Thank God for Kona Grill

Today is Thursday, I am sitting on my couch - no lights, no TV, Max is curled up in his doggie bed and bobby is asleep in ours. Any other Thursday I would be at work but this Thursday is delivery day! ... hopefully! We weren't supposed to induce until 11/2 but God had other plans.

Tuesday I went to my doctor for a check in my blood pressure. I usually run about 103/63 and the Monday before last I was at 120/78 so they asked me to stop in some day this week for another read. I wasn't worried at all; especially since our little Grace's heartbeat was 151 and very strong. When I got to the doctor on Tuesday I asked them if we could listen to Grace's heartbeat on the doppler. My mom had tried to get it on the stethoscope Monday and couldn't find it; so she did. Nurse Tara is her name, she has been great throughout this entire pregnancy. Tara held the doppler and tried to find Grace's heart...over and over, switching locations each time. When she had no luck she called our Doctor, Dr. Ponkey, and asked if we should do an ultrasound. I called Bobby to come down to the office. While I was waiting for Bobby in the ultrasound room I held to my tummy, rocking back and forth, singing "pretty baby, pretty baby, pretty baby, oh pretty girl" Grace loves that one, she hears it everyday. Michelle, the U/S tech came in once bobby got there and we started. The very first image that came up on the screen was Grace's heart, but I had to ask to make sure because this time it looked different it was still. Our little girl had gone to be with Jesus.

Next we waited while the nurses called Doctor Ponkey and the OB Doctor office that was handling the delivery. They told us that since the tests run on me came back fine we could go home and wait for the OB office to call us Wednesday morning to schedule and appointment that day and begin the inducing process.

Wednesday morning came and by 930 we hadn't heard anything from the OB office. I called them to schedule the appointment and when the lady on the phone asked the reason for our visit I had to tell her "we had an ultrasound appt. yesterday and our baby doesn't have a heartbeat so we need to schedule an appt. & be induced" she proceeded to make the appointment for 1140 and when she was hanging up she said "I hope you and the baby are healthy"... I thought nothing of it except that she must say that everytime she hangs up. When we checked in at our appt. I asked if they had all our information and knew why we were there; they said yes and I sat down. When they called us back they took my weight and asked "and you're feeling baby move ok?" I looked at her completely puzzled and said "no, no baby is not moving fine" at that same time Bobby asked "do you have idea why we are here", she said nothing. We went into the exam room and we explained the situation and she said "it would've been nice if someone called us - we had no idea" I told her that the Doctor had called on Tuesday and when noone called us I too called and explained it when making the appt and confirmed it at the front desk. She said "well, we had no idea - that's what happens when you change care providers during your pregnancy". I assume she is referring to when we moved to Doctor Ponkey after we found out Grace had Trisomy 13 which we did only because their office called us and cancelled all future appointments saying that we would miscarry before long and it could all be taken care of ourselves, at home. We didn't accept that and went to Doctor Ponkey for help, she took us in. That is a story for another time though...

Once the doctor came in she explained that the hospital was full and would try to work us in somewhere but we really should've scheduled the induction beforehand. She called over to Mercy Gilbert, our delivery hospital, and they made room for us. We had visited before and they knew to expect us sometime soon.

We made it home and started packing for the hospital. We decided to go have one "last supper" since the Doctor told us that the hospital would "starve" me once they started inducing. We ended up a Kona Grill. Bobby, his mom, my mom and I had a nice big meal at Kona Grill. I ate my fair share of a vegas roll and had chicken tacos - the food was delicious and I was pleasantly full. We headed to the hospital.

The ride to the hospital was bittersweet. We listened to the new Five for Fighting CD and happened to be hearing a song about "Hope". There was lots of joy. There was lots of tears. All caught on video, thank you daddy :) We checked in and were in our cush room in 20 minutes. I was amazed. Nice bed, fold out couch, they even switched on the slider chair for a recliner we had seen in another room on a prior visit. I thought "this is perfect" as I was changing into the super cute designer hospital gown I bought online :) The nurse came in and started the I.V., they took blood and we started all the paperwork. They also did an ultrasound to find out baby's position and they discovered she was breech. The Nurse told us that when we met the Doctor she would explain our options.

We meet the Doctor around 5pm. She came in and introduced herself and explained that since she was breech we could try "aversion" but most likely we would need a c-section. We expressed how much we did not want a c-section and that up to this point had been told there was no way we would be offered one since Grace was expected to pass away shortly after birth. The doctor posed some rather gory and suspiciously inconceivable scenarios that led us to believe a) she wasn't equipped to handle a normal delivery for a breech pre-term demise baby and b) she wasn't willing to seek out other OB's within the same practice who were. We were against the c-section, Bobby more so than me and the Doctor couldn't seem to grasp why telling us she didn't know why we didn't want a c-section "the aversion will take 20 minutes and we will do it in the O.R. so that we can do the c-section right away. The c-section will been done within 30 minutes and you will be all done in an hour". We were all shocked. A process that they have been telling us will take days and this Doctor is saying I can have you out in an hour. The nurse asked us when the last time we ate was and I said 330; the nurse and doctor looked at us disappointed and said "that's the worst thing you could've done" I explained that the Doctor had told us to eat well and they said "yeah, if you were having a normal delivery...now we can't do the c-section until 930". THANK GOD FOR KONA GRILL.

Everything was happening so fast and I didn't feel comfortable there, in that hosptial, with that Doctor. Now we had some time to process everything they were telling us. They brought in the authorization form for the aversion and as I was reading it I saw that it said "aversion and possible c-section" I asked her why they included both on the same consent form since we told them we weren't agreeing to a c-section. She said that the doctor said to put them on the same form and asked me if I would rather have them on different form. Um, yeah! I would like them on different forms. We signed the form for aversion only and the nurse said we would start around 8pm.

We were just beside ourselves with the events and though I was pretty cam, Bobby was not. He is bound and determined to have nothing but the best for "my girls". He called Doctor Ponkey who was adament that normal deliveries happen all the time for situations exactly like ours but it does take patience on the hospital and doctors part. She wanted to talk to the Doctor so Bobby left the room, in search of the Doctor. He came back and said that the Doctor had gone home on a break so Dr. Ponkey talked to the Nurse and said to have the Doctor call her. That's the last we heard so we sat around waiting for the aversion. It was me, Bobby, my parents, Bobby's mom, aunt and dear Grandma Taylor in the room.

At 7pm the Nurse came back in and said "do you know what's going on" I said "waiting for the aversion at 8pm", she asked the family members to step out. She explained that Doctor Ponkey and the delivery Doctor spoke and the delivery Doctor said she, nor anyone in her group, were comfortable trying to deliver the baby normally. Doctor Ponkey said that she will get us in at another hospital tomorrow (Thursday). So, they removed the IV and I changed into normal clothes, we packed our things, and went home. As we walked out the Nurse's station was staring at all of us. It was quite the experience.

So here I am sitting on the couch, still no lights - no TV, Max is outside now and Bobby is probably going to wake up soon. My best friend Christina will be here soon, she flew in this morning from San Diego. We are going to wait for the call and see if we can try this all over again today. We are so thankful that we weren't rushed into anything yesterday and we know that God has a plan and everything works out according to it.

We will keep you posted. Please keep us in your prayers.