Here's Luke's birth story (the condensed version):
I was on Mag Sulfate on Saturday night and Sunday after having high BP and a severe headache. I was sent home on bedrest until Monday.
I went in for my biophysical profile on Monday morning and Luke only scored a 4/8. My pressure was okay, but not fantastic. The doctor talked with us and we agreed that it was time for him to come out. There were so many risk factors that it the scales seemed to have tipped.
So, we headed to the hospital to do a potassium drip to try and get my potassium up. Phil and I talked at prayed about it and given our options (either a c/s with no mag sulfate, or an attempted induction with mag sulfate - my pressure was climbing by this time) we felt peace about proceeding with a c/s. I felt bad, like I was chickening out of the VBAC, but it did not feel like wisdom to go ahead with pitocin with a c/s only 19 months ago. Plus, I did NOT want to be back on mag. I wanted to feel alert and able to nurse after delivery.
So at 5:45 we rolled into the OR. Now, if you've have a section before you know that usually it only takes about 5-7 minutes from skin (first incision) to baby. The long part of the section is the repair. Well, it took almost 20 minutes to get Luke out. I had severe adhesions and scar tissue all over. And once he got the uterus open Luke was wedged in very tightly. His head was acynclitic (sp?) meaning it was tipped in the birth canal. It would have been hard for him to straighten out and tuck properly. (It is also one reason all the ctx I'd been having weren't doing squat.)
Then, after he finally wiggled Luke out (they were just about ready to apply a vacuum to try and get him free), they found out why he was in there all strange (IMO the other things were God!). Not only did he have a nuchal cord times 2, but he had a true knot in his umbilical cord. Coupled with the nuchal cord, the knot would almost surely have tightened quite a bit during delivery. Our doctor held the cord up to show Philip and we were just shocked. There is a good chance that if we had proceeded with the induction that Luke would have died. Many times with a knot there is no indication of trouble until the baby descends into the pelvis. Then, the knot is pulled tight and baby goes into major distress. At that point it is a race to get mom into the OR and do a c/s. Given the difficulty my doctor had, this would have been even more complicated in our case.
Praise God for His still small voice! I am humbled and amazed as I sit here nursing our gorgeous son. Luke is truly a miracle. He weighed 8 lb 3 oz and was 19.5 inches long. He has some brown hair and blue eyes. He is nursing like a champ and sleeps wonderfully.
We chose to be discharged early and are home now, doing fine. If any of y'all have to have c/s's, you may want to ask about an "On-Q" pump. When they were closing me up they inserted two tiny catheters that ran the lenghth of the incision. They were attached to a small rubber ball that was filled with Marcaine (a local anesthetic). They dribbled marcaine into the incision over the last two days, really reducing the pain and my need for oral pain meds. They only last a couple days though, so now it has been pulled. It rocked!
Hope to see all y'all's babies soon!
: you're such a cutie 
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