Peter Jack O'Neil

Our newest, Peter Jack, was born Tuesday 7/7/09 at 11:25 a.m. Despite the doctor's predictions of hugeness, he was 7 lbs. 5 oz. and 20 inches long, a pound lighter and two and a half inches shorter than his brother. He does kind of have reddish hair though! I'm VERY sorry I once again don't have a camera. We seem to have the hardest time keeping hold of that thing.

It started out as a very long ordeal that turned into labor's worst nightmare--except for the real worst nightmare. The doctor had decided to induce labor early because he had been in the breech position until 37 weeks and he was afraid he was going to turn back; because I had polyhydramnios (too much amniotic fluid); because they were predicting a very large baby if allowed to go to full term; and because the baby had been diagnosed with hydronephrosis (water backing up in a kidney) and it was approaching severe levels.

At first it seemed like a good idea, but after a while my husband and I started to have second thoughts about it. We started to feel that we should just let things come naturally, but for some reason--some of the stupidest reasons, really--we didn't. We went with the doctor. Oh, we had already made arrangements for a friend to fly out to help me and she couldn't change her flight, the plans were set, it seemed such an inconvenience to change them, blah, blah, blah. We hoped I would go into labor on my own and I was having pretty good contractions--but they never got regular enough so we just went with the schedule instead of our instincts...or faith.

On Monday morning July 6th they tried "augmenting" labor, which got things going but not fast enough, so after a whole day of not much going on the doctor gave me pitocin and broke my water. I just don't think the baby was ready for it, though. I really, really wish we had waited. After about an hour of things finally seeming like they were going somewhere the nurse checked me and the baby's heart rate plummeted to below 100. My husband had to point it out to her and she said something like, "uh, yeah, I know" and then went out to get another nurse. When they came back in she said "I think it's the cord." Our alarms were blaring because we knew what that meant and his heart rate wasn't going back up. Then the other nurse checked me and said she also "thought" it was the cord...all the while I could hear the baby's heart dropping--thump, thump,...thump,. . . . . .thump--down to 50. At that point the head of OB rushed in, about 20 years older and obviously a lifetime more experienced than these girls, felt for the head, said, "It's the cord" and then took over. They threw my bed back to take downward pressure off the baby and she pushed his head up off the cord and his heart rate went back up to 120, where it stayed until they operated.

I was really worried because the doctor rushed in and they didn't even bother taking the time to transfer me to an operating table because he didn't think they could spare the five seconds it would take. The first two nurses probably wasted a minute or two before they got someone who knew what she was doing. It may not sound like much, but it is an eternity when you are hearing your baby's heart trip along at 90 and then 50.

So I ended up having an emergency c-section. I really, really didn't want one, but as things turned out I was just so incredibly grateful they can do that these days. Still, I can't help but feel that we were being prompted to wait and let things follow their natural course, and that if we had done that things would have gone normally in a smooth, natural birth. I think it was kind of a test of faith for us. Not that I'm naive and uber natural enough to think it will always turn out and no one should ever have a c-section--but I think this time, for us, we were supposed to wait. It's ironic, because a month ago I was the one decrying modern medicine's utmost faith in itself. I really love our doctor, but he's a doctor and not a midwife (like we had for our first baby), and I just think that doctors are too clinical and sometimes get in their own way by not letting things happen as they happen.

It turns out all their fears were non-starters anyway. I did have too much fluid and the baby did kind of turn after my water broke, which might be why his cord prolapsed and might have meant he would have gone breech again if left alone--but then again with another week or two of being left alone, he might have just got that much more comfortable in his head-down position. He was NOT a huge baby, the possible ten-pounder they were predicting. He fell right smack into the middle of average for both height and weight and was significantly smaller than my last baby. And his kidney, the big "problem" they've been monitoring and trying to scare me about for the past eternity? Between 37 weeks and birth at 39 weeks, the problem, which had been diagnosed as severe, had practically resolved itself and is now well into the range of those that usually go away on their own without any intervention at all.

There is no knowing what would have happened if we had left things alone, and I certainly don't blame anyone for the way it went. I just wish we had waited. In the end, though, this image keeps going through my mind. When I first woke up I asked how my baby was, and they said he was fine, but it wasn't until they wheeled me back into my room reeling from pain, and I saw that baby cradled in my husband's arms and I heard him cry, that I began to cry myself and I really knew that everything was going to be okay.