He's here!

Marius Akuma Tucker
Born Friday, February 12, 2010 at 10:19 PM
6 pounds, 14 ounces and 19.5 inches

Sorry for the delay. After some complications following Marius' birth, I'm finally up and moving enough to tell the story...

I went into Albany Med on Friday, February 12 at 7:30 AM to be induced at exactly 40 weeks. The night before, I straightened my hair, so it looked absolutely FABULOUS for all the photos that would be taken.


They said no eating or drinking after midnight, so before I went to bed Thursday night, I stuffed my face. I needed all I could get, since I'm one of those people who has to eat very soon after waking in the morning or I'll feel sick and end up with a headache. Mom and I arrived at the L&D check-in desk at 7:30 on the dot (yes, I was on time for something for once!) We gave the clerk all the information she asked for, including my insurance card and Marius' insurance card, since he's on a different plan. We then settled into labor room D646. I had a wonderful nurse named Ann. Lexie arrived at about 8:30. We filled out some paperwork and Ann put in my IV around 9:00 (it was hard, since my veins are difficult anyway, and I hadn't had anything to drink since 10:30 the night before. She ended up blowing out the vein in the back of my hand and had to put the IV in the side of my wrist.) I started the pitocin drip at 9:30. At my OB appointment the day before, I was 1cm dilated and 70-80% effaced. My mother-in-law arrived around 10:00, and we all just hung out and talked. We did that all day. Hubby and I tested our internet connection to make sure we could video conference, and he had it open all day. I also had my cell phone and Bluetooth.

Fast forward to 2:15. Dr. Burstyn (coolest OB ever) came in to check me. I was 2-3cm, 80%, so she broke my water. I didn't even feel it, but boy did the fluid just keep coming out!!! Ann (my nurse) said there's about 1 liter of fluid in there, but it seriously felt like gallons. Funny story... right after Dr. B ruptured my membranes, I couldn't find my cell phone. Come to find out, I had set it on the bed by my right hip. Thank goodness I found it right away, before it ended up drenched in amniotic fluid. Anyway... now that there was no cushion between Marius' head and my cervix, the contractions started coming closer together and were stronger, to the point where I had to actually breathe through them. Uncomfortable, but I could tolerate it for a little bit. I told them I wanted my epidural ASAP. The waiting began...

A guy walked into my room at about 2:45-ish. He looked confused and lost. He didn't even introduce himself. I'm looking at him quizzically, like "Who the hell are you?", so he looks at me and says "You OK?". I say "Yeah, I'm just wondering who the hell you are." Apparently, he's from anesthesiology. He looks nervous. Great. He has a piece of paper and starts asking me about my medical history and marks off whether or not I've had certain conditions. I'm trying to use humor to get him to lighten up. He must have been brand new, fresh outta school, because he read the questions like he was reading a textbook. He asked me "Do you have any hearing problems?" and I was really quick and said "Huh?" He totally fell for it and started asking me the question again, and then realized I was joking with him. So he leaves and I wait for the anesthesiologist to come in and numb me up, 'cause the contractions are starting to get painful.

The anesthesiologist and the guy that came in earlier arrived at around 3:30 for my epidural. The contractions were painful and frequent, so they had to try to work in between them. It was hard for me to sit the way they wanted me to, with my lower back arched out, because 1. I have a deep arch in my back, so it takes more effort to push it out the other way, and 2. it was hard to curl around my pregnant belly. Long story short, I guess it was the resident or whoever it was that attempted the epidural and he couldn't do it, so the more experienced anesthesiologist took over after 7 or 8 sticks, and he told me he even had trouble with it. Said I have slight scoliosis (I don't think so), and then said that the lines of my tattoo there were throwing him off, because tattoos are never exactly in the center. Great. Thanks. But I was finally numb, so I was good. The nurse checked my cervix once I was numb (about 4:00), and I was 4-5cm, 90% effaced. More waiting.

At 7:30, I was 7cm, 90%. Other friends and family members had showed up in the waiting room, so different people were coming in and out of my room to hang out. Fast forward to about 8:45. I was at 9cm and the back of the cervix was totally gone. There was just a little cervix left in the front.

