William's Birth Story:

Where to begin....

On Friday, June 25, 2004 I went in for my regular appointment and my non-stress test. When I got to the office they told me the NST machine wasn't working so they sent me across the street to the hospital. It took almost 2 hours for them to monitor me because I was having contractions and they were concerned. I wasn't. They were the same kind of contractions I had been having for the last month, fairly regular (3 to 5 minutes apart) and annoying but we knew they weren't doing anything to my cervix. Finally Dr. Zabrecky, finished doing a delivery and she agreed to do my "weekly" check right at the hospital so I won't have to go back across the street and wait even longer. She decided to do an internal just to put her mind at ease and as we suspected I was still posterior, high, closed and long. Great, see you Tuesday at your next appointment.

Friday night we go out and do the "Friday Family Thing".....dinner out at Fuddrucker's and then we walk around Rookwood. We find a great deal on some party favors for the girls' birthday party and a couple cute shirts for Sophie at Old Navy. Saturday is pretty uneventful. I went yardsaling and found 4 adorable maternity tops and a pair of shorts, came home and washed them up right away and put on my favorite of the tops and the pair of shorts. Emily is invited to her friend Tabby's house to spend the night and I get to spend some time talking with Kas and hanging out. Kas comments on how beautiful I look pregnant and surprises me with a drawing she purchased from an artist depicting my pregnant belly, such a sweet gift!

Sunday, June 27, 2004 seems to start out differently. I wake up and go to the bathroom and find a huge chunk of mucous plug. It was snot green but no blood or anything so I figure it is probably just the biproduct of the internal exam from Friday and being up and about most of Saturday. Jay has tickets to take the boys to the Cincinnati Reds vs. Pittsburgh Pirates game and although I am having contractions I just chalk them up as the same annoying kind I had for the past month. I do some scrapbooking and right as Jay is leaving with the boys go to the bathroom and notice that I have a mucous bloody discharge. Hmmmm.....I wonder what this means? I decide to not say anything to Jay and he heads out with the boys. I spend the afternoon having contractions about 8 minutes apart and notice about 4 pm that they actually kind of hurt and seem to radiate to my back. Jay was taking Brett to his basketball game after the Reds game, so I figure I better go out to pick up Emily at Tabby's because if I am in labor I want the kids to all be at home. As I am driving start looking at the dashboard clock and notice that the contractions are coming exactly 6 minutes apart. The low fuel light comes on and I stop to put a few dollars of gas in the tank, getting in and out of the van just about kills me. By the time we get to the Ridiman's I know I can't get out of the car and send Hannah to the door to get Emily. I don't want to say anything to anybody about maybe being in labor because I don't want to look like an idiot if I am wrong. What the heck would people think, pregnant for the eighth time and I don't know what real labor is? We get back home and I drink a ton of water hoping they will back off. I tell Jay I am tired and having contractions and am going to lay down in bed. As I watch Law and Order I notice the contractions are now only about 4 to 5 minutes apart and hurt enough that I want to change position with them....SHIT...this is probably the real thing. I call the answering serivice and ask them to page the doctor on call, of course it happens to be my "favorite" fat phobic Dr. Fermann. Wonderful.....she tells me to come down to the hospital, she wants to give me breathine to stop labor. Jay and I get down to the hospital about 10:30 PM and are in triage and hooked up to monitors by 11 PM, contractions are about 3 minutes apart. The nurse checks me and although I am now low and soft I am only 50% effaced and about 1 CM dialated so they can probably still stop labor. They give me a dose of breathaine and watch the monitor, the contractions don't seem to back off any so they repeat the dose a half an hour later. They monitor me for a while, as my OB has been called in to do an emergency c-section. The nurse comes in to start an IV, hoping the fluids will ease off the contractions. She pops the needle in the first time and the vein rolls. She tries a second time and blows the vein in my other wrist. She makes some comment about that I must be hard to start an IV on and I comment back that she is the first nurse that has ever had to stick me more than once. She calls in another nurse who manages to get it right her first try. At 1:30 AM I am still contracting and the nurse comes in saying that Dr. Fermann wants her to check me to see if the breathaine has kept my cervix from changing. From the look on her face I can see that she isn't happy. She looks at us and says "4 cm, almost 100% effaced....I will go and tell Dr. Fermann". As she walked out the door she grabbed the tracing from the monitor to show to the doctor. She walks back in 5 minutes later and says "the anesthesia guy will be here in a few minutes". She leaves the room and Jay and I just look at each other and I finally say "I guess than means we are having this baby". John, the anesthesia guy walks in, introduces himself and asks me if I have a preference for anesthesia. I tell him I would prefer a spinal since it worked well the previous surgery and that I wasn't happy with the epidural I had with my first delivery. He says he is going to check on the status of the OR and will be right back. He comes back about 10 minutes later and tells me since they need a latex free OR it will be about 30 minutes until we can go back and says if I am uncomfortable he can give me an epidural right in the room. I tell him that I would prefer a spinal and that I am fine and can wait. Things start to happen quickly. A nurse comes in to prep me and shave my abdomen and also gives me an antacid to settle my stomach. Dr. Fermann walks in and asks if we have any questions (she never bothers to introduce herself to Jay). I am pretty tired so I don't think to ask anything, in retrospect I now realize that things were happening rapidly and that the hurried pace was probably an indication that she suspected something was wrong. We walk back to the OR and Jay is sent to scrub up. The nurses count the operating tools. John quickly starts the spinal, all I feel is mild pressure, he does a wonderful job. He doesn't strap down my arms so I don't feel as clastrophobic as I did with Sophie. The nurse inserts the foley catheter and Jay comes in and sits down by my head. The tone in the OR is oddly quiet, lots of whispering, very different from the almost jovial mood that we experienced with Sophie. There is a neonatal doctor and a neonatal nurse waiting for baby. The only thing Jay or I hear is Dr. Fermann saying "I have never seen such bad scarring on a second time c-section, this is horrible". Suddenly the anesthesia guy is standing up practically leaning over me, I can feel the weight of his stomach on my sholulder. Something is wrong but I can't seem to process my thoughts to ask what is going on. I hear this HUGE pop and then the sound of liquid flooding to the floor, amniotic fluid is everywhere and I hear the nurse say "I have never seen such a thing" I feel the familiar tug of what I know is them freeing the baby but I hear nothing except "4:29 AM".......I see the neonatal doctor turn with a limp baby in his hands....no one says anything....Jay turns and goes to the table were they are working on the baby and I keep saying "is he OK? Is it a boy or a girl?" Jay says "it's a boy" but doesn't answer my other more pressing question. "Is he OK?" I say again and again. Finally the neonatal doctor says "No" and goes running with him in his arms to the Special Care Nursery. Jay rushes out the door after him. Dr. Fermann doesn't say a word as she finishes the surgery and closes the incision with staples (apparently she spent a lot of time cutting out scar tissue and then cleaning the uterus out, which I can be thankful for now since I have had minimal bleeding even with being on my feet everyday and have not passed any clots!). As she walks out of the OR I feel naseated and puke. They wheel me to my room where my nurse greets me. It is about 5:15 AM. The nurse starts to do my vitals and starts telling me that the baby is stable. Jay walks in about 10 minutes later and says the baby is on 79% oxygen but is looking better. He tells me he looks exactly like Brett and then lays his head down at the foot of my bed. I tell him to pull out the fold-away bed and get some sleep, I can tell that the last 8 hours have taken a toll on him. We briefly discuss names and end up vetoing everything but a short list including William, Luke and Lincoln. The nurse sits with me until about 6:30 am. No sooner does she leave as I feel the need to puke again. I manage to grab the sheet from the bottom of my bed and gag and puke in it.

