Alex Prokaj’s Birth Story

Birth stories are fairly common now and each and every one is unique. Here is our own son’s birth story, which occurred this October 2019.

Saturday. October 19, 2019

It was a rather rainy day. We had a full day planned ahead but unfortunately most of it got derailed by the weather.

Our morning was supposed to start with us going around our community looking for garage sale finds. When the rain finally let up around 11am, we went out and walked around our street to see if anyone was selling anything but maybe the weather put everybody off the garage sale. Oh well.

There was a Choose FI meetup at 3pm in Springfield which we wanted to go to as well, but ended up skipping since we wanted to run a few errands.

To town center we went, going to the Lego store, buying the Friends Central Perk set and a small London bus, then to the Dollar Store for some grocery essentials like tea, and finally to Dillards where I was only supposed to browse but ended up buying a leather Patricia Nash purse at 70% off ($65 vs $250). Grocery shopped at Aldi then back home.

For a lady who is 37 weeks pregnant, that was a lot of walking for the day. In the evening, instead of starting to build our Lego set, I just settled for a lot of TV time (yes, not exactly productive but I was tired as heck), and went to sleep early.

Sunday. October 20, 2019

1AM

Woke up as per usual to go to the bathroom. Nothing unusual, just pregnant lady nuisances like going to the bathroom in the middle of the night multiple times.

2AM

Things started going crazy from here. Woke up again and felt a sudden gush of water (or pee) coming through. Went quickly to the bathroom to empty it out but it just won’t stop! There were drops of blood as well, which was unusual for my pregnancy.

After 20 minutes of this, I rushed to grab my phone and the piece of paper that my doctors gave me containing an emergency after hours number and some things to watch out for from the 37th week mark.

Called the emergency number where the operator said an RN will be in touch after discussing the situation with her – that I think my water broke even though I’m not at the 40 week mark yet.

Called my mother in law and she confirmed my suspicions. She urged me to go to the hospital.

Got the call back from the RN – we discussed the water breaking and she asked: “How soon can you get to the hospital?”

That’s when I knew that shit got real and we might be having this baby tonight – 2 weeks earlier than expected.

I said we can be in the hospital in 20-30 minutes and she said they will be ready for us by then.

By this time, my husband was up, and we quickly grabbed the baby’s car seat (the base was already installed), a pillow, and our bag and off we went to the hospital. Luckily I’m a bit paranoid and our stuff was already packed early.

3AM

Got to the hospital and was dropped off at emergency by the husband. Walked to the desk where they had a wheelchair and filled out some paperwork. We were already pre-registered at the hospital so it wasn’t so bad. It was just a series of forms and verifications saying they will bill my insurance for anything that might happen, checked my ID, and by then my husband was in the front desk as they were ready to wheel me up to the Labor & Delivery (L&D) floor.

At the L&D, they took me to an examination room, confirmed that my water broke, my contractions were 3 minutes apart, and they soon rolled me out to my private delivery room.

4AM to 7AM

And so it begins: I’m officially hooked up to an IV and a baby monitor and technically starting to labour. The contractions were still tolerable but was getting painful. It was still a waiting game.

8AM

Contractions were getting more painful to a point where I asked for an epidural.

Epidurals are amazing. I would not survive the latter part of labour without it. From a pain number of 8/9 to 1 is a drastic reduction and definitely helped with my overall mood and well-being.

The anesthesiologist came quickly and the process was straightforward and not that painful. In fact, it went in perfectly.

9AM to 130PM

Lots of blood pressure and temperature checks. Since my water broke, I am more prone to infections so the nurses are keeping an eye out for me a lot.

I’m still contracting every 3-5 minutes, and at this point, I am 3cm dilated. I’ve been in labour for almost 12 hours. Looks like I’m in for the long haul. Getting to 5cm dilated takes forever!

145PM

The doctor arrived to check up on me. Our baby’s heartbeat and blood pressure is dropping with every contraction. The doctor explained that if this keeps up, we may have to go get a c-section because of fetal distress.

150PM

5 minutes after the doctor left, she came back. I was surprised to see her but I overheard the nurse saying she was about to call for her.

My OB was walking by the nurse’s station when she happened to look at the alarm going off. Turns out it was my baby monitor and the baby was still showing signs of fetal distress.

She explained the urgency of the situation and explained we have to do the C-Section now, quickly discussed the side effects of the surgery and if I consent to the procedure.

I agreed and a quick phone call was made to the operating room where a C-Section was needed now.

