Here we go! Part One

Mondays had become just another day of wrapping up loose ends and anticipating the birth of our baby girl. In the morning on Monday, May 9 Dish and I decided to go for a walk in El Dorado park.

We talked to each other about Olive. She was due May 1 and the waiting had begun taking a mental toll. We were ready to meet our daughter.

Later that same day we were dropping off a few items at our storage facility and just before Dish jumped into the truck to leave she shot me a confused stare.

"I think my water just broke," she said.

What!? We were just talking about this earlier. I couldn't believe it was actually happening now.

We raced home to gather a few things and bolted for the hospital. After waiting so long for this moment something didn't seem right. This experience was missing a main feature.

Pain. Where was the agonizing pain Dish was supposed to be feeling?

She was calm. She was cool. She was simply experiencing a "trickling" feeling.

No pain, huh?

That's when we should have known this delivery wasn't going to be normal.

We arrived at the hospital around noon. The nurse checked the fluid to confirm that Dish's water broke. It had, so the rest of the day was spent waiting for dilation. Dish's measurement was 1cm at noon. The goal is 10 cm within 24 hours.

She stayed at 1cm through out the night.

The professionals say there's a risk of infection if you haven't given birth within 24 hours of your water breaking. Since Dish wasn't progressing throughout the night the nurses started intervening. First came the misoprostol – a pill meant to help induce labor. Progression was elusive even after a few doses.

Next up was the dreaded pitocin. That whipped up a whirlwind of discomfort and pain. The contractions  were killing Dish, but her cervix still wouldn't progress.

The pain became unbearable. That's when she asked for the drugs. First morphine then the epidural.

This was not part of our plan. Everything positive we envisioned for this delivery became a simple fantasy. Reality was much more evil.

The doctor rolled in around 7 a.m. on May 10. We had a sleepless night. While he was preparing to check the progression Dish's nurse tried to raise her bed. She realized the bed was too far against the wall. So, she pulled the bed out and then checked one of the plugs.

BOOM!!!

A giant electric spark killed every machine monitoring Dish and the baby. I stepped back in shock and asked the nurse if she was OK. After confirming she was she quickly began ordering someone to go prep another room, because we needed to roll Dish's bed out and hook everything up to new machines.

As we began rolling the bed away, we ripped another plug out of the wall. I was trying to help by pushing the bed with one hand and holding the drip bag pole with the other. I noticed that the plug ripped from the wall was connected to the side rail of the bed. I began unraveling. The nurse grabbed the piece I unraveled and pulled the rest of the cord out.

Everything was happening so fast that I don't think she realized she pulled too hard. The plug came whipping around the side rail and whacked Dish across her forehead.

What the hell!

"Are you OK, Dish?" I asked. The nurse began apologizing profusely and we began rolling the bed out of the room again. As we were about to exit I was yanked back because the pole I was rolling out didn't fit under the doorway. Dish had to grab her IV because it was almost pulled from her hand.

I couldn't believe what was happening. Everything was going wrong.

Then there was a brief argument in the hallway regarding what room we were going to use.

Crap. What a scene.

Finally we were in the new room. That entire situation lasted only about 5 minutes. I was exhausted, upset and scared for Dish.

The epidural came next.

I had to wait outside for what seemed like an hour. I could barely stand. I didn't want to sit on the floor and I didn't want to leave. So I toughed it out. I think I heard Dish scream. I fought back tears.

After a while I found myself resting on a cot in her room. The drugs had kicked in. Dish was able to sleep.

The last check from the doctor revealed a bit of progression, but not enough. She stopped at 4 cm. The 24-hour period had passed and that's when we received the news. Dish was getting a C-section.

Emotions flooded our mind. The only thing I could do was talk and try my best to help Dish through this time. The main goal was coming home with a healthy baby added to our team.

They prepped her and rolled her to the operating room. I had to stay behind and get dressed in blue garb. Someone came and got me after the doctor was prepared. I could hear the tools buzzing. I saw a splatter of blood on the doctor's face mask. I noticed tears streaming down Dish's face. I needed to keep her mind off the situation. I started talking about Washington. I told her about all the things we were going to  do with our baby girl. We're going to experience so much. We're going to be so happy.

I'm not sure if it helped much since the anesthesia wasn't numbing her right side completely, but it was the only thing I could do.

Then I heard a baby cry.

-To be continued-