So it all started during Tuesday night (March 13). After my apt with OBGYN I was sure that nothing is going to happen until the induction on Friday. I had lots of cramping in the evening and through the night. I was waking up every 30 min to an hour with a cramp and an urge to use the bathroom which I was doing. I finally managed to fall asleep when at around 6 a.m. I woke up from an excruciating pain (what I thought was excruciating pain then). It felt like cramping but much stronger. As I talked to Sashka B. who gave birth just the night before, she explained to me that she only felt contractions at the bottom of her tummy and not at the top, so I suspected that those were real contractions. I started timing contractions and they were about 3 minutes apart, but lasted only 30-40 seconds (so completely different from what everyone were saying i.e. 1 min in length and 5 minutes apart). I woke Yurka up, and he couldn’t believe it. I decided to take a shower as everyone were telling me how relaxing it is and how it takes the edge off the contractions. Well, it didn’t work for me one bit. I had about 4 contractions while taking a shower. It was not pleasant at all and I tried to finish up everything as quickly as I could to get out of there. Yurka had to finish up a few urgent matters before we could leave for the hospital, so I was walking around him telling him that I am going to give birth right here in our house.
Finally we were off to the hospital and arrived there around 9 a.m. We went straight to the assessment room and were put on the monitor to check on the baby. We were told that we will be on a monitor for about 20 minute before they would do an internal exam on me. I hated every minute of it. The bed in the assessment room was very uncomfortable, contractions were getting stronger and my back started to kill me. I asked Yura to get the nurse to at least allow me to sit up. She finally came and did an internal exam. I was 1-2 cm dilated. So yes, it was a real deal. As I was positive for the bacteria, I had to get the first dose of penicillin, and just sat in a chair with an IV. Once the full bag of fluid was in me, we were told that we can go for a walk and come back in about 2 hours. I was glad to get out of there. We called our families to tell them that this was it. The weather was great – warm and sunny, so we walked around the hospital, and to our car to leave Yurka’s jacket and some other things that we decided that we would not need during labour. When I had contractions, I tried either walking through them slowly, or most of the time just leaned on Yurka and moaned quietly while moving my hips from side to side. The pain was getting worse and it was going into my legs making them numb. In exactly 2 hours (it was around 1p.m.) we came back to the assessment room. I wanted them to check me right away to know what’s going on, but there was no bed available, so I was just sitting in the chair, which, to tell you the truth, I didn’t mind much. In about an hour we finally got a bed and were checked. At that point I was 4 cm dilated. The contractions and the pain were so strong that I felt like crawling out of my body with every one of them. The nurse asked if I wanted an epidural, and said that if we put a request now, it will be another 30-45 minutes before I get one, so I said yes. The wait for epidural was agonizing. I’ve decided for myself that there is no chance I would be able to go through natural birth. I was crying from pain and when I couldn’t take it anymore I asked Yurka to go check what’s going on. He came back with the nurse, who would be my nurse in the labour room.
The nurse helped me out of bed and helped me change (as I was hooked to an IV). We slowly walked to the labour room and I had two contractions while we were relocating. I was glad for the change of scenery. Once I got to the labour room where I was going to have my baby, the nurse quickly started to prepare everything for the epidural and anesthesiologist came in to go over the details. The procedure took some time, and I did have contractions while he was trying to put a needle in my back, but for some reason they were more manageable and I didn’t twitch. Once it was all done, I felt a sense of relief. The epidural was done at around 3 p.m. and I had enough of contractions from 6 a.m.
