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Noah Rhys Grant EmpkeBirth StoryBorn: Friday, July 16, 2004 at 7:11 p.m. At: Mt. Sinai Hospital, Toronto, Ontario 8lbs 6oz., 21 inches
Other Pictures of Rhys' birth are here. The labour and delivery story (as told by Marg): The contractions started just before noon. Since I was GBS positive (a common infection that can be transferred to babies as they are born) we had to make sure we went before or immediately after my water broke, so that I could receive IV antibiotics right away. So off we went. We arrived at the hospital around 9pm, after having dropped the kids off with my mum and dad. The contractions were still pretty regular - every 4-5 minutes. The first thing that the triage nurse told us was that there were 18 women in active labour and that the labour and delivery floor was full. This meant that if I was in active labour, they'd have to take me to Women's College Hospital. Didn't want that to happen! I'd never even considered the possibility that labour and delivery would be full. The resident came into triage to see how far along I was. I wasn't leaking fluid so there was no risk of infection yet. According to him, I was only 1.5 cm! So he said go and walk around for an hour and come back and we'll reevaluate. By reevaluate, we thought that they might send us home or tell us to come back the following morning (as several other mothers in the triage had been told to do). So we went for a walk and came back to the triage unit at 10:45pm. Now, we would have thought they might check me again quite quickly and then either tell us to stick around because baby was imminent or send us home. Nope. There was a new nurse at triage who was a complete idiot. How this woman qualified to be a triage nurse in the busiest labour and delivery hospital in Canada we will never know. She did almost nothing and complained about how hard it was to deal with four women in the triage unit at a time! Arghh. What should have happened is, I should have immediately been re-examined and we should have been allowed to leave. We had discussed just getting a hotel room nearby so we could get some sleep before returning to actually have the baby. By that time, we hoped, the hospital would be less busy and we could be admitted without any problem. Problem: the nurse actually had to place us in a room, hook us up to a monitor and then have the resident examine me. Well, 5 hours later another nurse finally noticed that the triage nurse was being a dickhead and not doing her job. This nurse was relieving the triage nurse for her break. She came into the room and immediate said: are you still here? This was at 3:30 am. She hauled me into a room and examined me (like the idiot triage nurse couldn't have done that hours ago???) and said that I was 3-4. The examination having now occurred, the resident finally came in and said, okay we are going to go ahead and keep you - if we can get a room. So at this point we still didn't know if we were staying or going!! By this time my contractions were all irregular (probably because I was stressed about not knowing what was going on). So we walked in the hallways for a while and they got regular again. So, it's 4 am, we're exhausted and I have a terrible headache. So I asked the nice nurse if I could get some tylenol. She said "No wonder, you're exhausted, I'm going to get you a bed so you can lie down and sleep." Here's another problem with the dumb tirage nurse: before I could even consider delivering, they had to start IV antibiotics and I had to have several doses before they could break my water. This is the safest thing for the baby. Dumb triage nurse could have started that hours and hours before, but just didn't get around to it - too busy complaining about how busy she was. The nice nurse once again intervened and she got my IV going with my antibiotics. True to her word, she got us a room and we were on our way - this was at around 6:30 am. Luckily, we got one of the nice new birthing suites, with a lounge chair for Colin, a nice bathroom and a t.v. If we had been in one of the older, sterile hospital rooms, the long wait would have been unbearable (Colin's butt is still sore from the chair he had to sit in during Parker's delivery). The nursing shift changed at 7:30 and we got the most fantastic nurse, Rose. She was a dream. She examined me and got me comfy. She went to find the Dr in charge to see what the plan was. Problem is, the attending doctor seemed to forget what that plan was and things went a bit awry. Anyway, they said they were going to rupture my membranes at 10am, as soon as I got the second dose of antibiotics, to get my labour back into a regular pattern. Having remembered how quickly the pain escalated once the water broke, I elected to get the epidural before that, so at around 9:30, Rose got the anesthesia guy to come and do it. The anesthesia Fellow was a guy named Francesco. He did a SUPER job!! Absolutely no problem and he was super nice. So 10 am comes and goes, no doctor arrives to break my water. 