I woke up around 4am as I had been every day for the last few weeks of my pregnancy. I was officially one day overdue and had no clue that we would be meeting our precious little girl that evening. I got up and went to sleep ont he couch until Greg got up for work, then I moved back to the bed so I could sprawl out. I quickly got annoyed though because something kept waking me up. I sluffed it off as gas pains and tried to go back to sleep. Around 9:30 I realised that I was waking up at 5 minute intervals.
By 10:30 I knew I was in labor. So I called Greg as calmly as possible and told him that he better clear up his afternoon!! Little did I know, I should have told him to come home immediately. By the time he got home at noon my contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasting for a minute and had gone on for an hour! It was time to go to the hospital. Greg called Maud the midwife to confirm that we should head down to the hospital and she gave us the go ahead to head down.
I didn't have everything I needed in my hospital bag so I was trying to get around the house and fill that up, all the while having contractions that were dropping me to the floor. It was awful, I was cursing at myself for not having it ready to go. I figured I was ok because I had a list sitting on top of all the things that still needed to be packed. Well try focusing on reading a list and finding items around the house while every few minutes it feels like someone is taking a knife to your insides and a watermelon wants to drop out of you. Next time my bag will be packed and ready to go!!
So we get to hospital after a 2 minute drive that felt like an hour and neither of us can remember what we were supposed to do. In that moment that we walked through the front doors I rememberd hearing something about checking in at emergency, or was it the main registration desk, or were we supposed to go straight to the ward?? ARGGHHH!!!! I can't remember and I can't think. SOMEONE GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME!!!
I couldn't fathom the thought of having to sit at the desk and check in so we went straight to the ward and they got us right into a delivery room. Greg had to go down to the registration desk and check me in, move the truck from the unloading zone and bring up my bags.
It's about 2:30 now and we are "settled in" and labor is moving ahead full-tilt. I was dehydrated, protein levels were rising in my urine, white counts were high but the midwife was determined to keep me from having to be attached to an iv. I didn't want to be attached to any wires or monitors on a constant basis. Laying down on my back was the most painful place to be so I wanted to avoid it at all costs!
I had decided later on in my pregnancy that I wanted to go med-free. I wasn't trying to be a hero but I knew that I don't react well to pain medications and thought that if I could avoid them I would feel better after she was born. I had also heard horror stories of epidurals slowing down labor and I did not want that to happen!
I will spare you the gruesome details, but after a quick and painful labor (insert shudder here), Madison Elizabeth Lawrence was born at 6:58pm on February 10th. The instant after she was born was the most amazing feeling! It wasn't like on TV when they announce it's a girl, so after a few minutes I finally asked someone what we had! "It's a girl!" someone finally proclaimed!
I didn't see the lesion on her back so I was blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong. At one point they turned her over and we all saw the opening on her back. It was flat and looked like her skin hadn't closed up all the way over her lower back, right abover her tailbone. At first I naively thought it was cosmetic and that it would either grow over or worst case scenario, she might need a skin graft to cover it up. I never dreamed that it would be Spina Bifida, those two words were not part of my vocabulary.
The pediatrician Dr. Addai, was called to the hospital and after having a look he started saying it might be spina bifida. We were noticing that she wasn't moving her legs properly like a baby should, there was definitely some weakness. Otherwise, she looked so perfect and she was trying to crawl off her little bed, it was hard to believe anything was wrong with her and that it was as serious as it was.
The next little while is a blur but I will try and remember what happened to the best I can remember. Madison was taken to the nursery while Dr. Addai looked her over back and decided what to do next. At one point he came back to the delivery room and started talking about how it looked like Spina Bifida and that she would need to be transported. I think he asked if we would prefer to go to Regina, Saskatoon or the Children's Hospital in Calgary. How did we know what the right answer was! After considering that we would likely need to drive while she was flown, we decided that Saskatoon would be the best option. Dr. Addai got in touch with the NICU, was connected with the pediatric neurosurgon, Dr. Vitali, and then wheels were in motion.
She would need to have surgery to close up her back within 48 hours, so the initial plan was that the Air Ambulance would come that night. What we didn't realise though was that while we had been in the hospital all day, there had been a storm going on outside, the highways were closed and the air strip was not in condition for any planes to land. We would stay the night in Swift Current and then fly to Saskatoon in the morning.
That night, my mom and dad came to bring us some food and stayed with us while we made arrangements for the next day. Once everything was set, we settled in and tried to get some sleep. Madison stayed in the room with us initially. She had a bandage on her back and the nurses had to come regularily to moisten the bandage with saline so that the opening didn't dry up. We didn't have luck nursing at first and she wouldn't settle at all so eventually the nurse came in and told us that we needed to get sleep so she was taking Madison. They fed her some formula and made her a little soother from a bottle nipple stuffed with cotton then sealed, and she settled right down and went to sleep.
