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Happy 5th Birthday!
By nottryingforaboy | April 1, 2008
(Please continue to keep my mom in your thoughts and prayers.)
My first baby turns 5 today. I can’t believe it has been that long already. Let’s celebrate with the story of her birth. (Or if you want to skip it, you can just admire her pictures after the story.)
At an ultrasound at 37 weeks, my baby measured to be 8 lbs 10oz if I were to give birth that day. I was also fighting off pre-eclampsia so my doctor scheduled an induction for 39 week exactly. We arrived to the hospital at 11:45 am on March 31st. I was not dilated or effaced at all and my doctor warned me that the baby probably wouldn’t come until April 1st.
March 31-
2:00 pm - Had an EASi catheter put in to induce and dilate my cervix. It didn’t hurt at all. They also started a slow drip of Pitocin. We waited around all day with me stuck to the bed because of the catheter. Luckily we brought movies with us and were somewhat distracted. I did not feel any contractions and on the monitor they were very small.
8:30 pm - The catheter is removed and my cervix is dilated 4 - 5 cm. I was amazed. So was the resident who took it out. She thought things would be happening very quickly. I was so excited. My water is broken which felt really weird. they slowly increase the Pitocin. Now that the catheter was out, I was allowed to go walk around. I still wasn’t feeling contractions so LushMan and I went walking through the lobby of the women’s hospital. We saw a class full of pregnant people walk by and of course they were all staring at me. I heard one say “She looks so calm”, but I wasn’t in any pain.
April 1
1:00 am - I decieded to get an epidural because every time they checked me, I was still at 4-5cm. I was making no progress on the pitocin and I was exhausted. I am a light sleeper and was completely unable to sleep with them coming in every half hour to increase and then decrease the pitocin. They did that because it makes labor jump start. I get an internal contraction monitor sometime during the night as well in case the abdominal one isn’t reading my contractions right.
7:00 am - After a night of no sleep and moving the Pitocin up and down my cervix is still 4-5 cm dilated. My doctor arrives and said that we should have a c-section. I was prepared for this because first, they thought the baby was breech (it wasn’t via u/s) and second since it was so big (they were guessing 10 lbs) I could have chosen an elective one. I thought whatever was best for the baby and was just happy I was going to meet my baby soon.
7:15 am - The C-Section epidural dosage is administered causing my whole body to tense up. Every muscle in my body felt stiff and ached like I had been exercising for a week straight. That went away after 10 mins or so with my doctor and the anesthesiologist saying they have never seen anything like that and since it passed, they chalked it up to nerves (I think, they never said).
7:30 am - I am wheeled in for her C-Section. The epidural is again increased with the same tensing result. I start bawling on the OR table from the pain and my doctor said “we are not doing the c-section now until we can figure out what is going on”. She also said that she has had people cry on the table before because they don’t want a section, not because they were in pain. They were talking about doing a general on me instead. Then they thought about a spinal.
7:45 am - I’m moved to an observation room and the epidural is removed and the pitocin is removed as well.
8:45 am - The contractions are strong again (naturally). I swore I was in transition on my own. My whole body was shaking and I was in a lot of pain. I was cold, then hot, nauseas. I was trying to breathe through the contractions. My OB had a meeting at 9am that she couldn’t miss. The nurse looked at my contaction monitor and gave me a narcotic. I didn’t want to take it and passed the first couple of offers but I was in a lot of pain. My doctor’s partner ended up being in the maternity ward and he came in to check me. I was still at 4-5 cm. In fact, he said I was only at 4. I wanted to cry. He could see I was in a lot of pain and I was exhausted (I never slept the night before) and asked if it was ok that he delivered the baby instead of waiting for my doctors meeting to be over. They decide to do a C-Section with a spinal for pain.
I am moved back in to the c-section room and the same anesthesiologist administers the spinal. It takes a while and I am having contraction upon contraction during it. To distract myself, I tell the OB that since I’m having an April Fool baby, I hope the fool is on the doctors and the baby will not be the 10 lbs they think. But I realize the fool is on me with all the problems.
10:09 am - My little girl is born weighing 8 lbs 7 oz. 20.5″ long. I guess the fool was on all of us. Yes, that’s 10, 9, 8, 7. She knew already that my memory sucks and made it very easy for me.
In recovery, the anethesiologist said that he thinks what happened was that I have a small epidural space and that trying to increase the amount of meds already in that space caused other areas of my spine to be affected. I can have an epidural in the future (no thank you, didn’t even want one this time) but the meds have to be administered slowly.
Newborn:
First Birthday
Second Birthday:
Third Birthday:
4th Birthday:
5th Birthday:
Topics: family |
April 1st, 2008 at 10:10 am
Happy Birthday! What a cutie and what a birth story! That’s pretty tough for your first . . . amazing that we do it again after something like that!
April 1st, 2008 at 11:28 am
I love birth stories. Thanks for sharing. I am still praying for you and your mother. Happy birthday!
April 1st, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Happy Birthday! Thank you for sharing this story.