Max's Story

"The night Max made mischief of one kind...and another." - Where the Wild Things Are

It started with contractions last Saturday. They kept us up all night and through the day Sunday. On Monday my cervix had not made enough progress so the OB gave us the option to induce to speed things along. We were excited and ready so Monday morning, in the middle of the snow storm, my dad came and picked us up and dropped us off at the hospital. At 9 am they started me on a Pitocin drip. The contractions became stronger as the morning went on and by the time I was at 3 cm I was begging for an epidural. We had to wait an hour for the anesthesiologist to arrive and was so relieved when he finally walked through the door. With Noah, I got the epidural and he was born 2 hours later. The Dr expected Max to arrive just as quickly, if not sooner. I felt like the worst part of the labor was behind us. I got the epidural and felt immediately better. My OB came by for a quick check, said everything was progressing and he would see us later that night. My nurse was walking out the door when one of my monitor alarms started to go off. Max's heartrate was dropping. I wasn't worried since the same thing happened a few times with Noah's birth and it was better after a few position changes. So she moved me to my side and no change. Moved me to my other side and no change. His heart rate was low and was not improving. People started filing into the room. A few nurses, then the charge nurse, and lastly my OB. He had just been on his way out of the hospital when he saw my monitor at the nurses station and rushed back. He quickly checked for a prolapsed cord and placed some internal monitors. Everyone around him seemed to be panicking but he is always the picture of calm, so again I wasn't too worried. "Call the OR and tell them to set up." He ordered a nurse. My heart rate started to pick up. "We will need to do a C-Section if this doesn't turn around quickly." He said to me. "Fine. Ok." I said quickly. The nurses hurried around us gathering supplies. I looked at my OB and on his face I saw panic. And that's when I knew something was terribly wrong. "You need to move faster." He yelled at the nurses. "This is a crash." I looked at Geno and both our eyes filled with tears. "This crash" he was referring to was Max. Max was crashing. I think at this point time stopped, my world stopped, and things kept moving around me. I saw Geno. He seemed a million miles away as they rushed me out of the room saying he would have to stay behind. Nurses with surgical masks hovered above my head as they rushed me through the double doors. There were dozens of people waiting for us in the OR. Tears streamed down my face. Please God, let him be ok. The anesthesiologist arrived a minute later and asked what was going on. "The baby's heart rate has been down for almost 10 minutes and needs to be out now." The OB yelled at him. They argued for a minute about if my epidural would be enough to do the procedure and finally my OB said he had to cut now. I don't remember any pain, just minutes filled with fear. The Our Father said over and over. "I see his head." The anesthesiologist said to me. "Is he ok?" I whispered. "We're still working on him." the OB said. Please God, let him be ok. He hadn't cried yet. "We have him out." He said a second later. I couldn't see him. The nurses grabbed him and rushed him to their machines. A second passed, maybe a minute, and then I heard a baby's cry. It was the greatest sound I have ever heard.  My heart resumed beating and tears rolled down my face. I felt everyone in the room breathe a big collective sigh. "Dad's here," someone said as Geno came in scrubbed up. I looked at his face and knew without saying that his time spent waiting alone back in our room was equally as unbearable as my experience. All around me everyone started talking, everything about Max was good. His heart, his color, his breathing. He was coming around. Everyone was excited and kept congratulating us. Geno and I both were silent, looking at each other, feeling the gravity of what we experienced and what we could have experienced. Max's umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck at a tight angle and as he was moving down me, he was losing his ability to breathe. The Dr told us the next day when they got his blood gases back that had it been a few more minutes, "it would have been a different story". 3 days later, we have not processed all of it, and I don't think we will try to. The literal meaning of the name Max is "the greatest." Max is here and tonight is Christmas. And as far as gifts go, for our family, Max is truly the greatest.