DnA Family

Dillon Archibald Burke is now over a week old. After getting tired of the Hospital scene, we were finally able to bring him home this Tuesday. So, now we have pictures of the little boy. Pictures taken without ultrasound.

It looks like I will have to Blog this one picture at a time. Hmm.... This presents problems and opportunities. So, we will start off with a picture of Annette as we waited at the hospital for an ultrasound.

I had been on the way to Rochester, Minnesota for work when Annette called my about 7:30 AM to tell me that her water had broken. After a couple phone calls, I was turned around and headed to my brother’s place in River Falls, Wisconsin. Sarah was going over to my place to pick up my wife and bring her over to her place, and so we met up there.

It would be about two-thirty that Annette and I would go over to the hospital. Although she had no contractions or additional leakage, it was a good idea. The first two tests they conducted showed no sign of her water having broke. They were almost going to send us home when the doctor asked us to stay around for an ultrasound just to be sure. This picture was taken while we waited those couple hours.

When the doc did get around to us and the ultrasound, there wasn’t much water to be found. It wasn’t completely gone, just not as much as should be there. It seems little Dillon had plugged the hole very nicely when the water broke and gushed out a bit.

Dr. Hallman suggested a gel applied to the cervix to help stimulate labor. This seemed to work, and Annette had some escalation in her contractions as the night went on. However, as her blood pressure went up, the staff became nervous about possible seizures. They put her on magnesium sulfate to help prevent this. This would be the first IV, and one more needle than Annette wanted. This first day, that needle was causing more discomfort than any of the contractions. As for the contractions, they disappeared completely despite the steady escalation thus far when a vaginal exam caused my wife some additional pain. Getting the report that there had been no additional dilation, the pain of the exam, and the magnesium sulfate drip probably all added up to end the labor thus far.

We learned in our birthing class that the mind is a powerful thing. It can stop labor with fear, and this isn’t usually a good thing. Resolving the fear can often restart labor. It was late at night, and we were both tired, although neither of us got good sleep. That was probably the lightest I have slept. Worried about my wife, I was listening to her breathe and the beeps of the monitors they had her on much of the night.