"Ha! Spare minutes!?"

Monday, May 6, 1991

     We're still not in a real routine yet but I'm going to try & write as much as I can whenever I have a few minutes to spare. Ha! Spare minutes!?

     There was a wheel chair in the lobby of the hospital so we took it to the 4th floor.  The front door wasn't locked like we'd expected.  It opened up automatically.  When we got to the nurses station on the delivery wing, Guy told them the times & lengths of my contractions and they told us to go down to room #5.  (That was the room we'd looked at when our Lamaze class took the hospital tour!)  Once the two nurses got me settled in bed & the external monitors on, Guy went to park the car.  The older nurse asked me a ton of questions, mostly medical history stuff.  I was trying to use my breathing whenever I had a contraction and she was telling me to slow it down because I wasn't that far along & I'd wear myself out.  I tried to but it was hard.  It was easier when Guy got back & helped talk me through each contraction.

     I forgot to mention that we called the dr's. office no. (a little before 5:00?) and they gave me another number to call.  I called it & there was no answer.  So I found the answering service number and called it.  The lady asked if I'd called the other number & I said I had but no one had answered.  She sounded annoyed but took my name & number.  Dr. Lehew called about 5 min. later.  I told him what all was going on & he said to come on in.  So we got last minute stuff together, Guy let Chief out one more time, & we headed for the hospital.  It was 5 til 6:00 when we walked in the lobby.

     Dr. Lehew came & checked me & said I was at 3 cm.  That's what I'd been at my checkup on Tues. I thought 'all these contractions I've had so far and nothing's happened yet!? Oh, it's going to be a long day!'  He said he'd go ahead and break my water to get things going & did that at 6:34.

     Dr. Rand came shortly after 7:00.  I don't think he checked me then but he told me he was leaving orders for nubane, a pain killer thru the IV, and for an epidural.  That whenever I was ready for either of them to let the nurse know.  I asked him if I could try using oxygen first to see if it would help with my breathing exercises & he said ok.

     I guess the oxygen helped for awhile (it dried me out though) but finally the contractions were getting strong enough that I knew I couldn't handle them any more.  They put a dose of nubane in my IV at 8:17.  It started working almost immediately.  Besides killing the pain, it really spaced me out.  So I decided I didn't want any more of that once it was gone.  When it started wearing off the contractions seemed to be a lot stronger.  I don't know about the timing.  I decided I was ready for the epidural and Guy called & told them.  It took them forever to come & do it.  I kept telling Guy to tell them to 'get in here NOW!'  They finally came - an oriental man & a white woman - & had to explain everything to us.  Then she finally put it in.  All I felt was a little sting from the numbing shot she did first.  I don't know how long it took her to do it but they said it would take about 10 minutes for it to take effect.  Guy said they did it at 10:02.

     They had a continual dosage going and had to come back a couple of times to adjust the dosage.  First I started getting a "hot spot" kinda to the right of center front.  After they upped the dosage my legs went dead.  I was supposed to be able to move them and I couldn't.  You have to change positions every once in awhile & I wasn't able to do it on my own.  So they came & adjusted it again.  It was a long time before I was able to move my legs again and even after I got back to a regular room, there was a numb spot on my inner left thigh for awhile.

     But in general, that epidural was a wonderful thing.  Like the books said, it made my contractions slow down so at 11:14 they put some pitocin in my IV to increase them.  I couldn't tell much difference cause I couldn't feel them anymore.

     Carole Krebsbach came about noon.  They allow you one other person besides your husband & we asked her if she'd come.  It turned out to be the day that Mike was coming home (he left the end of Jan.) but she said Mike would be in at 8:00 that morning and she could come that afternoon.  Mike agreed to that too.  I was so glad to have someone there that we trust that knew exactly what was going on & could tell us that things were going normally.  Guy went to eat his lunch when she got there. 

     At some point, the nurse, Kathy, or Dr. Rand checked me & I was 5 cm.  Then sometimes he came and put on an internal monitor & removed the external one.  There was a part of it that had to be taped to the upper part of my leg.  But they also put this clip on my little finger that would keep track of the oxygen level of my blood - don't ask me how it did that without drawing blood!