After eighteen hours from the time the water broke, they put Annette on anti-biotics. In the morning they would add a pitocin drip on another IV in her other hand. This was now two needles more than Annette had wanted. The pain was getting to her.
By noon, she was very receptive to a caesarean section. Her contractions weren’t progressing at all. The needles were dragging on her. She had a nasal headache most of the morning. It was miserable for her. They had waited for doctor approval before she could take the allergy medicine that she usually takes every day to prevent just such a headache, although it was certainly made worse by her miserable state that day.
When Annette was showing signs of excessive exposure to the magnesium sulfate, they finally agreed to reduce the drip. While this didn’t entirely reduce the pain in her hand, it did help. More than this, Annette’s contractions began to escalate. This was encouraging.
With a long and dreadful day all dragging on her, Annette was still discouraged. The needles still hurt. And although it was nice that contractions were resuming, this still put labor several hours in the works.
Another vaginal exam was done, this time by Dr. Hallman. Annette had progressed to four centimeters, which put labor still a long time to go according to the books. He presented us with two options. One was to wait the several hours it would take for labor to progress which still held risks and could end in a caesarean section anyways, or we could do a caesarean section. After much personal struggling with these rather limited options, mostly on my part, we chose option number three. We called for a priesthood leader from our church to come give Annette a blessing.
Brother Langford answered our call. When he arrived, I explained the situation in brief and then we went in to Annette. I anointed her head with oil, and he offered the blessing. It would be shortly after he left that Annette’s contractions finally became strong enough that we focused on getting her through them instead of dealing with the pain of the needles in her hands. This was very promising indeed.
Sarah, my sister-in-law, showed up at just the right time. Right about that time, Annette had the first real urge to push. The nurse did a vaginal exam and told us the dilation was changing even as she did the exam from five to six centimeters. She didn’t want Annette to push with the contractions yet. It would a little bit later, as Annette continued to progress rapidly that she would call the doctor who had left not that long ago.
Sarah would end up staying with us from this point until after Dillon arrived. The nurse snapped this picture because she said the three of us were making an impressive team as Annette labored to give birth. This would make one of two pictures that actually prove I was there. Most of the time, I think I was the one holding the digital camera.
