Julie’s best ultra - photo-timeline from husband’s perspective

Thursday, November 7

4:00pm - 1 week overdue.  At our birth center appointment, Carolina (our midwife) consoled Julie, who was worried there was no progress.


Carolina did an exam, and was able to massage the cervix to try to stimulate labor.

Friday, November 8

1:00am - 6:00am - Julie starts having early labor contractions.  I slept through them as Julie didn’t want to wake me up.

9:00am - Already timing contractions 5 minutes apart, and Julie is throwing up.


We called Desiree, Julie’s doula, who brought her assistant Kaylee over to the house as well - both were life savers!

Kaylee was always there for every contraction!

4:00pm - Once Desiree estimated Julie was in active labor (5-6 cm), and the intensity of contractions increased, we drove to the birth center.

5:00pm - Carolina confirmed it was time for Julie to be admitted after an exam between contractions.


6:00pm - 9:00pm - progressing right along, mostly in the tub!  Around 8-9cm by 9-10pm.


PC: Desiree Sangiuliano-Jemal
(I’m probably not really helping the situation)

Luckily, Julie had 2 doulas and 3 midwives there, all for her, on a Friday night.  So much incredible support - I’ll never forget that.




10:00pm - 11:30pm - the baby’s heart rate was increasing up to 180+ during contractions, then going back to 110-120 afterward, indicating some kind of fetal distress or complication.  That meant it was time to go to Methodist Hospital via EMS.



While they didn’t explicitly say I could follow them and run the lights, I felt it was appropriate.



Saturday, November 9

Midnight - 2:00am - somewhere in here, the baby stabilized and Julie became fully dilated.  She pushed for 2 grueling hours.



This is where it became too much even for the unbreakable Julie.  Somehow, no progress was being made.



I was helping, uh, in my own way..


PC: Desiree

2:00 - 7:00am - the epidural came and Julie (and I) got a 1-hour nap.  Pushing then ensued in various positions for the next 4 hours with no progress.  The doc gave us quite awhile but it was becoming risky and it was time to get the baby out via C-section.


8:00am - short calm before a new storm

The baby was so large, and had been pushed so low during labor, it was quite jarring to watch three people struggling to forcibly extract the kid.  The OB was up on a stool for leverage and even fell onto Julie at one point when she lost her balance.

8:16am - they finally wrestled the baby out, and knowing Julie wanted me to call out the gender, they held it up so I could see.  “It’s a boy!”



Theodore “Teddy” Gordon Schmal was 10 pounds, 5 ounces, and 22-1/4 inches.  Poor kid had some bumps and bruises on his noggin from all the pushing, but is healing up nicely.


The start of a beautiful relationship















Comments

  1. UnknownNovember 15, 2019 at 7:55 AM

    Wow, what an exciting story. Nice to have proof that you were really there, too!

    ReplyDelete

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