11am. Noon. 1pm. Poor Rose was trying to get someone to come in and do something for me. With the epidural in place I couldn't move around much. I was getting increasingly frustrated, and, along with that stress and frustration, my contractions once again petered out. Most frustrating was the fact that Dr. Farine, my own OB, was actually in the hospital and dropped by around 10 am. First time I'd ever seen him during a delivery. He was quite keen to break my water right then an there and get things moving. Almost seemed like he wanted to be the one to deliver the baby - that's cause I'm such a great patient. But he was scared of stepping on the toes of the attending doctor, since Dr. Farine was not actually on the rotation, so he chose not to get involved. Too bad, Rhys would have been born about 4-5 hours earlier. Finally at 2pm, the doctor comes in to break my water and according to him, I was only 3cm!! And absolutely nobody would believe me or Colin when we repeatedly said, no problem, she advances really, really quickly once pitocin is administered and contractions are made regular again. Nope. Doctor told Rose to wait for 2 hours and then if nothing happened (with regards to getting a good labour pattern) to start some pitocin. FINALLY. I was happy something was starting. Colin and I were both exhausted at this point and just tried to relax and get some rest. Trouble was, it's kind of hard to rest and sleep with the nurse coming in and out all the time. At 4pm, my contractions had picked up, but nothing too regular, so they gave me the pitocin. The resident checked me, I was 3-4 and she said she'd come back in 2 hours to check me. At 6pm the resident returned. My contractions were regular and I was sure things were moving. She checked me, I was only 4-5. Boy was I discouraged. Then she felt around and felt the outside and said "The baby's head is still way high - he's nowhere near engaged." I could tell by the look in her face that she thought I'd end up a "failure to progress" and end up with a c-section. She said she'd turn up the pitocin and come back in 2 hours and we'd decide where to go from there. I was so upset - I know a section isn't the worst thing in the world, but I was tired, emotional and just drained. I had a good cry for 10 minutes. It was frustrating because I knew that it was very possible I would go from 5 cm to birth in the space of 10 minutes, but this was not a possibility in the minds of the doctors. Rose had more faith in the process. At the beginning of her shift, Rose said that she would see this baby born. As her shift ended at 7:30pm and it was now just after 6pm, that didn't seem likely. Rose upped my pitocin and said "Don't worry - I'm going to see this baby!" She was such a great nurse. About 45 minutes later, I started to feel some pressure. Not too much, but enough. I started to think, maybe things are really starting to happen now. About 5 minutes later, just about 7pm, I said to Rose, I feel a lot of pressure. She checked me and said "Push". She said okay, stop, we need the doctor because I can feel the head! I was so relieved!! Colin was in the washroom and came out and I said we're going to have a baby!! Then the urge to push was overwhelming. The epidural was really great because I couldn't feel pain per se, but I could feel the pressure and everything that was going on. Rose called the doctor in and the smoothly oiled machine of the Mt. Sinai delivery team stepped into gear. Within moments the room began to fill up with the nurses, anesthesia person, the respiratory technician and more nurses. None to soon. I really had to fight to breathe through a couple of contractions until the doctors got there. The resident who came back was shocked, to say the least. Rhys' head began to show and the resident was still putting on her gloves and the attending had just arrived. The resident had to order me to stop pushing. Finally I started to push at 7:06pm and Rhys was born at 7:11pm. I pushed maybe 6 or 7 times. I told you that I can really move fast at the end stages of a delivery. Boy was I shocked when they weighed Rhys and he was 8lbs 6oz! And he's 21 inches long. They suctioned him, wrapped him up and gave him to me. They had some trouble with my placenta - it didn't want to come out. But the resident and the "real" doctor massaged my belly (not the most gently of ways either) and it came out. They got a great cord blood sample - apparently our umbilical cord was textbook picture perfect. A bunch of students came in and they looked at it and asked the attending if they could dissect it to look at the veins and arteries, because it was such a good example. So there they are, right in the delivery room, cutting up the cord. We spent an hour in the delivery room and then we went up to our room. Colin got us settled and then he headed home to sleep. Rhys was great that first night - we both slept in 4 hour stretches. Colin came down to the hospital and I had a shower - felt great. Mum and dad brought the kids down and I cried when they met their new brother - it was so sweet. They both had a stuffed animal for him. Sloane is taking her new big sister duties very seriously - she won't let anyone
near him! He is her baby and she wants to hold him all the time. Parker is
a little bit curious. I've actually been surprised at how gentle he has been
with him. |
