Chase Micheal Harrifeld

OUR NEW FAMILY!!!


It was a little scary...but our newest addition is finally here. Just when you think you are an old hand at something; you get thrown a curve ball! Chase's induction (my third) started out like all the other inductions. Cytotec times two the night before, Dr. breaks my water in the am, epidural in and the rest smooth sailing....WRONG! The Cytotec was right and my doctor did come in and break my water in the am; but after he broke the water Chase decided he did not want to go that way and moved up. When the doctor went to put the scalp electrode on his head the head was not reachable when it had been prior to breaking the water. Regardless of this, everything seemed to be going fine. Anesthesia came in to do the epidural, they sat me up to place it...went in without any problems. The nurse waited about 10 minutes for the epidural to take effect before she checked me again. I also had a resident in the room who wanted to check me to for the "experience"...got to love being a guinea pig!!!!! When the nurse started to check me she said "I am holding your baby's hand"...then the look of terror flushed over her face and I said "and you have cord don't you" She said "yes" I said "C-section" and she said "yes". The resident was still standing there gloved and ready to go...she looks at him and says "I'm not taking my hand out go get help and tell them to call Martin (my doctor) and Bejot (anesthesia). All this happened at around 9:10/9:15. I think that the cord prolapsed when they sat me up for the epidural. Next thing I know I am being rolled down the hall with the nurse lying on the bed with me. My mom had taken the kids out of the room while they were checking me and next thing she knows all these people are running into the room and then I am being wheeled out. Needless to say she was freaking. I was freaking a little too but not too bad because I knew it was necessary and I knew what was going on.

I was in the Operating Room at 9:19am...when they rolled me in Dr. Bejot said this will be general anesthesia (even though my epidural was in, it was not dosed high enough for a c-section and there was NO time to get it there). That's when I lost it. For one I have never had general anesthesia and even though I worked in the OR for 6 years and saw it done several times a day I still didn't want to go through it myself. Secondly, now everyone was going to know what I was having before I would...made me really wish I had found out what I was having. Anesthesia was induced at 9:24am, incision at 9:26am and Chase was born at 9:29am. This whole time my nurse was under the drapes holding on to the umbilical cord and reporting to my doctor Chase's heartrate and trying to keep his head off of the umbilical cord.

I can't say that I was really surprised by the events that happened since at my last ultrasound I asked the tech what is all that up by the head and she said umbilical cord. It looked to me like a ton of umbilical cord right in front of his face and then both hands were up in the face. I remember thinking during the ultrasound, I hope that cord moves or we could have problems...obviously it didn't.

Thank God for all the staff at BryanLGH. Thank God I had the baby there and not in Tecumseh because I wouldn't be holding a baby right now. Thank God I didn't have him at St. Elizabeth's because it would have taken my doctor a good 20 minutes to get there, I would still probably have a baby but he could have had some effects from the prolapsed cord. Instead the whole ordeal took less than 20 minutes, his Apgars were 8, 9, 9 and he is absolutely perfect.


What a miracle!