It was like in the movies when suddenly my room was filled with 5 other hospital staff as they prepped me for surgery. They gave Peter some scrubs to put on and before you know it, I was wheeled to the operating room where a lot of other people were waiting: nurses, the anesthesiologist, my OB, and a few others I may not know of.

2PM

At 2:14PM on October 20th, Alex was yanked out of my uterus, which is his official birthday. I heard him cry when he was out, which also made me cry and bawl like a silly old goose that’s full of hormones. They then gave Alex to Peter to hold, and they showed him to me before they took him away for his weight, and other tests. I have no idea what happened since my insides were outside at the time. Maybe Peter will be able to chime in below:

Peter’s take:

It was a very strange and largely quick operation. As soon as they announced that they will be doing a c-section, I thought it would take about an hour to set up, but within five minutes there were ten people in the room! They threw me some scrubs and told me to get ready because it was go-time. I remember asking one of the nurses if they meant now, and she looked at me like, ‘Uhh yes, we’re going now.’

So off they went, with me behind. I was concerned because Ruby caught a fever just before they wheeled her into the operating room. I was forced to wait outside the OR for five minutes so that they could prepare everything, and eventually a nurse came by and told me to come on over.

Being in a real operating room was a little surreal, given how many of these types of scenes I have seen from movies and TV shows. It was very hectic, people at different stations and machines and a lot of controlled chaos. I sat on a chair next to where Ruby’s head lay, which was kind of weird, but that’s all I could see, since they put a curtain between her head and the rest of her body.

The operation itself took about fifteen minutes, and Alex came out without any problems. He started crying and they cleaned him up a little and gave him to me. He was very tiny.  A nurse gave me some small scissors to cut his umbilical cord, and it was tougher than I expected! It took me a couple of tries, but I managed to cut it (Alex wasn’t impressed, since he kept crying!).

After that, they wrapped him up in a tight swaddle and took him to the nursery, with me following right behind.  In the nursery, they measured his weight, length, did some tests, and then gave him to me.  I held him there for almost an hour, as we waited for Ruby to recover in the recovery room, and it was one of the greatest moments of my life, holding him there and looking at him and him looking back at me.  I was tired, but indescribably happy and grateful that he was delivered safely.

I was still very concerned about Ruby and grew increasingly nervous, because the nurse kept saying that we couldn’t see her yet since she was still recovering.  Eventually, after an hour, they said she was in the recovery room and that we could see her.

Ruby was very tired and pretty much out of it.  Her lips were very dry and she wanted water, but the nurse wouldn’t give it to her because she didn’t want her throwing it up.  They had to give her Tylenol to help her dizziness, but that didn’t help and they decided to give her IVs and antibiotics.

After another hour or so,  she recovered enough to be wheeled back into our room and now we were all together for the first time.

Ruby’s take:

I was freezing when they wheeled me into the OR. I was literally shaking. They mentioned it was the IV and the anaesthesia but they failed to mention the fever.

Anyway, it was a bit weird not feeling anything below my neck. I would feel little prods here and there but it didn’t hurt. Like, I knew they were slicing me open but it’s all numb.

They took Alex out, he started crying, then I started crying. There were photos taken but I did not remember them until I saw the actual photos on the Cloud. And they took him away and Peter went with him.

Things they don’t tell you – it was painful when they start putting your insides back inside. The pressure is intense. I literally kept saying “Ouch”

They upped my anaesthesia and other ‘drugs’ that I was too groggy by the end and don’t remember much. I just vaguely remembered being wheeled outside the OR, then through the hallways, and on to a recovery room.

Not sure how long I was there since I was in and out of consciousness (read: sleeping). Whenever I opened my eyes, the world started spinning so I would close it again.

I vaguely heard the nurses talking about my fever and asking the doctor what to do but I just slept it off. I wanted water, badly, but didn’t get it until they told me to drink a tablet and got a few sips of it.

Then Alex and Peter went to see me. He was so tiny. They made me try to breastfeed him but it was really hard since I was falling asleep while holding him. Good thing I didn’t drop him.

Pretty soon they wheeled me out of the recovery room and into my room. I have no idea what happened after. I think I might have fallen asleep since they started rounds of antibiotics on my IV to help curb my fever.

I’ll post another article on the first few days with baby at the hospital, and my, that was challenging.

End of Part One.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading. We are mostly documenting this experience so we can look back on it in the future when our boy is bigger and if he asks is what happened.

Again, every birth story is different, and this is just our unique experience.

Here’s other related pregnancy/baby articles that we wrote:

• Baby Stuff For Cheap (or Free)
• Reaching Financial Independence with Kids
• Why You Should Reach Financial Independence