an Air Force Officer's Life

On March 26, 2013 I was woken up at 0200 by Morgan complaining of severe abdominal cramps. Now I knew we were 40+ weeks, but.... we hadn't had any Braxton Hicks the day before and I had been woken up a couple weeks before by "severe abominal cramps" and we spent several hours in L&D only to have them magically subside with no explaination. So, I told Morgan we should just sit on this and try to ride out the storm. Morgan eventually got up and got in the shower to help with the pain... and she came back to bed after a time because they were better.... but that did last long. About 0415 Morgan woke me back up because of the pain, and was asking "Do you have to go to work? I think I might go into labor today." The thing about the military is... if you "call-in-sick" you go to the ER or report to "sick-call". So I told her "Yeah, one way or the other I have to report to the hospital!" There are no "sick days" unless you are REALLY sick.
So there I lay in bed and I started listening to how often Morgan was complaining of the severe pain... and I noticed the complaints were fairly often. "Well, Morgan, let's time them to see how far apart the pain is and if it's rhythmic." As follows are the times I recorded (from peak complaint to peak complaint): 3:38, 2:15, 2:41, 2:38, 2:12, 2:17, 2:34...... "Morgan, in terms of variability, THAT'S NEGLIGABLE! We're going to the hospital!"
So we got up, got dressed, told Momma Joy that we're going to the Hospital "Morgan's contractions are about 2.5 minutes apart." First kid, last appointment we were only 1cm, no Braxton-Hicks the day before, we'll probably be in labor for hours.... after all, we got all this "pain relieving" stuff ready... we have a plan.... we are not in a hurry... we even took pictures in Willow's room right before leaving for the hospital

