I was scheduled to be at the hospital at 5am on Friday July 24, 2009 so Jeremy and I had to get up at around 3:30 to get ready and leave for the hospital which is around a half hour away. We got there a few minutes late because we had to stop for gas. Did everything else the evening before but forgot that minor detail! LOL To top it all off Jeremy had an awful migraine the entire day and spent much of it napping in the labor room to try to get rid of it.
So I get there and they hook me up to the monitors and ask a million questions and at around 6am they start me on the pitocin and tell me that my Dr will be up around 9 to check me. I am not even feeling anything contraction-wise by the time she gets there around 9:10am and checks me. She tells me that I am a 4 and that she is going to break my water. She tells the nurse that I can have my epidural at any time that I want it but I tell her that I am holding off as long as possible since it wore off when I was having Wyatt and I didn’t want to go through the process again just to not have one when the time came. I settle in and relax for the ride at this point.
My back starts killing me and I assume it is from sitting on that bed so I ask the nurse about getting up and moving around. She tells me that I can get up and go to the bathroom when I want and she can either get me a birthing ball or bring in a rocking chair. I ask for the rocking chair so when I come out of the bathroom there is one waiting on me. It was a HUGE help and I sit in it until around noon. The contractions finally began getting stronger at around 11am and that is when she tells me that I have pretty much topped out on the dose of pitocin that the Dr allowed. She says she is going to call the Dr to get her to come up and check me and let her know what to do as far as the pitocin is concerned. She checks me and I am at a 5. Again she asks about the epidural and I tell her I am going to hold off a bit longer. At noon I finally sent someone to tell her I want it and within a few minutes my doctor was there to check me and the anesthesiologist is outside the door.
Dr tells me that I am still at a 5 and Maddi wasn’t moving down into position well. She mentions that if I don’t start progressing I may need a c-section because it is suggesting she is too big. This is when I make the mistake of asking if she has a guess as to how big she is and she tells me AT LEAST as big as DS was (8lb 6oz). I had been hoping for a smaller baby! The anesthesiologist then moves in to do his job and this is where the trouble begins.
Apparently I have a really vascular back so he had a really hard time. Does it once and when he pulls the needle out he gets blood so has to redo it. Not to mention he had to draw out once to renumb because he hit some sore spots. He replaces it and gets blood again. Finally the third time is the charm or so we think. My left side is more numb than the right so they have me lay slightly on my right side to help it and he leaves. I settle in to sleep and wake up 2 hours later feeling super strong contractions again so they call him up and he decides to come back with some lidocaine and another full kit because he thinks there is a problem. He hits me with the lidocaine and my jaw instantly goes numb and my ears start ringing. Then Maddi’s heart rate jumps to 200 and then drops to 49 and my blood pressure drops to 80/43. They roll me on my left side and give me oxygen and things start to straighten out. I am crying hysterically at this point because I want her out and OK and am terrified something is going to go wrong. Jeremy is trying to calm me down but later tells me he was just as scared.
Anesthesiologist tells me he wants to take out Epi 1 and put in a new one and though I don’t want to go through the process again I agree. In goes another Epi and thankfully it goes in the first time and begins to work like a charm. Right around 6:30 pm my nurse comes in to check me and tells me that I am at a 9+. I tell her that is what I delivered my son at because I never went to a 10 so she tells me she is going to call the doctor and let her know we are close. She walks out and just 2 minutes later another nurse walks in a tells me that she is going to check me because nurse 1 has the doctor on the phone and she wants an update. She checks me and I made it to a 10! Whoo hoo! She asks if I want to practice push until the doctor gets there and I tell her that I want to wait until I get the urge. Around 15 minutes later I tell Jeremy to get the nurse because I am feeling MAJOR pressure. Within a couple of minutes the nurses and doctor are in and tell me to push through a contraction. As soon as that one was over they scramble to break down the bed. 2 contractions and 8 minutes later Madelinn Grace makes her appearance and 8lb and 11oz and 21” long with apgars of 5 and 8.
She ended up having shoulder dystocia so I am glad that they induced because I would have guaranteed a c-section had I let her grow any more. As it was I had a nurse putting all her weight on me to help push her shoulders out. They thought they may have broken her collar bone but thankfully the xrays the next day showed that was not the case. She also had a bowel movement right before I started pushing so Jeremy didn’t get to cut the cord which was kind of sad. They hurried up and took her to the warmer to suction her out. All I remember asking is why she wasn’t crying and then remembered that they needed her to not cry and inhale anything.
