The Saga of Baby Toby starts at Tales From the Womb.

Toby's Blog-Day 1

Well, big Toby finally arrived last night or should I say early this morning. I should probably say a big “thank you” to all of my blogging buddies who helped me get through this pregnancy and more importantly these last two weeks. I am still not sure this was a great idea, waiting another two weeks to deliver when he was already over 4000 grams at 40 weeks. I have checked with a few of my friends and none of their docs would have done this. Since this is my first one, I guess I have to trust that my obstetrician knew what she was doing, after all, she’s been doing this for years. I think I would have exploded if she would have waited any longer. So thanks again, for listening to me these last two weeks. I don’t know what women did before they could blog…sit around playing bunco or what?

Toby arrived somewhat unexpectedly this morning at 2:45 a.m., a whopping 22 inches weighing 11 pounds 3 ounces. They say he is a beautiful baby. He has a full head of black hair and blue eyes. They tell me that he is cute as button.

It has been a long night and thoroughly unexpected. I had contractions earlier in the evening and was certain I’d be delivering this baby last night. The contractions were really painful; I don’t know how you ladies do it. I was practically screaming at times and they started to get closer and closer. I thought for sure I would go in however they stopped quite abruptly and then I assumed they’d start up again but nothing happened. Finally, I got tired and went to bed. Not before putting my rollers in my hair, just in case! I tried to sleep but I just couldn’t. I kept getting the feeling that something wasn’t quite right and then I’d worry about if I’d have enough time to drive to the hospital by myself. Usually, my baby moves around quite a bit and doesn’t like it when I sleep on my right side but tonight it wasn’t moving. Finally, I paged the doc and told him what had happened and he told me to get to the ER right away. He nearly scared me to death!

I tried to call my husband Tom but there wasn’t any time. Of all the times for him to be on a business trip! I told him not to leave town but he said he couldn’t miss this conference! I really could have used his help.

Once I got to the hospital, they hooked up the heart rate monitor. They seemed to be having a lot of problems getting his heart rate. That scared me. Every time I asked them about it, they talked around it and I didn’t feel really good about that. They told me it can be unstable at times but then everything was fine a little later. I guess it was o.k.

I was a little scared because it all went so fast. The next thing I know, they rushed over to me and told me they had to put me to sleep right away since they lost Toby’s heart rate and they needed to get him out right away. I wanted to cry. I was so excited about giving birth and now this. It was so upsetting and I was really frightened. The last thing I wanted to do was to get knocked out, but before I could say anything, they pressed the mask over my face and yelled at me to breathe in. I certainly didn’t feel comfortable. This was nothing like the hospital tour they gave me of the birthing suites, that’s for sure! I don’t remember much else other than I was really, really cold, freezing to death actually, when I finally woke up. And my throat was so sore from the tube in my throat. All I wanted was to see my baby. I was afraid he had died.

As I started to wake up, I overheard the nurses talking. I couldn’t say anything because I still had the tube down my throat and I couldn’t see anything either. I was still pretty groggy. All I could hear was them saying that he was totally blue and that they rushed him out of the delivery room. Then someone made some noise and I couldn’t quite hear what she said; I admit I was a little panicked because I thought he might have died! I wanted to cry but I knew if I did my contact lenses would come out and they told me I wasn’t supposed to wear them. I tried to blink a lot so my contacts wouldn’t fall out but the tears kept welling up in my eyes and running out the sides. Everything happened so fast last night that I didn’t have time to take them out.

One of the nurses noticed that I was coming to and that I was crying and came over to talk to me. I think she thought I was crying because my throat was sore; I don’t think she realized that I overheard them. She grabbed my hand and although I couldn’t say anything, she filled me in. She said that when Toby came out, he was totally blue but the neonatalogist had taken good care of him and he was doing much better. She said they had to put a breathing tube into him as well. She said that he’d have to be on a ventilator for a day or two and that they were giving him some medications to help his blood pressure but, other than that, things should be fine. I was so relieved he hadn’t died but then when I heard about the ventilator, I wasn’t sure if things were really going to be o.k. or if they were just telling me that. I guess I just have to take their word that things are going to be o.k. The nurse told me that Tom called; they told him we had a boy and what happened. They said he was so excited. He had really wanted a boy! As a matter of fact, he was the one who picked the name Toby. He insisted on it. He never said why, but I looked up the name and it means, “Gift of God” so I thought it fit nicely. We agreed some time ago that if it was a boy, we’d name him Toby but if it was a girl, well, we just weren’t sure. Anyway, he should be here later today. I really need him!

I really can’t wait to see my baby. It’s upsetting that they haven’t brought him to see me by now. I am going to ask them if I can go see him soon. I’ll post a picture as soon as I can and keep you updated. If you don’t see any updates on the blog, just understand that I’ll fill you in when I can. I can’t wait until I can walk again; my stomach is really sore from the c-section. I never imagined it would hurt this bad. I keep asking about breastfeeding him but with the breathing tube I don’t suppose he can really do it right now. I was really looking forward to it.

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You can read the next chapter on Tuesday here.