They called Dr. Burstyn, who arrived around 9:30. I started pushing. It was kind of hard for me to differentiate things. I'd push, she'd say, "harder!", I'd try to push harder. Sometimes she said, "Yes! Just like that!" and sometimes she'd say, "C'mon! Harder!", but I couldn't tell what I was doing differently. It all felt the same to me. There were some decelerations in Marius' heart rate, so I had the oxygen mask on when I wasn't pushing. I laughed and joked with everyone in between contractions. She ended up having to use a vacuum to help get him out, since his head started turning as I was pushing. I guess I was having trouble getting his head past the last hurdle. But she didn't even have to use full force with the vacuum. She just got a little suction going and at 10:19, Marius was born. I only pushed for 46 minutes, which I guess is really good for a first-timer. I gave birth with my mother, best friend, and mother-in-law in the room, and it didn't bother me in the least. Hubby got to see the WHOLE THING via webcam. It was amazing.

When she pulled him out, she suctioned out his mouth and nose and put him on my chest, and I fell in love immediately. He gave a couple little cries, then just chilled there, breathing normally and looking around. They brought him over to the warmer to assess him and finish cleaning him up, and he just laid there looking at everyone. He got 8 and 9 on his Apgars, and he didn't even cry when they gave him his vitamin K shot. He just fussed a little when they took the needle out.

When they were done assessing, cleaning, and weighing him, they brought him back to me. I wanted skin-to-skin with him, so I put him inside my gown and snuggled him. He was so calm.

Then we bundled him back up and tried breastfeeding for the first time. It took him a little bit, but he did manage to latch. At this point, I decided it would be OK for my family members to hold him. I was super starving, since I hadn't eaten in 25 hours, so my cousin Nikki went to McDonalds and got me a southern style chicken sandwich as a reward for all my hard work, and boy was it DELICIOUS! I was dying for a sweet tea with it, but they were out of sweet tea, so I got root beer as a backup. Still pretty tasty.


I got to my postpartum room around midnight. My mom went home, and Nikki stayed with me and slept on the pull-out chair. I had a headache. Marius was hanging out with me. I nursed him (he nursed for a full 20 minutes on one side!) and changed his diaper. At about 3:30 a.m. I called in the nurse and had her take him to the nursery, since I was totally exhausted and was worried that I wouldn't hear him and wake up to take care of him. I instructed her to bring him back into my room in 3 hours to feed him again. I got woken up by a resident doctor so he could check me at around 6:30 a.m. They brought Marius in from the nursery at 7:00. I was PISSED. I made them aware that I wanted to exclusively breastfeed, and they totally ignored that fact.

I woke up that morning in excruciating pain in my back, right behind my boobs. I ended up pulling those muscles during delivery, because I was bending my back in a place where it doesn't usually bend. I also had a headache. I got up to go to the bathroom and my back was spasming out of control, and my head was pounding. It felt like there were helicopters in my skull. They gave me Flexeril (muscle relaxer) for my back and Percocet for my headache. The Flexeril helped my back. The Percocet did NOTHING for my head. I spent 2 days in the hospital. I had the head pain the whole time, no matter what they did. The anesthesiology team kept coming in and out, trying to decide whether or not it was their problem. They decided that it was a result of the epidural. Apparently, when my epidural was done, they went into my epidural space and punctured the membrane into the spinal space, which caused spinal fluid to leak out of the spinal space, resulting in the headache. On Sunday (Valentine's Day), they decided to do a blood patch, which works in 95% of these cases, and works instantly. Basically, they insert a catheter into the area, take 15cc's of blood out of my arm, and inject it into the space. The theory is that the blood will go to the hole in the membrane and clot so no more spinal fluid will leak out. My discharge papers showed up as they were doing the blood patch. The nurse anesthetist had me lay down for two hours after the blood patch, then came back to check on me. He had me stand up to see if my head started pounding again. It did. Not quite as bad as it was, but still really bad. They sent me home, even though the blood patch didn't work as they had expected.