The next several hours were kind of a blur. My parents came over with my brother, we managed to get them out as nothing was happening, and then my mom came back and stayed with us till the end. As I got the epidural, my contractions started to slow down, so I was given oxytocin to try to speed them up. The initial dose was at 3 which by the end of the night was upped to over 30. Also once the epidural was in, a doctor came in and broke my water. She was happy that the water looked crystal clear. At around 5 or 6 p.m. I was checked and I was still only 5-6 cm dilated. Around 10 or 11 p.m. I got a new nurse, Sari, who was fantastic. She checked me and said that I was almost at 10 cm but the baby was looking sideways, so she was moving me around to try to turn him, and she did. I was also shaking uncontrollably (apparently from the epidural, as we had to up the dose as I started to feel the contractions). I was hot and Yurka was putting wet towel on my forehead and face. Sari said that she will bring me warm blankets, to help with shaking, and I told her “no” as I was hot. She insisted and said that it will help, so I let her and it did help. I was so happy with that nurse, she was saying that we should wait until the baby is lower otherwise pushing would not do much and may be too stressful for everyone involved. She said that we would try to reassess the situation at around 1 a.m. In the meantime, I was to try to feel the pressure – the urge to go to the washroom not only during a contraction, but even in between, which was the sign that I was ready to push. But that didn’t happen. As we were waiting for the baby to drop, we were talking about the name for our baby boy. Yurka and I were set on “Ilya” and I really wanted a middle name to honour my grandma, Valentina. So I figured we can use the name “Valentin” as the middle name. But Yura decided that “Ilya Valentin Barsuk” just doesn’t sound nice. Since we had time, he was browsing on the internet to figure out another name, he found a shorter name “Valen” which all of us liked, and so some time during the early hours of March 15th, the definite name was decided on, “Ilya Valen Barsuk”! And we were only waiting for his arrival.
Unfortunately, as the time got to 1 a.m. we got an unpleasant surprise. Sari had to be somewhere on an emergency so we got a new nurse, who was a complete opposite. She was barely moving and not saying much. She only checked vitals at 1 a.m. and disappeared, leaving me and Yurka wondering what was going on. I decided to wait until 2 a.m. until calling somebody, and that’s when she appeared again. She checked vitals and was on her way out when I asked her to check me and tell me what was going on. She did and said that it appears that he moved down a bit, but since she didn’t do the previous exam and was going by the notes in the system, she could not tell for sure. I asked her what we are doing, and she said that it was up to me if we wanted to start pushing or not. WTF?!?! I was getting furious, I told her that since I don’t have any medical education, I have no clue what to do. She said that they preferred that the baby was another station or two lower before starting pushing, but she doesn’t know how long it would take before he goes down. So I decided to wait 30 min and start pushing at 2:30 a.m. She slowly started to set up the room. Then at 2:30 a.m. my nightmare started. She told me to push when I feel the urge. I told her that this is my first baby and I wanted her to tell me when to push, to which she replied that I would feel it before she could see it on the monitor. Whatever!!! I was so pissed at her, and Yurka actually took over helping me. She was completely useless. As we started pushing she would do her own stuff, not counting with me and not attending to me at all. As we started pushing, the room filled in with doctors. Apparently the baby’s heart beat was dropping, so they put the monitor on baby’s head and gave me an oxygen mask. I am a bit claustrophobic and the mask didn’t help. I couldn’t breathe through my nose and the mask was getting into my eyes. I tried to take it out, but the doctor said that the oxygen is helping and I should breathe with the mask on. As I was really struggling my mom took over, she held the oxygen mask close to my mouth when it was crucial that I breathe through it. It was extremely difficult to get enough oxygen to last for all three pushes that needed to be done at once. I started hyperventilating at which point my angel – Sari came back. She immediately took over. Took the mask off and told me not to push and breathe slowly. She was holding my hand and guiding my breathing so I could catch my breath. Once that was under control, she completely rearranged my bed, so it was easy for me to push (the awful nurse had me holding my knees myself while I was pushing). She insisted that I continue with the oxygen though, and we started the pushing again. I figured out the drill and we were pushing and pushing and pushing. By my estimation over 45 min to 1 hour passed of vigorous pushing, when Sari said to stop and called the doctor. She told me that I’ve been doing a fantastic job and that in her 20 years experience, with the force I was pushing, the baby should have been born 3 times already. The doctor came in quickly and did an internal check. The verdict was in – the baby was still high up and she could only feel the very tip of his head. It would be impossible and too risky to try forceps and/or vacuum, so our only choice was c-section. I was exhausted, and didn’t really care what was happening. I knew that Yurka was against any unnecessary surgery, but at that point when I looked at him and told him I am ok with it, he agreed too. My mom was always on board if it was medically necessary. So the decision was made for a c-section.
As I was on inducing medication, I was still having a very strong urge to push with each contractions and the feeling and pressure were getting as bad as the contractions that I had before. So Sari quickly got me an anesthesiologist to top of my epidural. I was emotionally at my wits ends by that point and asked Sari to stay with me until the end. She said that for sure she will be with me until she delivers us into mommy & baby unit. Sari also asked if Yurka wanted to do skin-to-skin. When we talked about it after class a few weeks before, Yurka was not very open to the idea of getting undressed in the hospital, but at that moment he said yes, and Sari said that she will get him gowns and make him ready for the operation room.
