Amity's Story Begins, Part II

After we got the epidural done, things started getting better almost immediately. After 30 minutes, it had gone from something traumatic and distressful to a place where Kim was almost napping, she was smiling, and we were actually able to talk together and be excited again. It actually worked well, because Kim and I had time alone together, we could talk, and we had a reprieve from all the chaos for a few moments. After an hour and a half or so, it was time for Kim to get checked again. She was feeling contractions getting stronger, and she was starting to get the shakes, and I thought that the epidural had really gotten things going - and it turned out, Kim was almost entirely dilated. Karen (our midwife) told us that she was at 9.5 cm - we got things arranged, myself and Laura (the nurse, who reminded me of Megan Lawson and who was amazing) held Kim's legs, and Karen decided it was probably time to push. One of the most interesting things to me was how the process got started. There was a contraction monitor that read out the strength of the contractions, and I noticed them increasing dramatically. When we had a big one coming on, Karen told Kim to take in a "big breath, hold it in, and bear down". I had no idea how that could make any kind of sense to her, but by the second or third try she was pushing like she had always known how to. Karen and the nurse asked me if I wanted to look at things, but I was getting more than enough insight through peripheral vision.

After pushing for about an hour, and making good progress throughout, we started to get really close. Kim had been complaining about nausea (she had really bad acid-reflux throughout the whole third trimester) and they got a small and almost entirely worthless barf bag set out for her. Sure enough, a few more rounds in she threw up, and seeing as how she was laying more or less on her back, the bag didn't help at all. What was interesting though is that even though the vomiting was really awful, Kim ended up contracting and pushing throughout it, and once she was done she had really pushed the baby along a lot. Which makes me imagine that a contraction feels kind of like throwing up, except... different. Since the pushing had progressed so much in those few moments, Karen and Laura decided they didn't have as much time before the delivery as expected. They brought over a table, got all sorts of plastic stuff out, and turned on the spotlights. They notified the nursery, and Kim and I were overflowing with happy anticipation - 9 months of waiting was going to pay off in just a few more moments. Thanks to the epidural, we had a chance to embrace and share one last moment as a family of 2.

Throughout this process, I had been keeping an eye on the baby's heartbeat. They want it to be between 120 and 180 beats per minute. The baby had been looking absolutely fantastic, with her heartbeat completely healthy. During the hard pushes, the heart beat started reaching up around 200 bpm, but there was enough time in between for it to calm back down to 150 or so, and so the midwife and nurse seemed to be perfectly happy with how things were proceeding.

As we got to the final push, and the baby was almost there, the room changed tones instantly. Where it had felt urgent but happy before, suddenly it became deadly serious and intense.  Neither Kim or I understood what was going on, but nurses rushed into the room, several came over and physically jumped and put all of their weight on Kim's belly, and Kim just pushed for all she was worth. This only lasted for a minute or so I think, but I can't really be sure. The baby came out looking floppy and comatose (which is pretty standard issue baby stuff I think) but she was terrifyingly pale. Kim was panicked, and I was getting as close as I could to the table where the baby was without getting in the way of the 5 or 6 nurses that were surrounding our baby and working hard. I overheard a few words here and there and relayed them to Kim - the baby's heart was still beating, I heard her make a couple of attempts at crying, and I could tell that, at least, her basic vital signs were there on some level. I remember Karen saying, over and over, "the umbilical cord just shredded" to one of the other nurses. I kept noticing small, bright spots of blood on the ground between Kim's bed and the place that the baby was getting treated. I'm not sure when it was that I realized they were from the baby.