The details

Mindy reported to the hospital at 7:00 pm on Monday evening, per instructions from her doctor. At 9:00 pm, they gave her Bupivacaine to thin her cervix. She had neither thinned, nor dilated at all. By 10:30 pm, she was having hard contractions with a lot of pain.

Dave and I knew she was in the hospital, but we were totally oblivious to her goings on. We assumed Mindy would be peacefully sleeping while the medication was working. Dave had scheduled Tuesday off so we could go to the hospital, but we figured we’d have lots of time and take a leisurely morning. We stayed up until midnight watching an old movie

Our day started at 5:30 am when Clay called and woke us up. He asked us if we could come to the hospital because Mindy really wanted us there. For two old people, we got cleaned up, dressed and ready in record time. We left the house with breakfast on a paper plate in our hands at 6:00 am. We thought we might beat the morning traffic, but when we reached the Layton area, we were at a dead crawl until we reached Salt Lake City.

We reached the hospital about 7:18 am. They had just given Mindy her epidural, and she was much calmer. She indicated that she had had a rough time with the pain, but was very relieved to have it calmed down. She looked exhausted and I could tell she'd been crying. I'm glad I missed the bad part. I don't think there's anything worse than watching someone you love suffer, and be totally helpless. I would have been crying right along with her. Clay had gone through that feeling of helplessness, and he was quite shaken at the amount of pain she had endured.

During the night, they had given her two doses of Demerol. The first had not worked, so they gave her a second dose, and it hadn't helped either. They wanted her to wait until she was dilated to 3 centimeters before they gave her the epidural.

At 7:30 am. Dr. Kinghorn checked her and she was dilated to a 4. She stripped her membranes and we figured we were in business.

8:45 am: The nurse, Lori, explained that the baby's base heart rate was a little high, and he was non-responsive. This can indicate several things, but the important thing is to rule out that the baby is going into stress. The first action they took was to insert an internal heart monitor. This they attach to the baby's head so they have an accurate heart rate. Mindy had dilated to a 5 at this point. The other consideration was that the baby was sugar deprived since Mindy hadn't had anything to eat for so long. They replaced the bag on her IV with a bag of sugar water. The baby only responded for about five minutes and then resumed the non-responsiveness.

9:00 am: Dr. Kinghorn inserted an internal contraction monitor. They were concerned that the contractions were too hard on the baby. They gave her a shot to stop the contractions just to see if the baby's heart rate would be more responsive. That didn't work either.

9:30 am: The consensus between the attending nurse, Lori, and Dr. Kinghorn, was that the baby was sleepy from the Demerol that they had given Mindy during the night. They gave her a shot to counteract the Demerol. About this time, I was going nuts with all the drugs they were injecting into Mindy. Memories of Susan's experience with drugs and more drugs, and then the after-affects from all of them, flooded my mind. This time, the baby's heart rate began to become more responsive, and they knew the baby had just been drowsy from the Demerol--not going into stress.

9:45 am: Now her contractions had slowed way down, and they weren't picking up. By this time, they had expected the anti-contraction medication to wear off. They decided to give her Oxytocin to get the contractions moving again. Lori, the nurse, agreed to only give her the smallest dose to begin with. I tried not to interfere with the professionals, but I have very mixed emotions about all the drugs they are so quick to administer. The baby's heart rate was still responsive, so they turned the dosage up to a 3 from a 1.

10:10 am: Mindy and Clay were dozing, while Dave and I hypnotically watched the Monitors. The pressure cuff automatically kept taking her pressure every few minutes. We watched the baby's base heart rate rise above the normal range again (about 170) and Mindy's pressure dropped to 73/17. I pointed it out to Dave and he quietly left the room to get the nurse. Mindy was still asleep with oxygen flowing through a mask. Lori came in and reset the pressure cuff, saying that it was probably a misread. Her contractions were now too close together without enough resting period between. Consequently, they turned the Oxytocin off. She was still at 5 cm. Her diastolic count went up to as high as 145, but her systolic never got over 25.

1:50 pm: Things seemed stabilize and they turned on the Oxytocin again. I think Lori turned it on about a level 3 to start with. Mindy was still dilated to a 5.

