Rohan was welcomed into our world on Wednesday November 24, 2011. The day before Thanksgiving. We arrived at OB triage at 4am. The nurse walked us up to our room on the labor and delivery floor. Even though the nurse commented on how well rested I looked (must have been the makeup), I was very nervous. So nervous that my blood pressure was through the roof. At one point they thought I had pregnancy induced hypertension and took some labs but they came back negative. As soon as the nurses left the room and I was able to relax my blood pressure came right down. Whitecoat syndrome is what they call it. Around 5am they checked me and I was 3-4cm and they started the pitocin, 6am my doctor broke my water (eeek!), and soon after I started to feel more consistent contractions. Around 8am I got out of bed and sat in the rocking chair and watched the TODAY show eating a popsicle. Aaron was paying our bills on the couch before the excitement started. I had an awesome nurse who explained everything and helped me into different positions to help move the baby's head back to center, he was a little lopsided. Around 10am Veronica came to the room with goodies for us to munch on (for me after the delivery of course). My contractions were getting stronger and stronger by now, but was still able to talk. Soon after I realized I needed some type of pain medication. The nurse offered Nubain or an Epidural - so I tried the Nubain. I was open for the epidural the whole time, the nurse had told me that some people the Nubain works well. Nubain made me feel drunk for the first time since I got pregnant. I kept apologizing to Aaron and Veronica. As each contraction got stronger I kept asking them if it was coming down on the monitor and most of the time they said no! The contractions were vicious! So about 10 min after she gave me the Nubain I had Veronica find her to tell her I was ready for the Epidural. My nurses other patient had just asked for an epidural and the nurse said it would be about 30 min. I figured I could get through 30 min of this, right? My nurse came in to check me and I was 5-6 cm at this point. 45 minutes go by....my initial thought was by the time they come in for the epidural I will be too far along. It's now about 1145am and my doctor comes in and wants to know where my epidural was she ordered it an hour ago. By now another nurse was in my room checking on me and told her the CRNA was having a difficult time with the epidural in the other room and was almost finished. By the time the CRNA got to my room, minutes after the doc was in the room, my contractions were really bad. Fortunately she was able to get it in between contractions. Unfortunately because I had been progressing the epidural didn't help with the contractions as much as it helped with numbness from my waist down. So I could still feel when the cntractions were coming. My nurse checked me and I was at 8-9cm right after I laid back down after getting the epidural. She said we were going to start pushing! My team members, Aaron and Veronica came and held my legs while I pushed. Soon after the doctor was in the room and suiting up to catch the baby. Half way through they turned down the epidural so I could feel more. With every contractions I pushed as hard as I could. At one point I looked up at Aaron and Veronica and they both had tears in their eyes, and all I could say was don't cry trying to hold it together. ha! I had been pushing for about an hour and the doctor said we weren't getting anywhere so she did an episiotomy thinking that would help the baby come out, no cigar. Next was the vacuum on the baby's head to help him on his way out, nope. At this point it was 130pm and everytime I pushed the baby's heartrate was going down so this was concerning. The doctor looked at me and made the decision that we needed a c-section. Going into this birth I didn't have a birth plan because how do you plan for something like this? You don't know what is going to happen, so I stayed open minded. I was ok with a c-section. But once I heard the words come out of her mouth, I just nodded and tears came streaming down my face. My fatigue set in and I let it all out. She explained that if I was her family member that's what she would recommend. I was ok with it because I knew the baby wasn't doing well. In seconds a team from the OR and NICU were in my room and I'm getting taken away to the OR with Aaron following. Thankfully Veronica was there to help bring all of our bags to recovery! On the way to the OR the anesthesiologist was figuring out a plan for me since they had stopped the epidural in the room. He gave me some medication that he was hoping worked, if it didn't I would have to be put under and Aaron wouldn't be able to be in the OR. Fastforward, it worked and Aaron was able to come in and sit with me. Although when he finally got in there his mask was all wet from tears and I was shaking so I glanced at him and then shut my eyes to focus on not shaking. After feeling a lot of pressure, I waited to hear a cry - and we did! (or so we thought it was a cry). At 2:15pm Rohan Graeme (pronounced Graham) Sustad was born. He had the umbilical cord wrapped around him twice when they were pulling him out. Poor little guy. He came out "grunting" and his apgar scores were 5 and 6, so he was taken immediately to the NICU. His lungs were expanding all the way,so they put him on a CPAP with room air to help him breathe. On our way to my room the nurse brought us by the NICU so we could see the little guy. Aaron had gone with the nurses when he was born, but I had only seen him for a few seconds when he came out. When we got to him he had been pulling off all his leads (who wouldn't???), but was still our little pumpkin. Rohan stayed in the NICU for a total of 1 week, he went to the stepdown unit after 2 days. We took him home on his due date November 30th. So for the days he was in the NICU we felt like we had gone through this traumatic and exciting time but came home with no baby. It was very weird to say the least, but we were able to sleep so that was nice we were soon in for the shock of sleep deprivation. :)
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