It’s A Boy!!!

Marc Anthony was brought into this world at 10:59 PM on 5/22/08. He weighted in at 5 lbs 3oz and was 19″ long. This night proved to be a hectic night full of surprises. I’ll start at the beginning and provide a time line as best as I can remember.

Michelle was scheduled to go in to be induced on Friday the 23rd of May. So here it was on Thursday the night before. Knowing she would be in the hospital soon, Michelle wanted to go out for supper somewhere she had never been before. I suggested we go to Bertucci’s at Solomon Pond Mall. Partway through our meal Michelle started having contractions. These were different than the false contractions she had in the past. They started in her lower back and were intense. We decided to leave without finishing our meal. This was about 6:00 PM.

On the way home Michelle continued to have contractions. The time in between varied from 7 to 12 minutes. Halfway home Michelle convinced me to place a call into the doctors office. Being after hours the answering service answered. They instructed us to go to labor and delivery. I was kind of surprised because I expected them to ask me how far apart the contractions were and things of that nature. Maybe the response we got was due to Michelle’s age.

So we went to the hospital, registered and made our way up to labor and delivery. They had Michelle change into a johnny and hooked her up to the non-stress test machinery that we have seen a few times before. Now 7:00 PM the monitoring had started. Michelle had relaxed a little bit and the contractions slowed down to 15 minutes apart.

The on call doctor come down to talk to us and told us she did not like the results that she was seeing. They expect to see a fluctuation of the babies heart rate when a contraction happens. His heart rate was in the mid 150’s and did not change much. The next step the doctor told us was to break Michelle’s water. The goal here was help labor along a little faster in order to see the babies reaction. This happened at 9:00 PM.
This provided another clue that something was wrong. Very little Amniotic fluid came out at all.

We were told that Michelle would be monitored until 9:30 and see what the results were. At this point the doctor told us she suspected that a c section would need to occur. If the results did not change the next step would be to induce with a Pitocin drip. This went a little longer, up until 9:45. The same thing was happening here where the babies heart rate was not following the contractions. It was remaining in the mid 150’s.

At this time Pitocin was started. The doctor told us she informed the team to prepare for a section. She was not 100% sure yet that this was the way things were going but chances were great that this was the case. The next contraction Michelle had was much stronger. Pitocin does not take long to work at all. The results were different this time. After the contraction Marc’s heart rate would drop from 154 to the mid 120’s. It would stay down there for roughly a minute. We were told that this was a sign of dis-stress. After the third one like this the doctor decided it was time to perform an emergency section.

The whole process was explained to us. I would be allowed into the room after Michelle was given a spinal. I was provided scrubs to change into. After awhile they came and got Michelle and brought her to another room. After Michelle got the spinal they came and got me. I was brought into the room and they were starting the section. I don’t remember how many people were there, I think it was like 6 or so.

Here is where things get scary. They started the section and things were going smoothly. Michelle was no longer nervous due to some of the meds they were giving her. When they pulled Marc out I thought something didn’t quite look right. His skin was a blueish grey tint. My suspicions were soon confirmed when I saw that they could not hear a heartbeat.

A code stat was announced over the hospital intercom and the room was soon packed with people. I did not count but it seemed that there was 20 people in the room. They started performing CPR on Marc and this is when Michelle realized that things were not as they should be. During this time there were two teams working. One working on Marc and the other completing Michelle’s section. In roughly 9 minutes I heard the sweetest sound ever heard. This is when Marc started breathing on his own announcing it by crying his lungs out.

After a few minutes it was time for me to leave the room and follow Marc into the nursery. Here the doctors and nurses continued working on mark. A respiratory specialist was checking things out and was pleased with what he was seeing. Soon the nurses took over to perform the normal checks that they do.