Back in bed in the delivery room, I was busy searching Dr. Google finding out about Spina Bifida, which turned out to be a big mistake. I found information that was extremely unsettling, of course all worst case scenarios. Luckily we managed to get a little bit of sleep though as we were going to need it! The rollercoaster was just getting going.
By 10:30 I knew I was in labor. So I called Greg as calmly as possible and told him that he better clear up his afternoon!! Little did I know, I should have told him to come home immediately. By the time he got home at noon my contractions were 4 minutes apart, lasting for a minute and had gone on for an hour! It was time to go to the hospital. Greg called Maud the midwife to confirm that we should head down to the hospital and she gave us the go ahead to head down.
I didn't have everything I needed in my hospital bag so I was trying to get around the house and fill that up, all the while having contractions that were dropping me to the floor. It was awful, I was cursing at myself for not having it ready to go. I figured I was ok because I had a list sitting on top of all the things that still needed to be packed. Well try focusing on reading a list and finding items around the house while every few minutes it feels like someone is taking a knife to your insides and a watermelon wants to drop out of you. Next time my bag will be packed and ready to go!!
So we get to hospital after a 2 minute drive that felt like an hour and neither of us can remember what we were supposed to do. In that moment that we walked through the front doors I rememberd hearing something about checking in at emergency, or was it the main registration desk, or were we supposed to go straight to the ward?? ARGGHHH!!!! I can't remember and I can't think. SOMEONE GET THIS BABY OUT OF ME!!!
I couldn't fathom the thought of having to sit at the desk and check in so we went straight to the ward and they got us right into a delivery room. Greg had to go down to the registration desk and check me in, move the truck from the unloading zone and bring up my bags.
It's about 2:30 now and we are "settled in" and labor is moving ahead full-tilt. I was dehydrated, protein levels were rising in my urine, white counts were high but the midwife was determined to keep me from having to be attached to an iv. I didn't want to be attached to any wires or monitors on a constant basis. Laying down on my back was the most painful place to be so I wanted to avoid it at all costs!
I had decided later on in my pregnancy that I wanted to go med-free. I wasn't trying to be a hero but I knew that I don't react well to pain medications and thought that if I could avoid them I would feel better after she was born. I had also heard horror stories of epidurals slowing down labor and I did not want that to happen!
I will spare you the gruesome details, but after a quick and painful labor (insert shudder here), Madison Elizabeth Lawrence was born at 6:58pm on February 10th. The instant after she was born was the most amazing feeling! It wasn't like on TV when they announce it's a girl, so after a few minutes I finally asked someone what we had! "It's a girl!" someone finally proclaimed!
I didn't see the lesion on her back so I was blissfully unaware that there was anything wrong. At one point they turned her over and we all saw the opening on her back. It was flat and looked like her skin hadn't closed up all the way over her lower back, right abover her tailbone. At first I naively thought it was cosmetic and that it would either grow over or worst case scenario, she might need a skin graft to cover it up. I never dreamed that it would be Spina Bifida, those two words were not part of my vocabulary.
The pediatrician Dr. Addai, was called to the hospital and after having a look he started saying it might be spina bifida. We were noticing that she wasn't moving her legs properly like a baby should, there was definitely some weakness. Otherwise, she looked so perfect and she was trying to crawl off her little bed, it was hard to believe anything was wrong with her and that it was as serious as it was.
The next little while is a blur but I will try and remember what happened to the best I can remember. Madison was taken to the nursery while Dr. Addai looked her over back and decided what to do next. At one point he came back to the delivery room and started talking about how it looked like Spina Bifida and that she would need to be transported. I think he asked if we would prefer to go to Regina, Saskatoon or the Children's Hospital in Calgary. How did we know what the right answer was! After considering that we would likely need to drive while she was flown, we decided that Saskatoon would be the best option. Dr. Addai got in touch with the NICU, was connected with the pediatric neurosurgon, Dr. Vitali, and then wheels were in motion.
She would need to have surgery to close up her back within 48 hours, so the initial plan was that the Air Ambulance would come that night. What we didn't realise though was that while we had been in the hospital all day, there had been a storm going on outside, the highways were closed and the air strip was not in condition for any planes to land. We would stay the night in Swift Current and then fly to Saskatoon in the morning.
That night, my mom and dad came to bring us some food and stayed with us while we made arrangements for the next day. Once everything was set, we settled in and tried to get some sleep. Madison stayed in the room with us initially. She had a bandage on her back and the nurses had to come regularily to moisten the bandage with saline so that the opening didn't dry up. We didn't have luck nursing at first and she wouldn't settle at all so eventually the nurse came in and told us that we needed to get sleep so she was taking Madison. They fed her some formula and made her a little soother from a bottle nipple stuffed with cotton then sealed, and she settled right down and went to sleep.
Back in bed in the delivery room, I was busy searching Dr. Google finding out about Spina Bifida, which turned out to be a big mistake. I found information that was extremely unsettling, of course all worst case scenarios. Luckily we managed to get a little bit of sleep though as we were going to need it! The rollercoaster was just getting going.
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