Sorry this got so long! I don’t know how my professors can stand to read my papers because I think I am TOO thorough sometimes. So if you made it this far thanks for reading!
So I get there and they hook me up to the monitors and ask a million questions and at around 6am they start me on the pitocin and tell me that my Dr will be up around 9 to check me. I am not even feeling anything contraction-wise by the time she gets there around 9:10am and checks me. She tells me that I am a 4 and that she is going to break my water. She tells the nurse that I can have my epidural at any time that I want it but I tell her that I am holding off as long as possible since it wore off when I was having Wyatt and I didn’t want to go through the process again just to not have one when the time came. I settle in and relax for the ride at this point.
My back starts killing me and I assume it is from sitting on that bed so I ask the nurse about getting up and moving around. She tells me that I can get up and go to the bathroom when I want and she can either get me a birthing ball or bring in a rocking chair. I ask for the rocking chair so when I come out of the bathroom there is one waiting on me. It was a HUGE help and I sit in it until around noon. The contractions finally began getting stronger at around 11am and that is when she tells me that I have pretty much topped out on the dose of pitocin that the Dr allowed. She says she is going to call the Dr to get her to come up and check me and let her know what to do as far as the pitocin is concerned. She checks me and I am at a 5. Again she asks about the epidural and I tell her I am going to hold off a bit longer. At noon I finally sent someone to tell her I want it and within a few minutes my doctor was there to check me and the anesthesiologist is outside the door.
Dr tells me that I am still at a 5 and Maddi wasn’t moving down into position well. She mentions that if I don’t start progressing I may need a c-section because it is suggesting she is too big. This is when I make the mistake of asking if she has a guess as to how big she is and she tells me AT LEAST as big as DS was (8lb 6oz). I had been hoping for a smaller baby! The anesthesiologist then moves in to do his job and this is where the trouble begins.
Apparently I have a really vascular back so he had a really hard time. Does it once and when he pulls the needle out he gets blood so has to redo it. Not to mention he had to draw out once to renumb because he hit some sore spots. He replaces it and gets blood again. Finally the third time is the charm or so we think. My left side is more numb than the right so they have me lay slightly on my right side to help it and he leaves. I settle in to sleep and wake up 2 hours later feeling super strong contractions again so they call him up and he decides to come back with some lidocaine and another full kit because he thinks there is a problem. He hits me with the lidocaine and my jaw instantly goes numb and my ears start ringing. Then Maddi’s heart rate jumps to 200 and then drops to 49 and my blood pressure drops to 80/43. They roll me on my left side and give me oxygen and things start to straighten out. I am crying hysterically at this point because I want her out and OK and am terrified something is going to go wrong. Jeremy is trying to calm me down but later tells me he was just as scared.
Anesthesiologist tells me he wants to take out Epi 1 and put in a new one and though I don’t want to go through the process again I agree. In goes another Epi and thankfully it goes in the first time and begins to work like a charm. Right around 6:30 pm my nurse comes in to check me and tells me that I am at a 9+. I tell her that is what I delivered my son at because I never went to a 10 so she tells me she is going to call the doctor and let her know we are close. She walks out and just 2 minutes later another nurse walks in a tells me that she is going to check me because nurse 1 has the doctor on the phone and she wants an update. She checks me and I made it to a 10! Whoo hoo! She asks if I want to practice push until the doctor gets there and I tell her that I want to wait until I get the urge. Around 15 minutes later I tell Jeremy to get the nurse because I am feeling MAJOR pressure. Within a couple of minutes the nurses and doctor are in and tell me to push through a contraction. As soon as that one was over they scramble to break down the bed. 2 contractions and 8 minutes later Madelinn Grace makes her appearance and 8lb and 11oz and 21” long with apgars of 5 and 8.
She ended up having shoulder dystocia so I am glad that they induced because I would have guaranteed a c-section had I let her grow any more. As it was I had a nurse putting all her weight on me to help push her shoulders out. They thought they may have broken her collar bone but thankfully the xrays the next day showed that was not the case. She also had a bowel movement right before I started pushing so Jeremy didn’t get to cut the cord which was kind of sad. They hurried up and took her to the warmer to suction her out. All I remember asking is why she wasn’t crying and then remembered that they needed her to not cry and inhale anything.
Sorry this got so long! I don’t know how my professors can stand to read my papers because I think I am TOO thorough sometimes. So if you made it this far thanks for reading!
1 comment:
Great birth story! (Late) congratulations!
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