Angie's Journey

In a recent survey, respondents voted hosting a dinner party with family as the number one stress inducer during the holiday season. Yeah, right. Angie Christopherson’s tale includes a positive Covid test on Christmas Day and a rescheduling of her inducement date, moved from December 26 to January 3. Oh, and because Santa’s gift to her regular OB/GYN was appendicitis, Christopherson would be meeting a brand new provider for the delivery of her second child.

Good thing Christopherson is the kind of person who can go with the flow.

“Long story short, I was given Dr. Brubaker,” said Christopherson, “and she was the greatest gift to me.”

But let's try the short story long and let Christopherson tell the tale of her experience as only she can:

My original provider ended up getting appendicitis, so then she was out. So I was just gonna have a random provider do the birth. And I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever.’ It’ll make things interesting because it’s someone I never met before. Honestly, I was okay with it.

I was supposed to get induced on December 26, but on Christmas morning I woke up and felt awful. Probably the sickest I’ve ever been in my whole life. I’m usually the kind that can push through things, but this time I couldn’t even get off the couch. Felt like I was going to pass out all day. So I called the nurse and asked if we should still get induced, because I honestly didn’t think I was capable of pushing a baby out.

The nurse told me I should take a Covid test just to make sure and rule that out, then we’d go from there. I had an at home test and, yep, I had Covid. And then it all made sense. We canceled the inducement and had to wait for a new date because of the quarantine protocol.

And then my husband got Covid.

And then I was notified that my doctor got appendicitis.

And I was chasing a toddler around too.

We ended up scheduling the inducement on January 3. I was like 40 weeks and five days, so yeah, I was ready. We went in, got the Pitocin, and everything was moving along well. At eight centimeters they sat me up to see if they could get me to ten, but I felt like I was going to pass out. I didn’t, which was good. But when I got to ten centimeters, all of a sudden a bunch of nurses came running in. I’m thinking, ‘Okay, why are all these nurses here?’ 

Things had started to go a tad bit sideways: they couldn’t find my baby’s heartbeat. 

Enter Dr. Brubaker, who was downstairs with another patient. I don’t know if they press a button or something when they can’t hear the baby’s heartbeat, but Brubaker must have launched herself up the stairs, because she was a little bit out of breath when she got there. I asked her if everything was alright. ‘I just sprinted up here!’ she said. 

They ended up finding my baby’s heartbeat, but it just kept dropping, mostly because he was kind of in the birthing canal. So it was kind of a scary thing. But Brubaker was so calm, went through the options if the heartbeat continued to drop.

Maybe this was where I was a little too go with the flow, because out came, ‘I don’t really know, so why don’t you pick!’ 

That didn’t fly with Brubaker, so I think I went with, ‘Okay, whatever’s safest.’ But I knew I was to keep pushing, and pushing, and pushing. For like an hour and a half. (And I thought the second delivery was supposed to be easier!) Anyway, the pushing continued and I’m not entirely sure what happened, but basically the baby’s shoulder got stuck. They did some maneuvering and voila!

Charlie was born! 10 pounds, 13 ounces!

He was a large guy. One nurse asked me if other nurses could come in and see him. At this point I was so relieved that I just said, ‘Sure! Bring ‘em in!’

And the nurses were like, ‘Holy cow! This is the biggest baby we’ve ever seen!’

So yeah, it was kind of a hoot, I mean once the scary stuff had passed and we could push out this almost 11-pound baby.

Sometimes when you hear stories about women giving birth, or just being in the hospital in general, you hear about how they just felt like another patient or another number. But I truly felt valued, and I felt Dr. Brubaker truly cared about my baby’s health. She was able to deliver him with ease while keeping me educated about possible outcomes during the entire labor.

She was so professional, so calm, and we absolutely loved her.