Sunday morning, 11/2/97, 3:00am --- Deanna awakes to a trickle of what she believes is her water leaking. She calls the doctor who tells her to go back to bed because labor will come. If labor does not ensue, come to the hospital by 9:00am. Well, nothing seems to happen, except more leakage with every step taken! We head to the hospital at 8:00am to be set up in a room to be examined. The nurse there made me drink a can of soda and then eat several popsicles to get the kiddo moving around for the fetal monitor. About 9:30am, she sent us walking the halls because she had called the doctor and we wanted to try to get labor started on its own. She also took a sample of the fluid from the pad I was wearing to test and it came out inconclusive if it was amniotic fluid or not, so she suggested that I may just be "peeing myself"! After walking the halls for 2 1/2 hours, I was quite frustrated thinking that I may be sent home because I was urinating! Well, the doctor came in to examine me with a speculum about 11:30am and didn't even do an internal because she opened my legs and said "Oh, yeah, she's ruptured." I wanted to hug her! I wasn't just peeing myself!! So, she ordered me to be admitted and started on pitocin to induce labor.

****Dad's side of story*****************************************************

3:00am
Deanna wakes dad up at to tell him her water is leaking, he tells her to call the plumber and goes back to sleep.
3:05am
Deanna re-wakes dad and tells him she is having contractions, "call me when they are 5 minutes apart he replies". " they are 5 minutes apart" she replies. Dad flies out of bed so fast he gets a head rush and then slips on the water that somehow has leaked all over the bedroom floor. Dad falls flat on his back. Deanna coaches dad through Lamaze breathing so he can cope with the pain in his back.
3:30am
Doc tells Deanna to hang out at home till 9am if the contractions don't get any stronger. Deanna heads into stage one of the "grouch" phase.
3:35am
Dad is bored, he turns on the computer and begins playing solitare.
7:30am
Deanna tells dad it is time to leave for the hospital. Dad replies " as soon as I finish this hand of solitare". ( in 625 games he has yet to win).
8:00am
Deanna and Kevin leave for the hospital
8:30am
Deanna and Kevin arrive at hospital and are set up in a room and the waiting begins
8:35am
Dad is bored, so he turns on the TV and begins surfing. It is basic cable, on a sunday morning, need I say more. Basically it came down to Jimmy Swaggart or the hospital's NEWBORN CHANNEL. Dad can't decide which one is more scary.
9:30am
Nurses send Deanna and Dad walking the halls. Deanna enters "grouch" phase two.
9:35am
Dad is bored
12:00am
Dad does the calculations and realizes he has walked the same distance as the Boston Marathon. The Doc arrives to check out Deanna. "your going to stick "that" thing "where"" dad blurts out.
12:02pm
Deanna's water has indeed broken. We get to stay!!!
12:05pm
Dad is bored

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12:00pm ---- I was admitted and started on a low dose of pitocin, which was upped every now and then to get a reaction. They determined that I was indeed having contractions but I wasn't feeling them (I didn't think that sounded too bad). At 3:00pm, they should have been hard contractions being felt and I still wasn't feeling them. The midwife on call came in and told us that she thought that my water may have a tear higher up and that a balloon of water may be at my cervix, so she took the dreaded amniohook and popped that balloon, hoping to get me to feel contractions. At this point I was 1 cm dilated and after popping the water, I went to a whopping 1 1/2! How frustrating. They then started me on antibiotics, since my fluid had "broken" so long ago and there was always risk of infection to me or the baby. By 6:00pm, I was in hard labor, with contractions coming every two minutes and they were being felt now! They did another internal and I was up to 2! How long was it going to take to get to 10???? After laboring hard until about 11:30pm, the nurse thought they should quit the pitocin for the night and let me get some sleep. The midwife said NO WAY, but did agree to give me something to help me sleep, which was administered in the form of a warm, burning shot in the butt! No time to worry about that as I was in a good sleep until about 2:30am, when the midwife came in to check my progress and woke me up. She said that the placenta is like a toilet bowl, with each contraction it flushes and should fill back up. Well, mine wasn't filling back up, and she could tell that because the baby's heartbeat was going down at the end of a contraction, which was not good. This is the time she said she had called in Dr. Martini, who was in my room within about 10 minutes and made the final decision to do a C-section.

