Are you sure it broke?

On Monday September 12th The Wifey had a doctor's appointment to see if she was progressing towards delivery. Her appointment was for 3:30pm but didn't get seen until more like 4:30pm. The doctor told Sarah that the baby's head was very low and she had started to dilate and that she "tried to stir things up a little bit" to see if she could jump start things. Unfortunately, it seemed as if nothing had happened. As we were going home I asked The Wifey if we could have one last date night in case the baby came sooner than later, she said Yes! and we were off to Chuck E. Cheese's :)

After a delicious pizza dinner and winning 699 tickets we went back home. The Wifey was determined to try every idea for how to induce labor that she could find online. She got out the breast pump, bounced on the exerise ball for 15 minutes and nothing. She went into the nursery to relax in the rocking chair, saw a spider, bent down to kill it, and POP. "Hey Ben, my water broke." To which I unbelievingly said, "Are you serious? What do we do now?" The Wifey reassuringly said, "I don't know." You can prepare as much as you want but when the moment arrived I still felt like a deer in headlights.

On our way to the hospital we stopped and got 2 vanilla milkshakes (the nurses had urged her to only eat smooth food before she got to the hospital and said they would know if she didn't and would not be happy about. When we got to the hospital The Wifey went in to get registered and I parked the car and began carrying in all of the bags we had put together almost 6 weeks ago due to premature contractions that had us at the hospital 2 nights in a row at 33 weeks pregnant.

We went upstairs and got set up in our room. The doctor on call came in to give The Wifey her examination while I was getting the rest of the bags. When I walked back into the room I heard two things. 1) They had just finished delivering their 5th baby in 2 hours (it was a full moon that night) and 2) The test he did to determine if The Wifey had broken her water was negative and perhaps she had just peed herself. Needless to say we were both speechless. This can't be. We know that she broke her water.

They said they would hook her up to the machines and keep watching her to see if she really had broken her water. About 2 hours later The Wifey needed to use the restroom and when the nurse came in to unhook her from the machines and then reconnect her to the machines after she was done in the bathroom The Wifey said I think you should check again and wouldn't you know the test was positive this time! She had broken her water almost 3 hours ago (10pm) and we were finally officially being admitted to the hospital (1am) and the clock was on for her to deliver.

We were up almost the enter night with contractions about every 15 minutes. When The Wifey was checked again she was only dilated 2 centimeters. At abour 10am they decided that they needed to give her Pitocin, which would increase the frequency and intensity of her contractions to which The Wifey said, "Give me an epidural!!" Although this was not part of her birth plan it was clearly needed and before I knew the doctor came in asked me to leave and when I went back into the room The Wifey was a new woman. She was smiling, she was happy, and she was excited to be pregnant again! Since she was in good spirits I went and got breakfast.

When I got back to the hospital The Wifey's mom was on her way as well. The Wifey was in good spirits and joking around with the nurses and making friends with everyone as well as ordering her epidural for the next kiddo! At about noon The Wifey's mom showed up and I got to go get lunch.

When I got back from lunch I heard The Wifey calling me on my phone. When I opened the door to her room I saw the cart in the room and The Wifey laughed at the shocked look on my face and said they're getting ready for to start pushing. Apparently, while I was gone she had gone from 2 centimeters to fully dilated! I couldn't believe it was time. About a million different thoughts went through my head. I can't believe the baby is almost here!

The Wifey began pushing at 1:55pm and at 2:26pm our little baby was born. Perhaps the most exciting moment of my life happened when I saw the baby come out and I shouted, "It's a boy, oh my goodess it's a boy!"

Henry Joshua Libert was born at 2:26pm, weighing 7lbs 15oz and measuring 19 inches long. As they were cleaning up our little boy he was crying some but not that nice healthy wail that lets you know everything is as it should be. He also had pooped 3 times in the first 5 minutes of being born. Someone may have mentioned him being full of it just like his proud dad :). They continued to clean him up and drain fluid from his belly as well as put oxygen in front of his face. He quickly went from a bluish gray to a bright pink baby and was beginning to cry a little more, but still not as loud as they would like as well as you can see him laboring to breathe fully.

They told us that they were going to be taking him to the nursery to observe him and make sure his breathing evened out. Before they took him for observation we each got to hold him. And boy was it something!

Henry Joshua Libert

After taking Henry to the nursery for observation The Wifey and I stayed together and got ready for her to be transferred to another room for recovery. After we changed rooms the nurse practicioner came in and told us that his XRay was showing indications of fluid in his lungs as well as a small hole in one of his lungs. He was stable, but that was why he was working so hard to breathe. They would wait a little and do another XRay to see if the fluid as well as the air around his one lung was clearing up on its own. If it didn't then they would have to consider transferring him to a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The second XRay showed nothing new, for good or for ill and so they decided to transfer him via helicopter. We were rather scared, stressed, and altogether emotional out of sorts. You can prepare as much as possible for delivery and bringing baby home, but you can never be prepared to be told that your less than 8 hour old son has to be flown to another hospital because he isn't breathing right. This is what they transported him in and the last thing The Wifey got to see him in before the next day...

Apparently our room was right next to the Helipad and we were actually able to watch the Helicopter carrying the most precious cargo in the world to another hospital.

The Wifey had to stay at the hospital to continue recovering and the healing process. (Thankfully they agreed to speed up her discharge and would release her the next morning so she wouldn't have to be away from Henry any longer than necessay) Since she had to stay at the hospital I had the horrible experience of leaving my wife at the hospital less than 9 hours after giving birth to drive an hour away to another hospital to make sure my son got set up alright at the NICU. It was, to put it simply, the most amazing, exciting, exhilerating, scary, terrifying, sad day of my life so far. Thankfully Henry got set up at the new Hospital (which is well known for its neonatal care!) and I was able to go home and get some sleep.

Would I be ready for whatever tomorrow would bring?