We get all the ready bags, the car seat, get in the Jeep and are about 150 yards from going through the gate to go Off-base from our house when Morgan states "You have anything in this car if I need to throw-up?"    "Nope"    "Then you need to pull over"
   So, about 30 yards from being off-base I come to a stop with the 24-hour Security Forces guards looking at me like they're ready to take a brother out... I run around the vehicle open the passenger door and Morgan yaks all over the Main Exit of the MAJCOM for Air Education and Training Command!
   We make it to the hospital. I pull up to the front entrance and tell Morgan "I'll go park the car and get the bags, you walk in and wait for me on the inside of the building." So Morgan walks the 30 yards to the interior of the building. I park, grab the bags, and go meet her. We walk up to L&D and begin the check-in process with the Staff Sergeant on unit (who check's everyone in). Half-way through the process Morgan "has to go to the bathroom" which is just adjacent to the waiting room. In just a moment I hear Morgan throwing up again and since it's a one person bathroom I walk on in to help her. She finishes, washes her hands and suddenly gets this look of horror "Brett! My water just broke! Like ALL down my left leg!" There happens to be an empty wheelchair right outside the bathroom and I grab it and yell "SERGEANT! Let them know our water just broke"..... So now at least we can be confident that we're NOT going home today with the embarrassment that "It was only Braxton-Hicks contractions. False-alarm everyone."
     The SSgt wheels us calmly back to the triage room (which is a full birthing suit, it's just located at the front of the unit and they use it to assess how far along the mother is and how the baby is doing and then decide where to go from there). Morgan and I are calm and happy, we are ready to begin the long labor process excited that Willow will be here at some point... we have a plan... we know how this is going to go... we are prepared. Two nurses come in, one's getting stuff ready to start the IV and the other says "ok, Morgan I'm going to check you to see how far along you are."... checks... comes out quickly.... straightens up... looks at the other nurse, "Get the IV in" in a no-nonsense urgency. Walks out of the room and about 20 seconds later 2 residents, the attending, 2 other nurses, 2 techs, and a newborn team (which consists of at least 3 people) all come in. The resident checks Morgan and says "sweetheart you're at 9 and a half centimeters and 95% effaced. In about 2 minutes we're going to start pushing."
   I updated my family in Alabama that we were at the hospital as we entered the triage suite and the moment we found out how far along we were was the moment everyone wants to call and wish us good luck and wants to call and talk... yeah that wasn't happening...but they didn't know... neither did we! :)
     Morgan begins saying "WHAT!!??! You mean the baby's about to be here... like right now!!?!?!... It was an emotional moment. But as fate would have it Morgan pushed for 2 hours with little advancement and no epidural. It was then I knew I had a tough wife! We had a consult from anesthesia and after the 2 hours decided it best to take them up on their offer. This was a VERY unusual situation because normally you don't put an epidural in someone who's 10cm already... this is because positioning is key in epidural placement and the patient has to sit very still... something that is VERY difficult when someone is in that much pain. But she was able!
   We rested for about 45 minutes after the epidural took effect, this was termed "laboring down". After we labored down, Morgan looked so much more comfortable, had a smile on her face, I had a smile on my face, the L&D nurse had a smile on her face... everyone was happy happy happy, but no Willow yet. Morgan continued to push every contraction (which happens about every 2 minutes or less) for another 2 hours. And with every push our L&D nurse counts aloud "1...2...3...4......5......6.......7.........8........9.................10!" She had to have counted to 10, about a thousand times over the course of the delivery. Sometimes just our nurse helped us push, sometimes the resident helped, sometimes it was the LPN student and sometimes the medical tech students helped. I made sure I took the opportunity to tell everyone "You see this type of labor? Mother is smiling, Dad is smiling, everyone's calm and the room is relaxed..... this is an EPIDURAL labor. About an hour ago.... you would have seen a TOTALLY different room!" Everyone chuckled.
    As fate would have it, Willow is what the attending termed "a failure to desend". You see most mothers after being fully dilated and fully effaced push for an average of 72 minutes after they get an epidural and baby is born. But for some reason Willow was failing to desend and as we were now at 2 hours she recommended a C-Section. It was not our choice if given one, we would have rather gone all naturale. But we gave it our best shot, Morgan labored and pushed like an athlete, but we agreed because we didn't want Morgan to get into exhaustion nor Willow to start to decompensate.... because we had seen meconium during the pushing.
    As we got ready for the C-Section we learned that the guy going to be performing the surgery was a resident Morgan and I had seen before and loved! (Remember earlier when I mentioned that we had been up to L&D before... he was the Dr. who had seen us during that visit, Dr. Feldman). They took us to the C-Section room, took Morgan on back and I had to stay outside the room for a moment to dress out in scrub attire and so they could get Morgan positioned and prepped. Dr. Feldman asked me outside the room, while he was scrubbing, "Have you seen a C-Section before? Do you know how it's going to be in there?"... He knew I was an OR nurse but didn't know my experience... I told him "Yes, it pretty much like you're going to stand over Morgan when you walk in there and say 'Ok the baby is coming' and in the hurricane of moments that follows you rip Willow out of Morgan and throw her to the baby team in there while you continue to take care of Morgan."        He liked that answer.
     So, shortly after I came in the room surgery began. I saw a fellow OR nurse of mine taking a new employee around on a "new employee tour" and she saw me.... waved.... put on a mask... walked in the room and asked curiously "What are you doing up here?" At which point I introduced her to my wife and she about fell in the floor from shock! It was quite a hilarious moment for me. However, as luck would have it, Capt. Theile was able to take lots of pictures with our camera for us so we could stay in the moment... well, so I could stay in the moment... Morgan was strapped to the OR table!
    Willow came out at 1307! I took a picture of the clock on the wall at the exact time!

I was so very worried about Willow's breathing because of the meconium we had seen... it can really mess a newborn's lung up. But Willow, JUST after I snapped the above picture began hollering her way into her childhood! It was a great relief! We were all so happy.... except Momma Joy.... who was in the waiting room worried sick because she couldn't come back into the C-Section suite!
And at last Willow....

She was very wrinkly and had very dry skin, GREAT signs and both indicators of a full-term baby! Big feet, long legs, and a full head of hair! At birth she was almost already out of AFI Standards of Groom and Appearance because her hair nearly touched her collar!