I was wheeled over to the operation room and moved to the operation table, which was very narrow (and I am not a tiny person). I could feel various monitors being connected to my arms, legs and body. The anesthesiologist asked me if I could feel my legs, and I could although they were getting a bit numb. I was waiting for when I wouldn’t able to feel my lower body, and was just lying there. Then one of the nurses told me that they are going to prep the area by shaving. I said ok. The next moment I heard a buzzing sound and it took a few seconds to realize that it was coming from my tummy, as I couldn’t feel anything. The drape was in place, and they were asking if I could feel any stubbing pain – I couldn’t. I was all ready and I was asking them where my husband was. They said that once they are ready my hubby will be brought in. They did bring him in and he was sitting right next to my head. I could feel some pushing going on in my tummy and that was it. Then we heard what sounded like a cry, I asked Yurka if it was our baby and burst into tears. At that point, the doctor told Yurka to take the camera and get up to see. What Yurka saw was me being cut open and Ilyusha’s head sticking from my tummy, and he was already crying! He took a few pictures and watched the whole process of our baby being taken out. We immediately had an answer as to why the heart beat was going down, as Ilyusha had his umbilical cord wrapped twice around his neck!
Ilyusha was taken out and the group of nurses and pediatricians were working on him. He had lots of mucus so they had to suction him, which didn’t last long. As he was being taken from my tummy to the bassinet, somebody said, “show him to mommy”, and I saw my baby for the first time. I had tears in my eyes. He seemed so big and was all bluish and swollen from the whole birthing experience. The thought that cross my mind was: “I can’t believe this is our baby”, and that none of the onesies that I brought to the hospital were going to fit him. Yep, that’s what 22 hours in labour would do to a person.
In about a minute, Yurka was asked if he would cut the umbilical cord and he agreed. He cut the cord, Ilyusha was placed on his chest and they were off to the recovery room. But before they left, I asked what was the time of birth, it was 4:01 a.m. and the weight was 3.760 kg (Yurka took a few pictures of the scale so we have a record). It took about an hour for me to be all stitched up and cleaned, and around 5 a.m. I was transferred to the recovery room where Yurka has been keeping our son skin-to-skin. It was finally my time to hold my son for the first time. I was looking at him and trying to figure out where he came from. Both Yurka and I were exhausted and were falling asleep. We spent another 1.5 hours in the recovery room. I’ve tried to breast feed but he would not latch on. He would just do one suck and let it go. I really wanted to breast feed, but at the point it didn’t really matter. We were the family of three at last!!!
My mom was not allowed into the operating room, nor into the recovery room. So Yurka went to show her the pictures of her new grandson. We didn’t know at that point how long we would be spending in the recovery room, so she called my dad and left for home with a promise to come in the next day. We were keeping some relatives and close friends informed through a chat on my iphone, but after Ilyusha was born Yurka sent a text message to Julka and his brother as it was too early/late to send anything to other people. (The next morning Julka did send text messages out to a list of people that I prepared, and informed most of our friends.)
Ilyusha and I were wheeled into our room and Yurka followed by foot. It was a double room, as all private rooms were taken (not a surprise). We didn’t have a neighbour and it was good. As Ilyusha wasn’t latching, I started to hand express colostrum and Yurka was feeding him with his finger. Then I noticed a poster on the wall which talked about expressing colostrum into a cup and feeding the baby. So I called the nurse and she brought a few cups and showed how to feed the baby from a cup. We’ve been doing that for the entire day on Thursday (15th) and the night that followed. I also asked the nurse on Thursday for a lactation consultant and she said that the lady was busy but that I am on her schedule for Friday.
My mom did come back on Thursday morning, and we sent Yurka home to sleep for a few hours. Ilyusha was also sleeping through most of the time that Yurka was away. We were getting lots of phone calls and emails and messages, as the news were spreading. The friends and relatives also started to trickle in. At one point we had 7 people in our room (not counting us), as Chandler and Sashka came over and then Alla and Sasha with both our nephews, who couldn’t wait to meet their baby cousin, and my mother-in-law. Edik, our curious “monkey” was climbing on the crib trying to see Ilyusha, pushing buttons on my bed, and running around. I had both a catheter and an IV so I was scared that he is going to knock something out. Julka was sick but really wanted to her nephew, so Alla was using face time on her iphone to have a face to face conversation. Later, Emil brought Ariella and his mom, Polya, as he was sick himself, he didn’t come up, but Ariella and Plya did. Ariella brought a drawing that she made for her cousin. 🙂 Zhenka & Mo couldn’t come but sent a very nice flower arrangement. Friends were coming well into the evening, and I told a few people who wanted to come, to leave it until the next day as we were getting tired.
