The Birth of Ava

 Sunday, day three in the hospital came uneventful and I was watching "church" on the computer of Dr. Charles Stanley on "The Dark Moments in Our Life". I had a great nurse that day that I had prior who was friends with the bereavement nurse. Lunch came about 12:30pm and Anthony was taking the girls to Batavia to do some grocery shopping at Walmart. He wasn't planning on coming in that day. I ate lunch and decided to go the bathroom, despite that I didn't have to go too badly. I went and all of sudden I felt something falling out of me. I thought it was possibly another blood clot, so I tried to wipe it away. When it would go away, I looked in the mirror and saw that it was the cord - in a loop (not twisted), blue and red with veins. I walked back into my room and before I pressed the nurses button, I thought "here we go..." not knowing what was going to happen next.

Immediately the nurses ran into my room, and looked at the cord. They said it was and ran to get a bed to put me on to take me to the surgery room. The one nurse (she was so dear), had me lay down. They had me roll onto the stretcher bed, and the wheeled me down the hallway. The looks on everyone's faces will always be with me. I was calling Anthony at 1pm and he immediately dropped everything at Walmart, grabbed the girls and rushed to my parents. I was unable to get a hold of my parents at that time. Anthony eventually got a hold of them minutes from dropping the girls off. They wheeled me into the surgery room and the nurses took my phone, and I told them to call numbers 2 and 5 for Anthony and my parents. I will always remembered the dear nurse looking at me so upset and I asked her "Are you ok?" She then had to leave the room and I was left with a room full of people I didn't know. My obgyn was not there yet since it was a matter of minutes. Another doctor was going to perform the surgery. He knew of our situation. Meanwhile, I had a woman putting her hand, which felt like her whole hand up me, to keep the baby's head from landing on the cord. That was incredibly painful. She said that I was 2-3cm dilated. The doctor said to her "Why does that matter, we're doing a c-section." They put me on O2, and I heard them say that the baby had a heartbeat still. I was crying "My baby, my baby, take care of my baby." They also were very concerned that I had just eaten and they gave me some kind of fluid to drink. I heard the doctor say "What are those two other surgery lines?" Somebody said "Two prior c-sections." Which scared me since they already told him that. The anesthesiologist told me that they were going to put me under since they couldn't sit me up for an epidural or spinal. I heard that doctor say that they were going to make a vertical incision and I shouted "Don't do that because I have a hernia" and I really didn't want a vertical incision. I heard the anesthesiologist say to this girl next to me to hold my neck a certain way not knowing why. Then he put me under.

Ava was born at 1:14pm on January 24th. I immediately awoke after they woke me up. I was back in the game fast asking how my baby was. They remarked how fast and well I came out of anesthesia. They told me that a neonatalogist would be down to speak to us. Anthony was outside waiting for me. He made it from Batavia to Buffalo before 2pm. I remembered them telling me they fixed my hernia, which the doctor that did the surgery told me he never did. He thought that maybe another resident fixed it.

They rolled me into the recovery room, and I remember not feeling cold like I felt after the other prior c-sections. I also remember the surgery room was not as cold as the other room was. The nurse kept checking if my uterus was going down, and she kept jabbing at my stomach very hard. My throat was also very dry and raspy. They had put a tube to breath down my throat. That is why anesthesiologist was telling the girls to hold my neck as certain way. They were only allowing me to eat ice chips. Anthony came in and we waited to hear from the neonatalogist.

The neonatalogist came down and told us that when she was born that she barely moved. They took her upstairs and she was not taking the machine. He said that she had a 99.9% chance that she would live. I told him that it was still a 1% chance. He said "No, it's a one hundredth of a percent chance." I said, "That's still a .01% chance." I was arguing with him that she still had a chance. He said that we should prepare to hold her before she dies and to get whomever would want to hold her to get there asap. He told us that the "Lord was calling her back to him."

I called my parents to come to the hospital so they could hold her. They got a babysitter for the girls and came in to see us. Anthony's mom and husband were waiting outside. I also called a few friends, and I found out later, that within minutes they had a prayer chain going and were praying for Ava. We waited a bit, and the neonatalogist came back and said that she had taken the oscillator and was on that. He said we could come up and see her. He didn't know if she would make the night, so Anthony decided that he would stay the night.

They rolled me upstairs on the huge bed and I got to look at her tiny fragile body in the incubator. We were so happy she was alive and I still felt like she would make it. Especially because she was and is a fighter. My parents left in a bit and prayed over Ava. We also waited for the woman to come and baptize Ava. She came and poured some water over her, and we all prayed. Anthony's mom came up and she looked at the baby, ever so sadly.

I wanted to go to my room which they moved me to a spacious suite, which we later learned was a bereavement suite. Thankfully there was no bereaving. Anthony came down and we slept, although we were waiting for a call, not knowing if it would come.