I went home Sunday night and couldn't do anything. I could barely make it to the bathroom. As soon as I stood up, I would get the unbearable hammering in the back of my skull, at the crown of my head. I stayed in bed as much as possible. It still pounded and hurt like hell when I was laying down, but a little less than when I was upright. I couldn't even sit up without it pounding, and no matter what I did, I couldn't get comfortable because of my back. Monday was the same. It didn't get any better. My mom called Dr. Burstyn on Monday, and she called in a prescription for Fioricet, which is a migraine medication. She wasn't given much information by the Albany Med staff, even though she was my attending physician. She was told that it was just a spinal headache. They didn't even tell her they did a blood patch.

The Fioricet did NOTHING. On Tuesday, February 16th, I went to Dr. Burstyn's office. It was a hellish trip. I had to keep my eyes covered because it hurt too much to open them in the light. I threw up in the car (thank goodness we brought a bucket). My mom had to get a wheelchair and wheel me inside because it hurt so bad to stand up. Dr. Burstyn examined me. She said it was probably from the epidural, but she wanted me to go to the emergency room at Ellis hospital and have tests done to rule anything else out. Ellis is the closest hospital to her office, and the hospital that's associated with Bellevue Womens Hospital, which is the main hospital she delivers at. If there was nothing else found in the emergency room, she wanted me to be transferred to Bellevue so their anesthesiologists could try another blood patch. Bellevue isn't a teaching hospital like Albany Med, so they have a very experienced staff.

Well, I got to the ER and they put me on a drip of morphine and Phenegran. The medication had NO effect on me whatsoever. It didn't even make me loopy or tired, which is strange. Weaker drugs have had more of an effect on me before. They did a CT scan and MRI, and discovered that I had a subdural hematoma. My brain had been bleeding. At this point, the bleeding had stopped, but I still had blood sitting on my brain. This was the cause of the headache. I was terrified, and pissed that Albany Med missed all the cues and sent me home with a life-threatening condition. They didn't even bother to do any more tests, even though they knew that the blood patch didn't give me any relief from the headache. I called hubby to tell him what was going on. I learned later that when he got off the phone with me, he punched through his wall locker and a cinder block wall. And then went running to alert one of his superior officers that there was a family emergency back home. While he was running, he landed wrong and ended up badly damaging tendons in his foot.

I was transported to the neurological ICU in the main hospital at Ellis. My milk came in when I was in the ER, so we asked if they could provide me with a breast pump so I didn't get engorged and infected. When I got to my ICU room, there was a pump waiting for me. There was only one in the hospital, because all the labor and delivery stuff is handled on the Bellevue campus. They put me on a drip of Dilaudid, which is stronger than morphine. This stuff didn't do anything to me, either. That's how bad the head pain was. They had to increase my dose of Dilaudid 3 times before it had any effect at all, and even then it was minimal. They did an MRI the next day, which showed that the blood was still there, but there had been no more bleeding. I talked to hubby and he said they weren't going to send him home. They would only send him home if there was something wrong with the baby. At this point he told me about injuring his foot.

The next day, hubby told me he was coming home. Because he injured his foot, he couldn't do what he needed to do on base, so they gave him a two-week medical waiver. They were allowing him to come home for a week. I stayed in the hospital until Friday the 19th. He came home that night at midnight and took over for my mom and aunt who were taking care of Marius 24/7 because I couldn't. I'm so glad he got to come home. Otherwise, he wouldn't have met his son until he was 3+ months old. He's such an awesome dad. He had to go back to base on the 26th.

I'm starting to feel better. All I can do is wait until the blood on my brain reabsorbs. There's no pounding anymore, but there's still pressure on the left side of my head. I'm waiting on the results of a repeat CT scan to see what's going on in there.

I'm so thankful that they found out what was wrong and that I'm still here. I'm also thankful that I have such awesome and caring family and friends to help me out so much during this difficult time. Most of all, I'm thankful that Marius is perfectly healthy and happy.

Thanks for sticking around to read this. Stay tuned for updates an lots of pictures of our little man. xoxo