Temple Night

When I was pregnant with Benjamin, Josh and I were living in Brigham. At 35 weeks we went to Stake Temple night. We were supposed to speak in Sacrament meeting the next day and thought going to the Temple would be a good way to get ready. We had been there for a little over an hour when something told me that the strange tightening, slightly painful, sensations I was having were contractions and I needed to get to the hospital. Josh's grandma was sitting next to me and I whispered to her that I thought I was in labor. She held my hand and told me to stay calm. Someone realized what was going on and passed me a watch just as my contraction was ending. 3 minutes later I looked at Grandma and said, "Three minutes!" She immediately stood up, grabbed my arm, waved to one of the Temple workers, and started for the door. Josh and his Grandpa followed close behind.

Out in the hall the Temple worker picked up a phone and explained to someone that she had "a young girl who is in labor and needs an escort." A few minutes and several contractions later, a man with a huge cast on his leg came with a wheelchair. As he pushed me out of the Temple we were met with MANY smiling faces and words of congratulations. I think EVERYONE there knew exactly what was happening.

Josh grandparents then drove us to the hospital. We had ridden with them to the Temple and didn't have our car with us. They had somewhere to go so they just left us there. My Dr was out of town so the on-call Dr told the nurse to give me a shot to stop the contractions. The shot worked for about 15 minutes and then I started contracting again. They gave me another shot and I didn't feel any more contractions but they were still registering on the monitor. So the nurse decided to check if I was dilating only to discover that I had started bleeding. She called the Dr back and he suggested we be transferred to Salt Lake. (Benjamin had to be born at the University hospital in Salt Lake because that is where his cardiologist is.) Because we didn't have a car, and because Josh wasn't too excited about the thought of delivering a baby in the car, the nurse called an ambulance for us.

The paramedics arrived soon after and wheeled me out to an ambulance. On the ambulance Josh asked one of the paramedics if he had ever delivered a baby and he said, "No, and we aren't going to start today." By this time I was feeling pretty sick. Partly from being jostled around in the back of an ambulance and partly because noone would let me eat anything.

As we were getting settled in to the hospital a girl walked in. I think she was about 15 years old. She said that she was the chief resident on call and would be handling my case. I told her that I didn't think I was contracting anymore. She looked at the monitor and said, "you are still contracting." Then I told her that I had started bleeding she said, "that usually happens when someone checks you." She told me that they would probably monitor me over night and send us home in the morning. She also informed me that I was still not going to be allowed to eat anything.

I finally started to relax and was almost asleep when the Chief resident girl came back. She said that they wanted to do a pap-smear, for some reason. They brought in about six people to help, no I'm not exaggerating. The chief resident girl looked up at me and asked, "how long have you been bleeding." Umm, I think I told you that when we got here and you said it was nothing!

Finally everyone left, someone brought Josh some Scrubs to wear as he only had his suit with him, and I was able to fall asleep. At about 3 in the morning, I woke up soaking wet. It took a while for me to realize what was going on. I woke Josh and said, "Push the nurse button, my water just broke." The nurse came in and asked like three times if I was sure that it was my water. Then, still not believing me, she took a sample of the fluid, "to see what we were dealing with." By the time she got the results of her test the chief resident girl had come back in. After it was confirmed that it was in fact amniotic fluid, she explained to me that they usually try to deliver pretty quickly after your water breaks.

I told her that my baby was breech and I was going to have to have a C-section. She the left the room and came back with an ultra sound machine to check the babies position. I looked up at the monitor to see me little guy sitting straight up with his legs crossed. There was no way he was going to be coming out on his own.

So, we headed to the Operating room. The nurses made Josh wait out in the hall while they got me ready. They put a shot into my spine that made me go numb from my shoulders down. Then they hung a big curtain in front of my face so I couldn't see what was going on. I kept asking them where my husband was and when they were going to let him in and they would say, "He's in the hall, we'll let him in as soon as you are ready." Finally Josh was allowed in and he held my hand. I don't remember a lot that happened after that until at 5:32am someone said, "It's a boy." And everything was silent. I thought, shouldn't he be crying or something? Then I heard this tiny little squeak and the chief resident lady said "here he is." She held up Benjamin who was pretty blue and covered in goop, and not happy. Then they passed him through a window into the NICU to have him checked out by the cardiology team.

A few seconds later, I suddenly could not breath. The room was spinning in circles and I didn't know what to do. Monitors started beeping like crazy and everyone was telling me to breath. Someone put a GIANT oxygen mask on my face. Then the anesthesiologist gave me some Valium and I don't remember much after that.



So, the point of this REALLY long post...
We are now living in Brigham City again...in the same Stake as before...Just shy of 35 weeks gestation...and Stake Temple night is this Thursday.

Should we go?