*******Dad's side of story********************************************************

2:45pm
Dad has surfed every channel on the hospital TV 300 times. It is sunday afternoon, football, football, football, dad hates football! Dad skips phase one and two and goes right to "grouch" stage three.
2:50pm
Dad decides to visit the hospital food court.
3:00pm
Dad misses the Doc breaking Deanna's balloon with amniohook.
3:00pm
Dad is riding up and down the elevator getting a kick out of the talking computer( six...th... floor.. Ma..ter...na..ty) Man that's a hoot!
3:15pm
Dad returns to room and finds Deanna has entered "grouch" Phase six for some reason. Deanna explains to dad what took place with the amniohook. "cool" dad replies. Dad almost loses his life.
3:30pm
dad is bored
4:00pm
Dad wonders if 8pm will ever get here so he can watch "the Simpsons".
4:30pm
same as 4pm
5:00pm
same as 4pm
6:00pm
Deanna enters hard labor and the grouch-o meter goes off the scale. Dad wonders if 8pm will ever get here so he can watch "the Simpsons".
8:00pm
YES!!!, the Simpsons are on!!!
8:30pm
Dad is forced to pay more attention to mom and aid her thru contractions ( for fear of his life!!!)
8:45pm
Dad begins to worry, only 15 minutes till the season premire of the X-files is on.
9:00pm
Days later,Dad vaguely remembers watching the X-files.
10:00pm
Dad falls asleep. Maybe dad should not have watched the X-files, he begins having nightmares that the baby in Deanna is an alien hybrid.
12:00am
Dad awakens many times and falls back to sleep, each time wondering where the heck he is. Each time he hears the theme from the X-files.
2:25am
Dad decides to get up and go to the bathroom down the hall.

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Monday morning, 11/3/97, 2:35am --- The C-section team rushes in (and I do mean RUSHES) and preps me for surgery (off comes the gown and out comes the razor!), including throwing scrubs at dad to put on. Then I'm wheeled to the operating room where I'm given a spinal, which was quite the experience since I had to get in the fetal position to have it administered...no problem with a huge belly and contractions every two minutes! Once the spinal took effect, my arms were strapped out to my sides (crucified), a sheet hung in front of me to block my vision of everything and then Kevin was allowed to come in.

2:50am --- They began the operation and Lawrence was officially born at 3:10am. He didn't cry right away when he came out because of all the mucus they needed to suction out. It was kinda scary, waiting to hear some sounds from the table where they were suctioning him out, but we did, after about a minute. Kevin was over checking him out and when they finished with his first APGAR (6), he was able to bring him over to see me. His second APGAR was 8. After Lawrence was taken out of my uterus, it was plopped on my belly (as Kevin puts it) and checked out by everyone present, because I have an "odd-shaped uterus", which means it isn't round, but kind of a lumpy heart shape. All through my last month of examinations, the doctors all had their own opinions on why my belly had two lumps in it, and was even sent for another sonogram to determine if I had twins in there, excess fluid, or an enlarged fibroid! It was determined that I had a pocket of fluid up there. They did say that if I get pregnant again, I should probably just go ahead and have a C-section, because my uterus could have prevented me from dilating any further. After everyone "admired" my uterus, I was then stitched up and sent over to recovery while Lawrence headed to the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit).

Lawrence was started on the same antibiotic I was and blood was drawn, which later showed that he was fighting a slight infection, so he stayed in NICU/Intermediate Care for the four days we were there. He also had a problem with his "bleeding times" when they took blood or gave him an immunization. His platelets were low but they were in the preferred range, so we weren't sure if they would do a circumcision before we left the hospital, but his platelets looked better that day, so they were able to perform the circumcision. I was able to breastfeed him from the beginning and it's really working with him. NICU was real good about calling us in our room when he was ready to be fed, and it was nice to have the time in our room to recuperate from my operation when he was being taken care of in NICU.

****Dad's side of story*****************************************

2:35am
Dad returns to room to a whirlwind of activity. Some large nurse named "Helga" throws scubs at dad and tells him to get changed.
2:40am
Dad is told to await outside OR until Deanna is prepped.
2:42am
Dad is bored
2:50am
Dad is let into the OR. The operation begins. "this is so cool" dad tells mom. Deanna vows once she is unstrapped from the table this man is going to die.
3:10am
Doc reaches into Deanna's belly up to his elbows and pulls out the baby.
3:10am
Dad's first thought is "My god it really is a baby" ( one must remember we waited 13 years for this moment and he had watched the X-files earlier in the evening).
3:10am
Baby boy Rupp is born
3:11am
Dad waits seemingly forever till Baby boy Rupp is breathing and making noises.
3:15am
Doc has Deanna's unusual shaped Uterus out and is showing everyone. "Cool" dad blurts out! Deanna again vows "this man must die"! Doc then puts it back inside Deanna.

Dad spends rest of night until sunrise going between NICU and the recovery room visiting mom and baby.

Dad is proud, he survived!!!

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