At around 4 p.m. on Thursday, the nurse came in and took my catheter out and also walked me to the bathroom to show me how to take care of myself. She told me to drink lots of fluids so that I can go and pee. I’ve obliged and was drinking a lot. I’ve tried to go a few times, but nothing would come out. Yurka and I also took Ilyusha and walked a around the floor to start my recovery. The nurse asked if I needed any painkillers and I said “no”, as I was still feeling pretty good. She commented on how good my posture was, and that was it. We all settled for the night, when at around midnight I woke up from a very bad pain in my lower stomach. The pain was unbearable, plus my IV finished and the blood was drawn from my arm almost all the way up to the bag. We called the nurses, and told them that I am in a lot of pain. When my nurse came over, I told her that I need drugs and about the situation with IV. She asked me if I had peed and I said “no”. It was 8 hours since my catheter was taken out. She called the team right away, and they started to place the catheter back in, which took them some time as with all the pushing I did, I had lots of swelling and they were having difficulty putting it back in. The pain was giving me flash backs to contractions. At the same time, another team were redoing my IV line, as Yurka was trying to take care of Ilyusha. At the end, once the catheter was back in, they took out about 900ml of liquid, and then another 300ml within the next 10-15 min, so all together 1.2 litters of liquid. No wonder I was in so much pain. The nurse brought me pain killers and told me to take them as they would help with all the inflammation and swelling. She also brought ice packs for me to use to help with the swelling.
That night Yurka was sleeping on two chairs pulled together (and I was extremely happy that he was allowed to stay, as the general rule, nobody can stay overnight in a semi-private room). As it was very hard for me to get off the bed, Yurka was up all night changing Ilyusha and helping me feeding him as well as hand expressing colostrum. On Friday (March 16), the morning nurse came in to take vitals and introduce herself. Her name was Suzy. I asked her to check regarding lactation consultant as both Yurka and I were getting tired of hand expressing and feeding Ilyusha through a cup. The nurse asked if she can try to latch him, and I said no problem. She showed me how to do it and Oh miracle! he was sucking on my boob!!! That helped a bit to alleviate all the frustrations. My mom was back later in the morning, and Yurka went home again to have some sleep. While he was away, we got a neighbour. A girl after a c-section, who wasn’t feeling good. I was starting to imagine the horrors of the night to come with another baby just a curtain away, and whether now Yurka would be allowed to stay overnight. Then our nurse came in and said that if we want there is a private room available for us. Yes!!! This nurse turned out to be our Angle number two!!! I called Yurka right away and told him that we were moving. He was ecstatic too, as private rooms have pull out arm chair where he can sleep a bit more comfortably. After my mom left, we had a few more visitors. Nastya came with Artyom and her camera and took a few pictures of Ilyusha, and Romka came with Leila. Also Suzka came later in the evening to keep us company.
The night nurse came in in the evening and asked if she should take my catheter out. I told her “no”. I was afraid from the previous experience and didn’t really trust that nurse. I wanted to wait until my Angel nurse comes in on Saturday morning before taking out the catheter. But the night nurse was back at 2 a.m. and said that it is their policy that the catheter has to be out in 24 hours to prevent infection, so she took it out. This time I was very careful and only drank 500ml bottle of water through the night. I tried to go but couldn’t. So when the night nurse came in at 4 a.m. to take Ilyusha’s 48 hour blood work, she also brought me a sitz bath. I tried it and it didn’t work and Ilyusha was hungry, so I let it be. The Angel nurse came in first thing as she started her shift. She asked if I went to the washroom and I told her that I didn’t. She said that by protocol I have to go to the bathroom within 6-8 hours, otherwise they have to put the catheter back in and then I am stuck at the hospital for another 24 hours. I started panicking. The nurse brought in a glass of water with a straw and told me to get onto the sitz bath and stay there for at least 20 minutes and let daddy take care of Ilyusha and make sure I don’t get off the bath. I was also supposed to blow bubbles in the water (in the glass NOT the bath) as it puts pressure on the lower tummy. She also said to make the water a bit cold as it should help too. I followed her advice and 30 seconds after immersing into a cold bath, it happened! I was so happy (first time so happy of the simple ability to pee). The nurse actually popped in about the same time so I told her. She said that if I can pee a few more times, we will be ready to be discharged.
