On Monday, July 27th, I went in for a routine OB appointment. My OB stripped my membranes without even saying he was going to do it until after the fact. He then told me I was scheduled to be induced Tuesday the 28th. I called my husband to let him know we would be having a baby tomorrow. When he picked up the phone he said he wasn't feeling so well and asked me to pick up some yogurt for him and our 3 year old, since he woke up with diarrhea and vomiting. I wasn't too concerned because our 19 ½ month old just had the same thing Saturday night and he was completely fine within 24 hours.
I came home and my husband was throwing up and looked awful. He was having a hard time regulating his body temp, so he kept getting in and out of the shower as needed hoping that would help. About an hour after I got home, I started throwing up and all that other lovely stuff as well, so we were fighting over the one bathroom we have. I had been having horrible cramping and contractions since my OB appointment, but they got increasingly worse as I felt sicker. I wasn't able to hold anything down, not even water, so my husband decided to call his parents after I called my OB to see if he thought I should go into L&D (it was well over 100 degrees and I was worried about dehydration and the baby hadn't been moving since I started feeling ill). My husband's parents showed up and I had his dad drive me to the hospital while his mom stayed to help take care of the kids.
After being at the hospital awhile, they decide to just admit me since I'm going to be induced the next day anyway. I call my house to let everyone know what's going on and no one answers. I call again and still no answer. As I'm hanging up the phone, a nurse comes in and says, "Your husband is here." Ok, so he's feeling better and he's come to see me, great. Then she finishes her sentence. "He was brought in by ambulance and is in the ER right now; I'm not sure what happened, but I'll try to get details for you when I can." I'm thoroughly freaked out by now and wondering what the hell is going on. I finally get a hold of his parents at their house and his mom tells me he had a seizure and all his muscles and joints were locking up. About an hour after I got off the phone with my mother-in-law, the nurse comes in and tells me my in-laws are in the ER with my boys because the doctors wanted to test us all for swine flu. The nurse does this god awful nasal swab on me that they have to put really far up your nasal cavity to test for any sort of flu. I then managed to walk all the way across the hospital to the ER to see my kids and my husband. I wasn't able to stay long though because I ended up getting sick when I made it to where my husband was after visiting with the boys for awhile. I find out a few hours later my husband has been admitted to ICU.
At 6 AM the following morning, the nurse comes in and escorts me to my husband's room so I can visit him before they start the induction process. He wakes up for a minute and is still completely out of it. He doesn't remember me coming to see him.
I get all set up back in my room with pitocin and the waiting game begins. My OB comes in at 8:37 AM and breaks my water. I didn't even realize he was doing it yet until I felt a gush. I'd heard stories about it hurting, so I wasn't expecting to feel absolutely nothing. Labor officially starts at 11:30 AM and I get my epidural at around 1:30 PM. I try to nap while I have the chance, but start feeling intense pressure. At a few minutes before 2:30 PM I let the nurse know I'm ready to push and at first she doesn't believe me. She checks me, and sure enough I'm completely dilated. She calls my OB and he shows up a few minutes later (thank God for his office being across the street from the hospital). I push for 9 minutes and she's out. I didn't have any tearing or swelling what-so-ever and she was honestly my easiest birth by far. Zora Saphira weighed 8 lbs. 9.25 oz. and measured 21 in.
My husband didn't get to see her until she was over 24 hours old and it had to be through the glass of the nursery, as he wasn't allowed in the birthing center for fear of him passing whatever virus we had to someone else. I also wasn't allowed any visitors for the same reason; to protect everyone from me.
We're
all doing fine now and have recovered from whatever it was we had. It
was a bummer my husband missed the birth of our first daughter and our
last baby (3 is definitely enough for us).
Videos
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When your spouse is gone for days or even weeks at a time for work, how do you manage everything you need to do for your kids, your house and yourself? How do you prepare for your spouse's return so that the transition is as easy as possible for the whole family? Kristen is joined by Tracie Montgomery, working mother of two, to discuss some ideas to survive sometimes single parenting.
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Kaitlynn Christine Allen
- sapphiresoda
on Aug. 9, 2009 at 5:15 PM