Induction Time

March 12th, 2020 …3PM

This day makes 37 weeks. Baby and I were at the tail end of this pregnancy journey and had been preparing for the his arrival. Due to the gestational hypertension in previous months, the doctor insisted we be induced on this day.

Hubby and I had our bags packed weeks prior and when the time came, we made our way to Rush Hospital. After we got checked in, I got checked for COVID-19 and then we were placed in our induction room. Listen, being in a hospital during a pandemic is the last place you want to be. It was quiet, everyone was isolated and of course they wouldn’t allow any additional guests other than one support person. On top of that, your support person couldn’t leave.

The next day, March 13th, we continued the induction process. The doctors were giving me different medications to help widen my cervix. The doctors also used what’s called a balloon method, where they inserted a ballon and filled it with water to help open the cervix.. I initially thought this would be painful but this was nothing compared to what was to come. I will say the combination of the balloon and medications were both effective because I went from 1cm to 6 cm in about 8 hours or so. By 8:30PM I was 6cm and the doctor decided to break my water bag. For some reason, I thought it would be like the movies and water would just be spilling everywhere but that wasn’t the case. Then I thought, well if the doctor breaks my water now, how long is my baby safe inside without it. It was about to get real ya’ll!!

As time went on, my nerves and anxiety started going up. I knew it was about to happen, but it was just surreal you know. All I could tell myself was that, “this is really about to happen.” Around 3:30AM the next morning, the doctor said, it’s time to push. There were so many thoughts running through my mind at this point. I wasn’t afraid, but I will say the “unknown” somewhat got the best of me. Not exactly knowing what to expect is what caused my anxiety to sky rocket. Of course, I trusted the nursing staff, but was still an unfamiliar experience.

So we pushed from 3:30AM to about 6:00AM and when I tell you, the pain, well contractions, were no joke. I was in so much pain. The medications provided to help kick off my contractions definitely worked. While pushing the doctor noticed the baby wasn’t budging. He wouldn’t drop any further than what he had already. We also tried multiple positions which led me to pushing my heart and soul out. Pushing in the moment wasn’t too painful, although, it caused a lot of pain after the fact. After so many failed attempts to get the baby down and after 3+ hours of pushing the doctor suggested a c-section. Simply because I had pushed so much, I caused distress on the baby and myself. His heart rate dropped a few times and then turned around a sped up a few times so to protect the baby and I, a c-section was best.

I’m so glad hubby never left my side and my mom unfortunately was on face-time the entire time. It really sucked not having her there but these are the times we currently live in thanks to COVID-19.

Here we are, after 8 hours of active labor and 3 hours of pushing, we are now headed into the surgery room. It took me a while to process what was going on. I remember hearing the doctor ask hubby to put on scrubs and that they had less than 20 mins to get the baby out. The doctors rushed me to the surgery room and that’s when it hit me. I looked up at the lights, with so much emotion and all I could hear in the background are 10-12 doctors calling their names/ roles out. The tears started falling from my eyes because I started to get nervous but I was also excited to meet our baby boy. They pinned me to a table, numbed my body from the neck down and when I tell you this was the most uncomfortable position ever. They stretched my arms out away from my body and then slightly upward/backwards so it was extremely uncomfortable. At this point, I basically laid there tying to keep myself calm so the baby an be delivered. However, the pain from being pinned down and from the doctors pushing aggressively from my chest to stomach made it difficult.

While on the table, all I could do is cry and pray. Then after about 25 minutes under the lights, I heard his little cries and that’s when I knew…..I knew we did it!

We survived COVID-19 but the journey wasn’t quite over.

May 14, 2020 @ 6:27AM Garon Alson Sweeting Jr. was born.

Next Up: 5 long days in the hospital, Discharge Day, Road to Recovery