I started having some pain, so the nurse decided to lay me down and put the monitor on me. I kept feeling like I was having contractions, but they were not picking up on the monitor. Each time I felt one, the baby’s heart rate would drop or get lost on the monitor. The pain continued to escalate and I eventually asked the nurse for some pain medication, which I never got. At 12:55, she came in and told me that it was time to have the baby, the doctor had said we would deliver and I had time to call who I wanted. I was able to call Josh, but only to tell him to come now because they were going to deliver.
After I hung up, they started the pre-ops to prep me for a c-section. I was in a great deal of pain so the pre-ops were very hard on me and felt like they took forever. They wheeled me down to the OR and the anesthesiologist, Charles, said he was going to do my spinal. He gave me a shot of lidocaine, then did the spinal, which I did not feel. Within a few minutes, I started feeling numb and relaxed. I laid on the operating table, which was no wider than my body. They put a drape up right at my chest so I could not see what was going on. I could hear a lot of noises that sounded like a dentist’s office, lots of metal tools clanging against each other and a suctioning noise. The CAN kept counting objects. Counting blades, counting pins, counting gauze. It sounded like there were about 8 people in the room but all I could see was the anesthesiologist by my head as he was stroking my hair and asking how I was doing. Josh was not there yet and I had no idea what was taking him so long. At one point I thought I heard the doctor say, “boy child” but I didn’t know what he was talking about, as that seemed like a weird thing to say, and I wasn’t sure if they had started the operation.
Then another doctor introduced herself as the neonatologist and told me that she was going to be working on my baby in the isolette directly to my left. I asked the anesthesiologist if it was born yet, and he laughed and said yes. I asked if it was a girl or a boy and he said, “I think it’s a boy but let me check.” He came back and verified that we had a boy! I couldn’t believe it, my first thought was that he did not look very closely because we were having a girl. The neonatologist came over and asked me what our son’s name was. I told her I didn’t know, and she said that he was not going to survive because his lungs were too small. She said she was doing everything she could to keep him alive manually, and she was going to take him down to the NICU to work on him. She wrapped him up in a blanket and put a hat on him and showed me his little face. He was so tiny and his face was very round.
As soon as they left, I asked the anesthesiologist if my husband was here yet and he said no. I had no idea where Josh was!!! A few minutes later they said he was here, and they were going to send him down to the NICU with the baby. I asked if Josh could come in and see me for just a minute. Josh came in and I told him that the baby was a boy, but he already knew because the nurse had told him. I wish I could have seen his face when he found out. I told him he could go down to the NICU with the baby, but he didn’t want to. I asked him what he wanted to name the baby and he said he didn’t know, so I suggested Andrew Charles. (Can you tell that I liked the anesthesiologist??) Josh didn’t say much, so I asked if he liked Andrew Joshua better, and he got a big smile on his face, so I knew that was it. Andrew Joshua Matson.
Soon after, I realized that Andrew was born at 1:26 PM and I had only found out that he was going to be delivered at 12:55 PM. So the timing in between was nowhere near as long as it felt, and Josh did make good time even though he did not make it in time to see his son’s birth. After I was stitched up and wheeled into recovery, Josh went down to the NICU to meet Andrew. When he came back up, he brought pictures and told me that Andrew weighed 2 lbs 2 ounces and was 12 inches long. I was so happy to have a son, what a wonderful surprise!!! Later that night I was able to go and see Andrew around 11PM. The nurse let me touch his tiny hand and he gripped my finger, even though that tiny hand could not wrap all the way around it.
Andrew has some extra skin on his head where his skull was too compressed in my pelvis to grow into the skin. He also has congenital scoliosis, where his back is curved in a C shape such that he leans to the right at about hip level. His right leg is very purple from poor circulation and his feet are very curved. His arms are folded up close to his body and the doctor calls this “contractures”. His face is also flattened from being so scrunched up in the womb. He did not have amniotic fluid to protect him as he grew, so my pelvic bone pressed hard on his face and head and caused a lot of bruising. In the NICU, he is breathing with the assistance of an oscillating ventilator. This makes him look like he is vibrating, and every vibration is a tiny burst of air going to his lungs. He is needing nearly 100% oxygen. He also has a leg warmer on his left leg (his good leg), because this will help improve the circulation in his right leg. He has a tube down his throat and into his stomach and some IV’s in his belly-button where he is getting sugar water and IV fluids. He also wears a monitor on his foot that measures his heart rate, oxygen saturation, and blood pressure continuously.
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