Labor and Delivery with a Spina Bifida child.

What a long day we have had. We got the call to come in at 1 in the morning. By the time we got to the hospital it was 2 in the morning. They were starting my wife and checked her and she was only to a 1 centimeter so we figured it would be a long night. I figured that we would have him around 7 in the morning and he would be here and ready for his surgery. We didn't have the baby till 1:51 P.M. This was probably the hardest thing I have had to go through and I wasn't even the one in labor.

All of our other children have come relatively easy as far as babies are concerned. Our first daughter came after my wifes water broke at work. We rushed her to the hospital at 1 in the afternoon and had her by 8 that night. The second daughter my wife started contracting at 10:00 at night. She woke me up at 3 in the morning and said she was ready to go. We hopped in the car. Got to the hospital and got half way to labor and delivery and her water broke. An hour later the baby was being pushed out. Both of these pregnancies were natural. No epidural, not even much medicine. My wife is a rock star. This was nothing like that.

At 10:30 she finally got to 2 centimeters so that they could break her water. At this point she was in medium pain until about noon. At noon she started having very very bad contractions. They were so bad that she was saying she couldn't do it anymore. I can not stand to see my family in pain. I have to walk out of the room when my daughters get shots or blood drawn because I want to hurt the person that is hurting my children. It is by far the hardest thing in my life to watch my wife go through so much pain and I can not do anything about it. She was in some serious pain this time because nothing had started. She went for about another 45 minutes like that breaking my heart every time. She goes really fast as evidenced by the other children so I was hoping she would go just as fast. At 1 they came in and checked her and said she was a 3. She was distraught she was in to much pain for that. I asked her if she wanted an epidural. My wife is terrified of needles. This plays a big part in why she doesn't get an epidural. She said yes. So at this point I knew she was in some terrible pain. She was almost in tears during every contraction. I was in tears and trying to hold them back so she didn't see. I have never prayed so hard in my life for help for her.

About 1:15 the nurse came in and said are you feeling pressure? She said yes, so they checked her again she had jumped to a 5 in 15 minutes. She said she would page the doctor to get an epidural. She left and about 15 minutes later came in. My wife said there was more pressure so they checked her again and she was a 7. Another 15 minutes another jump of 2 centimeters. They gave here some relaxant in her IV to help her. The doctor that was delivering walked in about 5 minutes later and was introducing her self when my wife said she felt like she needed to push. The doctor checked her and she was there. So they rushed her to the operating room.

So literally 5 pushes the baby was out. I cut the cord and the baby was taken away immediately. Not even shown to my wife. In the operating room they have a window on the wall to pass the baby through. So off he went to get his tests and make sure he was all right because he is high risk. They returned us to our room and told us we could see him when they transferred him over to Primary Children's. We didn't get to see him until 6 when they brought him by the room. It was hard and we kept wondering if they forgot about us or what? So when they finally got there I was able to walk him over and find out when his surgery will be. Stay tuned because his surgery will be tomorrow morning at 9.