Arriving into this world at a small but potent 5 lbs 10 oz, Kieran (originally spelled Kiran) arrived on Planet Earth at 11:43am December 2, 2007! As you can tell, this update is way late but we've been busy. For history's sake, here is how it unfolded:
11:50 pm 12/1/07 - Nisha says to Faz just as they were going to bed after a long day of shopping and setting up christmas decorations, "uh, I think my water just broke"
12:45 am 12/2/07 - We (Nisha, her mom, and I) checked in at Shady Grove hospital and were admitted. Nisha's labor pains were non-existent.
2 am - We're moved to the delivery room and made comfortable... well, at least Nisha was. Her mom and I shared a bench for the next few hours.
4:30 am - Nisha's pains begin in but still are relatively light. She's given a little medicine to help calm her and help her relax. Nisha's mom goes out to the waiting room so that Faz can get some sleep on the padded bench. Sorry aunty!
7:00 am - Nisha's pain are now full steam ahead and she's about 3-4 cm dilated. Where is the epidural??!
7:30 am - Epidural guy (anesthesiologist) arrives and relieves Nish. ahhh....
8:45 am - First signs of problem occur when the fetal heart rate, which had been galloping along between 130-160, drops for a few seconds to around 100. The nurse pulls out the oxygen for her. Fetal heart comes back up.
9:30 am - She's still not dilating too much, it's now only about 4 cm.
10:30 am - The baby is still "high" and has not really dropped. Fetal heart rate drops again for about 20-25 seconds, the oxygen mask is pulled out again. At this point, these things begin to get a little nerve racking. Another nurse comes in here to check where the baby is and confirms what the first nurse said. The Dr. finally shows up... and to our dismay (we already knew though) it's not Dr. Tran. Dr. Gierdian puts in an internal fetal heart rate monitor to make sure they pick up the baby's heart rate and not Nisha's.
11:35 am - All of a sudden, the fetal rate drops from 140 to 120 to 110... the nurse moves Nisha to her side to see if that helps.. the rate continues to drop down to 100.... other nurses arrive and help her reposition Nish... heart rate doesn't come back up.... Dr. Gierdian briskly walks in and checks... the looks of worry on everyone's face sends some chills up my spine and MY heart rate rapidly increases... Dr. Gierdian utters, "this baby has to come out NOW..." nurses rush to start unplug various electrical connectors and tubes... Nish looks over to me with a look of fear and tears in her eyes... I was no help because there were tears in my eyes; it was that scary... Molly, one of the nurses tells me that I can go into the room in a minute, as soon as I am "prepped".. "she's going in for a c-section"... "everything is going to be ok.." - yeah right, that's what they all say and why do you look so scared?? But I played and changed into the scrubs..
11:44 am - I walk into the operating room and hear the wonderful cries of a newborn! I'm told to avert my eyes and look at only Nisha's face... oh, what a relief!
12:10 pm - So now I head up with the baby to the 'newborn baby' check up. Kieran is doing great and super alert. He's looking around and happy.. until they poke him with a needle to give him his Vitamin K shot! Ouch!
So that's the play by play.. what a day it was! And everything was great... until about 6 hours later when they took Kieran away to the NICU! Oh man.. another stress filled 12 hours! To make a long story short, he had a PDA (which means one of his baby arteries that's supposed to close right after birth, didn't fully close) so his blood-oxygen level was a little low in the lower half of his body. But after a few days at the NICU, we brought Kieran home! Ok, that's enough for now...
