Erica and I woke up in the morning of December 21st 2010 and headed to baptist hospital at 6:45 for our scheduled induction. We had to schedule an induction 10 days prior to the due date in order to get the timing right with her blood thinner, which is a whole other story. We were in the waiting room for 2 hours because there were no available beds in labor and delivery. I was impatient, but Erica was just excited. Once we got a room Erica got all hooked up on monitors and they started giving her pitosen to induce contractions by about 10 a.m. After about an hour, the Dr. Breniman broke Erica's water and said it should increase her contractions. It worked, and within about four hours Erica was ready for her epidural. It took two anesthesiologists three tries to get the epidural in, but it did the trick. Not long after that Erica called me (I was in the waiting room updating family members) and told me that the nurse felt Bear's elbow. Did I mention that his nickname is bear? I'll tell you more about that later as well.
Anyway, baby's don't come out elbows first, so she called the doctor. Dr. Breniman said he was going to try pinching bear's fingers and hoped that he would pull his hand back. He sat down and took a look and said, "well, that isn't going to work." Before I had time to ask him why not, I saw the problem...fingers? Bear had his arm so far down the birth canal that the doctor was shaking his hand. The nurses thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen and were lining up to shake hands with my son. Erica was not amused. She knew this meant C-section and wasn't looking forward to major abdominal surgery.
Anyway, baby's don't come out elbows first, so she called the doctor. Dr. Breniman said he was going to try pinching bear's fingers and hoped that he would pull his hand back. He sat down and took a look and said, "well, that isn't going to work." Before I had time to ask him why not, I saw the problem...fingers? Bear had his arm so far down the birth canal that the doctor was shaking his hand. The nurses thought it was the coolest thing they had ever seen and were lining up to shake hands with my son. Erica was not amused. She knew this meant C-section and wasn't looking forward to major abdominal surgery.
After that things started happening very fast. The nurse threw me some scrubs and by the time I had changed and called a few family members they were ready to take Erica to the OR. I sat in a chair and talked to her during the operation (luckily she already had an epidural). It was an incredibly graphic display that I may never forget, but it wasn't long before they where wheeling Erica back down the hall with our son in her arms. His first activity was nursing, and his second was meeting his big sister.