A lot goes on in the Special Care Nursery that we don't see. Will takes a turn for the worse and they have to put him on CPAP (continuous positive air pressure) at 65%. As expected, he is hypoglycemic, but it is far worse than what they were prepared for. His values fall rapidly, starting at 16, then 12 and then the next level is unreadable by the machine so they send it to the lab. It comes back 1! The worst they had seen before that was a baby with a 3. Glucose is DUMPED into him via IV.

Shift change at 7 AM and the new nurse, Danielle, comes in and tells Jay he might want to go to the nursery as the baby is now on CPAP. Jay has this blank look on his face, he has no idea what this means, unfortuantely I do know. The baby is doing worse. Jay leaves and goes to the nursery and I start quizzing the nurse as to what "condition" I have to be in to go to the nursery. Apparently, I have to be up and walking, so I demand that she get me out of bed. I am standing by the side of my bed at 8:30 AM, only 4 hours after Will's birth and a little over 3 hours after the end of surgery. The won't let us into the nursery until they are done doing rounds, but at 9:15 AM I see my son for the first time. Will is extremely aggitated by outside stimuli so even my touching him or talking to him sends his respiration rate soaring into the 130's (meaning he is breathing more than twice a second) and his blood oxygen level plummetting into the 70's. Jay heads home to be with the other kids and I just sit quietly by Will's bedside. Around 12:30 PM, I ask the nurse to take me back to my room.

Once we are back in my room I ask Danielle if she can cap off the IV and remove the foley catheter. She calls the doctor and gets her permission. By 1 PM I am IV fluids and catheter free. Policy is to leave the IV in but capped until 24 hours after delivery, I can live with that! I eat some lemon ice and drink some water and some cranberry juice (have to LOVE the clear liquid diet). Jay calls and asks if he can bring the kids down, they are really worried about the baby. I ask Danielle to find out if at least the older three will be able to visit Will in the special care nursery and am surprised when she comes back in and tells me that they said all of the kids can go in and visit.

The kids arrive and we spend a few minutes explaining to them what the baby will look like, that they have to be quiet because any noise makes him "sick" and that they can't touch him. We take the girls down first to see him and then the boys go in. Everyone is amazed at how small he looks and there is genuine concern in the eyes of the older kids. After everyone visits with him, we go back to the room and discuss names. It doesn't take very long to come to an agreement. William Zander! The only other name that was even in the running at the end was Lincoln.

So William Zander Riesenberg joins the family 5 weeks ahead of schedule and with great fanfair, weighing in at 8 lb 12 oz and measuring 20 1/4 inches. Far be it that any Riesenberg child do anything quietly! Welcome to the family William, we have been waiting for you!