I was able to go without a problem. Yurka took Ilyusha for a walk in the hallway so that I could get a few minutes of sleep. Then the door opened and the nurse came in rolling an incubator. I told her that I was able to pee a few more times and that we were ready to go. But, now the problem was that Ilyusha’s blood test results were not good. It showed that he had jaundice, which meant that we were stuck in the hospital for at least another day. We put him into the incubator under the light, and the Angel nurse suggested that I nurse him near the incubator and when I did, we just moved the light onto me as well so he is always under the light. Another problem was that Ilyusha needed to pee and poo much more than what he was doing in order to get rid of jaundice, and the decision was made to supplement with formula. The nurse brought bottles of formula, tubes and syringes. We were to feed him 2 syringes of formula by attaching the thin tube to my nipple. It sounded easy in theory but was very difficult to do in practice. The nurse also suggested that Yurka can feed him from his finger with the tube (which we did later at night, when I was exhausted).
When the nurse left, I just lost it. Spending another day and night in the hospital was just too much for me emotionally. Yurka and I were both exhausted beyond belief as between the feeding, changing and calming down Ilyusha, and constant visits from the nurses, we barely had any sleep. The sleep that we did get was sporadic and it felt like I was just thrown into the deepest sleep right away and when I woke up (usually because someone would come in), it felt very sudden and I felt very disoriented to the point of hallucinating. Twice I asked Yurka where Yurka was, told him that there should be more people (not just him and me) in the room. Also, after the first night in the private room, Yurka did something to his back that it was extremely painful for him to even get up from the arm chair that served as his bed. My back was also killing me and I couldn’t wait to be in my own bed.
Saturday evening a pediatrician stopped by to discuss Ilyusha’s condition. Ilyusha was under the lamp for the entire day. They took more blood at 8 p.m. and at 10 p.m. the results were that his count is a bit higher than it was before, so the decision was made to keep him under the lamp for the entire night. I managed to take a shower for the first time since Wednesday morning, which felt great. After the shower I was sitting on a toilet and felt a drop fall on my leg. Then I saw another one. I looked up and was trying to figure out if the ceiling was dripping. It turned out – it was me. My milk came in and I started leaking from both breasts. That made me extremely happy.
I also spent most of the night in the chair beside the incubator as Yurka’s back was still sore and I didn’t want him up all the time. As my milk came in, we decided not to supplement at every feeding, so I was able to give Yurka some time to sleep. I could get up from the chair but not from the bed. At around 5 a.m. Yurka and I switched places, so that I could get some sleep. I woke up from my baby screaming and couldn’t figure out what was going on. The night nurse came in to take more blood at 6 a.m. and instead of taking Ilyusha and Yurka into a special room, the way it was done before, she was doing it in our room. The nurse saw that I woke up and told me to get back to sleep. I sat on the bed and was barely holding on. She took forever to finish all the vials to the very top, and once she left it took me half an hour to calm down while keeping my son next to me. Even Yurka was fuming on how incompetent that nurse was.
Thankfully the morning brought good news. Our Angel nurse came in first thing again, and said that the results from the morning showed improvement and that we were lucky that the pediatrician on call decided to release us and have us do the blood work again in the outpatient lab on Monday morning, as opposed to waiting in the hospital for another 6 hours to do a repeat blood work without the baby being under the lamp. Yurka wanted for the Angel nurse to assist us in bathing Ilyusha before we were discharged and she agreed to come back after her round to help us. In the mean time we started packing all things. She quickly showed us how to do the bath, with Yurka doing most of the work, which was great. Yurka brought in our car seat, which she checked. We signed all the papers and were on our way home.
The weather was amazing – sunny and warm. We decided against going on the highways and instead took city streets. It was after 9 a.m. when we left and being Sunday morning there was hardly any traffic. Yurka was driving below the speed limit, and we were so so happy to finally bringing our baby home after 5 days at the hospital!!! On Sunday, March 18th, Ilyusha entered his first home!!!