Labor and Delivery

At 11:30pm on Saturday, June 21st, the doctors started my induction process. Mind you they were trying to make things happen starting at ground zero. My body up to this point is showing NO signs of labor. They "checked" me about 4 hours later and gave me some more to get things going. Then they started me on Pitocin Sunday morning, and I did start having contractions and was 1 cm dilated and 80% effaced. I was in a little bit of pain, so I got in the jacuzzi (that's right, I had a jacuzzi in my room). It was heavenly, so I stayed in there for about an hour. At about 5:00pm my contractions were coming one after another so the nurse came in and turned down my Pitocin drip. As she was walking out of the room a water balloon burst in my pants. So, with my water broken I thought things might start moving along. I went ahead and got an epideral - and then felt no pain. The anesthesiologist told me that some spinal fluid had leaked out so I could get a spinal headache after giving birth. Oh great - something to look forward to. Turns out I got a headache right away and was having a hard time moving my head without pain. I was laying in bed with no more pain below the waist but apparently my contractions were powerful and 1-2 minutes apart. The doctors came in and were a little concerned because Brooks's heart rate was dropping after each contraction. They "checked" me again and I was now 1 1/2 cm dilated and still only 80% effaced. Since things weren't really happening, they thought a c-section would be best because of Brooks's heart rate. So, at about 11:45 Chad dressed in his scrubs (the ones on his feet kept ripping, so it took a couple of minutes), and they wheeled me down into the operating room. The blue sheet went up and my arms were stretched out. They gave me more meds to make sure I wouldn't feel anything, and the doctor warned me that I might get nauseous. And about 60 seconds later I was puking, so they gave me something else to help me stop puking. I started to feel lots of tugging and pulling, and eventually I heard the most wonderful sound in the world - Brooks started crying (12:39am was the official time of birth)! It turns out that the cord was wrapped around his neck 4 times! Good thing we did the c-section. Chad brought Brooks over a couple of minutes later and I couldn't take my eyes off of him - he was beautiful! There was still lots of tugging and pulling as they stitched me up, and then they rolled me to another room where I finally got to hold my son. He was so wide awake, and so was I actually. They were monitoring my blood pressure closely, and it was getting high so they decided to put me on a magnesium drip, which makes people feel like they have the flu - yeah. I laid around for 12 hours with ice packs all over my body to keep me cool, and I held Brooks as much as possible. Monday night they started unhooking my tubes, and we were moved to MOM AND BABY (I had to walk to my wheelchair and I thought I would die it hurt so bad). But my recovery is a different story...this story is about Brooks.
So, bottom line is that on June 23rd at 12:39am - Brooks Bryan Hoffman was born...4 lbs 15 oz and 18 inches long! He is healthy and adorable - and we are so blessed to have him in our lives.

June 22 - Here we come!

Here is an e-mail that Chad sent out today, and I think he did a good job explaining the plan for us this week:

The Latest News On "Team Turn-It-Around", known by some as "Team Hoffman", and others as "nothinggoesnormalduringheatherspregnancy" reads as such:

"Brooks Is Being Evicted"
That's right folks. You heard it here first. The Doctors are kicking brooks out of the womb. The Toxemia Hall of Famer is getting the boot. Nurses can't keep up with his pursuit of triumph, and the Doc's only wish they could figure out the Divine intervention and prolonged health and defiance of the dreaded PREECLAMPSIA syndrome. He's got too much gumption to offer the world to be tied down to any one umbilical cord (also called the birth cord or funiculus umbilicalis). It would take at least 3 umbilicali to keep Brooks from pressing on and that would just be weird, so ready or not, here he comes:

Brooks will be undertaking a series of P.T. regiments and two-a-days (some call induction phases) beginning Saturday evening, June 21st.
From there, he will be stepping into the batters box with dreams of swinging away as early as Saturday night. If we are blessed, as we have been thus far, Brooks will have his first slam dunk/home run/hole-in-one presentation on Sunday, June 22nd 2008!

Thanks for all your prayers and support as this has been an exciting and trying process. We look forward to talking to you soon with Brooks' debut statistics.


Reporting Live From Denver,

Chad & Heather

Prego Pics...33 weeks

A photographer friend of mine was planning on doing some pregnancy pics for me at the end of June, but due to the circumstance - she came here to the hospital to take some pictures for us. She was very creative, but also good about capturing our experience here at the hospital.

Preeclampsia

At my normal 32 week appointment the doctor came in and told us he wasn't happy with my typical tests in the office. He told us we needed to go to the hospital because I might have something called PREECLAMPSIA:

Preeclampsia is a disorder that occurs only during pregnancy and the postpartum period and affects both the mother and the unborn baby. Affecting at least 5-8% of all pregnancies, it is a rapidly progressive condition characterized by high blood pressure and the presence of protein in the urine. Swelling, sudden weight gain, headaches and changes in vision are important symptoms; however, some women with rapidly advancing disease report few symptoms.

At first I was real scared, and being at the hospital was even scarier. The nurses and doctors were flooding us with all kinds of information. Worst case scenario was that they would deliver on Monday and best case was a couple of weeks more time. WHAT? They gave me a steroid shot for Brooks' lungs that night and the following night just in case they had to deliver that weekend. I did a 24-hour urine test, and that confirmed that I had preeclampsia. The doctor told me that because my levels were so high that I needed to stay on bed rest at the hospital for the reminder of the pregnancy. He told us he didn't know how long that would be and they would continue to monitor my levels. He said a week would be great, and two would be better. He was doubtful we would make it another week. Well, God has his own plans and we are still here (14 days later). Things are looking great - so we might make it a while longer. The docs said that they will take him at 37 weeks no matter what because then the risk to me becomes too high, and it's a safe gestation to deliver Brooks (that would be June 23rd).
Right now we do fetal monitors daily and often we get to see him on the sonogram; and Brooks is looking fabulous - PRAISE GOD!