep, we snuggled up in bed, and Amber suddenly grabbed Lance’s arm and said, “I just felt a painful pop!” This was followed immediately by a sudden gush. Her water had broken.

Frazzled, Lance quickly called Scott and Ashley to come over and watch Sawyer. Amber, the “boy scout” was already prepared, but being “type A” as she is, she suddenly came up with a multitude of additional items we needed to gather before going to the hospital. Further, she didn’t even want to go because she hadn’t yet taken a shower.

The shower request was made, and okayed, when we called the hospital’s labor and delivery unit. Nevertheless, since gathering the additional items took so much time, we decided we would have to try and make that shower happen down at the hospital.

We arrived at the hospital and got an extra good parking spot as it was a Sunday and New Years Day. We even were able to walk into the hospital together.

At the labor and delivery unit, the medical team confirmed that Amber’s water had broken, but also that she was only dilated 1 cm although 75% effaced.

About a month prior, we had been on a tour of the labor and delivery unit and Amber was concerned by the fact that they have only five labor and delivery rooms at the Hershey Medical Center, wondering where additional mothers go when there are more than that giving birth at the same time. In line with our fears, all five were full when we arrived. So we were extra grateful when shortly after our arrival, one of those five rooms opened up allowing us to move forward there. This also allowed us both the opportunity to take a shower!

As the morning moved on and Amber wasn’t having very many or very regular contractions, the medical team elected to start her on oxytocin. This was started around 12:30 PM. It quickly kicked in and did its job and Amber began experiencing intense, regular (1-2 minutes apart) contractions.

Shortly later, Amber requested her epidural. We were surprised to find that our nurse (and seemingly a large part of the nursing staff) was not supportive of Amber getting an epidural. There seemed to be a great contrast between the OB nursing staff and doctors with regards to having epidurals, with the doctors being for having an epidural and the nurses against it.

The anesthesiology resident that day was Dr. Theodore Cios. We appreciated his kindness and bedside manner and also the phenomenal job he did placing the epidural catheter.

A little while later, Amber noted that the contractions were still very intense despite having the epidural in place. Lance tried to encourage Amber as she proceeded to take long, deep breaths to endure each contraction. At one point he said, “You’re doing a great job Am!” She replied, “No I’m not. I’m a wuss.” Our antagonistic and completely inappropriate nurse then responded, “You said it. Not me.” Ooh that was frustrating, especially considering that all of the doctors/anesthesiologists said that she was doing great.

Sometime around 3 o’clock, the OB team decided to check Amber to see how she was progressing. She was nearly 5 centimeters dilated. At that point, since she felt that the pain with the contractions wasn’t any better, the team agreed to call for the anesthesiologist to return to evaluate and decide if the level of medication could be increased.

Lance was impressed with how calm, collected, and generally kind Amber was during the entire labor process. We can only recall one moment where she didn’t fit this description when she semi-gently scolded Lance for flaring his nostrils at her while he was trying to hold back a smile because of Amber’s methods and funny mutterings that allowed her to bear the pain she was experiencing.

Some time later, Dr. Cios returned to address Am’s ongoing pain and with a look of disbelief he pointed out that the problem with the epidural was the fact that he had forgotten to connect the epidural catheter with the medication. It was just hanging, unconnected over the back of Am’s bed.

It was semi-gratifying when our previous nurse returned, just before completing her shift, and discovered that Amber had been without relief the entire time. Retracting her previous negative comments, she complemented Amber on doing such a great job! ha

At that point, he connected the catheter and agreed to proceed with the medication, but not before pointing out that it might not kick in for another 40 minutes, by which time, Am was dilated to a 9.5 and began pushing. Therefore, Amber essentially underwent a completely natural labor and delivery with the added perk of having an epidural catheter inserted into her back!

Just as Amber was reaching the time for pushing, Dr. Sarah Eiser (the chief OBGYN resident on that day and also a former fellow med school classmate of Lance’s) paged Dr. Jaimie Maines (another one of Lance’s med school classmates and our primary OBGYN throughout the pregnancy) who quickly came in and took the lead of our wonderful team which coached and supported Amber and our new baby through the labor process.

Other members of the team who were present included a new, and preferred, nurse, Aimee (who, in contrast to our previous nurse, was supportive, kind and encouraging which we deeply appreciated), the attending, Dr. Holly Thomas, and one additional resident who also took care of us a couple of times throughout Am’s pregnancy whose name we can’t spell, but whom we also really appreciated.

The final stages of labor were kind of a blur. Amber remained very determined and finally, after approximately 5 hours of “labor” (as her regular contractions began around 12:30 PM) and after pushing for about 45 minutes, she succeeded at birthing our dear little son at 5:42 PM.

Words can’t even begin to describe the overwhelming happiness and joy that filled our hearts as our new baby boy lay skin to skin on his mother who had prayed and sacrificed so much for this priceless little miracle.

Momma before the oxytocin kicked in.