2:15 pm: Dr. Kinghorn checked her. The baby was still stable, but Mindy was starting to run a temperature of 99.4°. They were starting to get worried about the lack of progress. Dr. Kinghorn explained to us that there is a fine line between contractions that are hard enough to dilate the cervix and too hard that they put the baby in stress. Because Porter's base heart rate was a little high, they needed to use caution. However, it was very possible that when she was stuck at 5 cm for so long, it could be indicative that the baby's head was too large to fit down into the birth canal, and therefore she would not be able to dilate any more than that. They said it almost always stops at 5 cm’s when that happens. They usually expect cervical changes within every two hours. If there is none, they begin to consider a cesarean section. Mindy had been 5 cm since 8:45 am. Lori turned the Oxytocin up to a level 7. They decided to give her one more hour to see if she could go on her own—but the nurse cautioned us about getting our hopes up.

At this juncture, I decided to take a walk. Mindy was trying to sleep, as was poor Clay who had been right beside her all night and day. Dave took a picture of both of them lying down asleep. They were both exhausted. I needed some fresh air and some exercise, so I walked around the hospital in the beautiful balmy weather we were having. It was at least 70° outside. I had my cell phone in my pocket in case Dave needed to reach me in a hurry.

2:55 pm: When I returned to the nurse's desk, I talked with Lori, who was concentrating on Mindy's monitor screen at her desk. I mentioned that it appeared the baby's base heart rate had risen again. She said it was probably because of Mindy's rising temperature. We then went into Mindy's room and Lori took her temperature again. It was 100.2°. Lori immediately ordered a bag of Unacym (an antibiotic). She walked right back into the room and hooked it up to her IV. She said she wasn't even going to wait for the pharmacy to send it up to the room. She just used one she already had.

3:15 pm: Dr. Kinghorn came in the room to check her. I heard, from the hall, the Dr. say "Oh, she's made good progress! She's almost complete!" I felt a surge of relief. That was when Dave and I started making phone calls to the local family members. Mindy was extremely tired and was beginning to feel sick. She said she didn't think she would have the strength to push.

3:25 pm: Lori gave Mindy a Tylenol suppository to bring her temperature down and hoped she would feel a little better.

3:30 pm: We left the room to wait while Mindy did the work with Clay's help. The waiting room was directly across the hall from Mindy's room. We sat quietly waiting for news. There was a flurry of people who kept rushing in and out. It sounded like Grand Central Station across the hall.

4:03 pm: Lori ran out of the room and we heard her say, "Call the NICU people up here." I'm sorry to say--I panicked. I shot out into the hall to ask her why we needed the NICU unit. She assured me it was only for safety precaution. After all Mindy had gone through, with the fever, the baby's elevated heart rate, etc., she just wanted to make sure the baby was covered if they needed extra care, but she was sure everything was fine. Well, I'm no dummy--I know nurses are paid to say that to the grandparents! I moved to just outside Mindy's door, with my ear almost glued to the door. Dave stood at the door of the waiting room watching me. He held his cell phone in his hand, watching the time on it so we could write down the exact minute we heard the first cry. We were pitiful--both waiting with baited breath for the sound of that first cry, and wanting to make sure everything was fine. Nurses would come and go from the room--tripping over me each time. They'd give me a report, and say she was doing great. I could hear Mindy let out gasps with each contraction. It was like going through labor all over again--only without the pain.

4:16 pm: I heard the Doctor say, "Great! You did really good." I peeked through the opening of the door, saw the doctor clamp the cord, and then turned around to give Dave a thumbs up (which we had agreed was my signal that the baby was born.) At the exact moment I gave the thumb-up to Dave, we both heard a robust cry from the room. He has a strong cry.

I continued to listen for important information like weight and length, but it took about five minutes before I heard someone say 20 inches. I never did hear anything else until Clay came out and told us that Porter weighed 8 lbs. and 12 oz. Clay handed us the video camera, and we were able to see the baby as they cleaned him off and measured his head, etc. He has thick black hair about an inch long. He's darling. Of course, I admit, we could be prejudiced, but I don't think so. I consider myself quite able to discern between a funny looking kid and a handsome one. He's handsome!

I have pictures, but I haven't been able to load them onto our blog. Dave tried, and he couldn't get them to load either. We'll keep trying.

We left the hospital about 8:00 pm. after Mindy got situated in her room. She and Clay were both looking like they could use a good night's sleep. Unfortunately, Mindy won't know what that feels like for quite some time now. She said they brought Porter to her about every three hours last night. He appears to be a good nurser. I warned her that he would be--since we saw pictures of him sucking his fingers in the ultrasounds. I think he'll be a good prospect for a Binky.

All's well that ends well! Only this is just the beginning.