We went to the doctor's office on the morning of Monday, April 17th. We left our packed bags at home, along with Chazz. The plan was that we would get one last checkup to see how ready Heidi was to deliver, and that we would plan the induction of labor which would take place the next day. Of course, that's not what happened.
At first our visit followed the normal routine. We took the elevator up to the seventh floor, and checked in at the front desk. Eventually we were ushered back into the room for the non-stress test. We had been having these tests every week for the past month and a half, so we were very familiar with the process. Heidi laid down on the hospital bed and had two monitors attached to her. The test usually took about twenty minutes. We sat listening to the heartbeat monitor, looking out of the windows at Broadway below. It was a sunny day. Spiders were busy building webs on the exterior side of the window frames. Suddenly, the heartbeat dropped significantly. It fell from 150 ish to 60, and stayed there for at least a minute. The nurse came in and attached an oxygen mask to Heidi and said "Your outpatient privileges have been revoked!" She was joking, but we could tell she was concerned. Soon Heidi was in a wheelchair and we were on our way through the labyrinth of Swedish hospital - down an elevator, across the sky-bridge, though a hallway, up another elevator - to the delivery "suites."
By 10:00 a.m. we were in our suite and Heidi was on a hospital bead hooked up to several monitors. The monitors showed contraction strength and fetal heartbeat with an endless ribbon of graph paper. We quickly became used to the sound of the heart monitor, and became alarmed any time there was a "decel" or decrease in the heart rate. We also had a full time nurse, who seemed to spend most of her time checking out the monitors. The room was nice enough. It was a little "warmer" than your average sterile hospital room. We had our own bathroom - with a jacuzzi bathtub - and a TV. The TV only seemed to get a few channels though. This was a problem, because we had a lot of time to kill. Heidi was more or less confined to her bed. She could get up, but the process was pretty laborious and involved unhooking her from the monitors.
At first the doctors decided to induce labor with a pitocin drip. Unfortunately, Heidi responded a little too vigorously to the drug and would have very long contractions with no breaks for the baby to recover. They reduced the amount of the drip to a trickle. We waited and waited, but nothing much happened. Heidi could feel her contractions, but they weren't painful. We ate a bit. Heidi was on a "clear liquid" diet - and I was on a passover diet! There were only a few things that I could order from the menu - I think I had an omelet. Heidi had broth. Or maybe apple juice. I think that was the totality of the clear liquid menu: broth and apple juice. That night I actually slept for several hours on the padded bench by the wall. Heidi, even though she was in a bed, couldn't sleep. She was awake at 1:00 a.m. when a repairman walked into the birthing suite to fix the nurse call light, which hadn't been working since we arrived. I didn't wake up. Early in the morning her contractions became increasingly painful, and eventually she asked for an epidural for the pain. Her contractions were increasing, and she was dilated to about 5 centimeters.
At around 8:00 a.m. the nurse saw several more "decels" on the heart monitor. She summoned the doctors to take a look at the graph. They confirred for about ten minutes, trying to decide if it was a serious situation or not. Doctor Amoree said that it was a borderline case - the decels were probably not serious but there was a small chance that there could be a serious problem. She said they had to watch for further decels - that one more decel would indicate that we should have a C-section. Within 15 minutes of the conference there was another decel - a long one. I got nervous listening to the heart monitor's metronome beat slow down as the heart rate slowed from 160 to 80 beats per minute. During this last decel the nurse gave Heidi oxygen, to make sure the baby got enough oxygen during the contraction. Heidi had to wear the mask for a number of minutes afterwards. The oxygen made her mouth dry. Once again the doctors were summoned, and they decided we needed to have a cesarean section.
After the decision was made to do the c-section, things went pretty quickly. Heidi was rolled from the birthing suite into the operating room. I followed, and was given a blue gown, a hair net style hat and little paper booties. I got to wash my hands in the big stainless steel sink (with foot pedal operation) that the surgeons used. The operating room was bright and filled with hard materials - ceramic tiles and stainless steel. There was a crowd of doctors, including Doctor Amoree and a wacky anesthesiologist with a flower pattern hat. They rolled Heidi into place, and set up the "tent" of blue fabric that would block her view of the operation. I sat on a short stool by her head, fingering my camera. The doctors were having some sort of conversation over topics entirely unrelated to what they were doing. I can't remember what it was about. There were maybe three doctors and several nurses, and the anesthesiologist. The operation went fairly quickly. The anesthesiologist talked to Heidi, asking her if she felt anything and describing what she would feel at points in the operation. Before too much time had passed he said that she would feel a tugging - that it would feel "strange" when they removed the baby. I stood up and looked over the tent. I could see the cut, and plastic wrap material over Heidid's abdomen. Actually, the plastic wrap really bothered me at first - I thought her skin had gone all wrinkly. Eventually, I could see the baby (still no name at this point!) being pulled out of the incision by several hands. I took some quite graphic photos.
The baby was quickly taken over to be cleaned, dried and weighed. I think there was a slap or a pinch or something administered to start crying. I looked at them cleaning and weighing the baby, and I took a few photos. I felt an immediate sense of relief at his appearance - he looked very "normal." We had been scared earlier in the pregnancy by something called an "echogenic bowel" on a sonogram that could have indicated down's syndrome. He didn't look like he had down's syndrome.
I got to cut the umbilical cord. A man (nurse? doctor? I don't know) handed me a surgical scissors, and showed me where to cut. When I cut, I noticed that it was much stronger and harder to cut through than I had ever expected. I can't remember if I got to take him over to show Heidi, or if someone else did it. I do know that Heidi said she thought he "looks like a Logan." We hadn't decided on a name yet, but from that moment it was Logan.
There was still a lot of operating to do - at least 15 minutes of stitching after Logan was taken out. I remember that someone complimented Doctor Amoree on doing a "Malibu Incision." I assumed (and didn't ask) that this meant it was a small incision for a bikini bottom. I remember seeing a huge blender shaped container full of red liquid over on a metal table - I was told that was irrigation fluid, not amniotic fluid. I think I remember staying by Heidi while the operation ended.
After the operation we were taken back to the birthing suite. I think I was given a bottle of formula to give Logan. Children of diabetics often have trouble with their blood sugar after delivery. They are so used to a high sugar diet that they need some external sugar immediately to tide them over. Logan sucked on the nipple right away. After crying it was the first thing he did. While I was looking at and feeding Logan the entire medical staff except for one nurse had disappeared. I don't know where they went. We were in the darkened birthing suite with Logan and the nurse, and Heidi was not feeling well. She was shaking uncontrollably. She later said it was the worst she has ever felt. The nurse was standing by her bed, trying to take her blood pressure. Heidi's arm was moving so convulsively that she couldn't get an accurate reading. It was a horrible experience, which seemed like it lasted forever. I'm sure that it only really lasted ten minutes.
