Madeline Grace 1/27/10

KtKuKi · #1 February 9th, 2010, 09:08 PM

I finally feel like I can sit at my computer and write this out. I've been feeling so sick, there was no way I could stare at the screen for more than 5 minutes. So here it is....

First off, I'd like to mention that I REALLY wanted a completely natural med free birth. This is the "way" my family has always done it, and I wanted this too.

Monday 1/26, I started feeling different in the evening. More crampy and uncomfortable. Ron and I went to bed around 11pm. He passed out, but I kept getting up to use the bathroom every 10 minutes. I started losing my mucous plug, and was feeling anxious that something was going to finally happen. Around 11:30pm I started having contractions. At 12am I started timing them. They were every 3 minutes, but only lasting about 30 seconds. They were painful, but not unbearable. I tried to sleep, but was anxious, and the contractions hurt more so I couldn't. I bounced on my ball, walked around and tried to stay busy. Around 2:30 I woke up Ron. I told him I was pretty sure I was in labor. He just had this huge smile on his face. It was pretty cute! He sat up with me for about a half hour, but I told him he should probably rest up, and he was out in 10 seconds. I continued timing, they were still 3 minutes apart, but were varying between 40-55 seconds. At 4am I called my mom to see what she thought. She said they weren't lasting long enough, and that I should wait till they were a minute long. I got on JM and everyone encouraged me to go to the hospital, but I decided to hold off a little. Ron woke up at 5 as well and started cleaning the house and getting things together so we could leave. I took a shower, which helped a little, but the contractions were still coming. At 10am I called my dr, I was supposed to go in at noon, so I wanted to see where she wanted me to go. She said go to the L&D.

We took our time getting ready to go. The contractions were more consistently 45 seconds long, every 2 1/2-3 minutes, but bearable. We got to the hospital around 12:30pm. As we walked in, my contractions seemed to let up. I had a fear we might be going home afterall. They hooked me up, and I was having contractions just like I'd thought. My dr came in to check me at 1pm. I was 4cm and 90% effaced and with bulging water. I was thrilled with this! She said she'd see me by the end of the evening for the delivery, and left. I had an awesome nurse, who was super supportive of natural birth. I walked around the room during contractions. My labor was all in my back, so during each contraction, Ron would rub my lower back really hard. It made them almost bearable. My nurse said I could be checked whenever I felt like it, so at 4pm, I decided to be checked. She asked what I was hoping for, and I said any progress! I was almost a 7! I couldn't believe it. The labor was hard, but I was handling the pain, and feeling very excited about my progress. I decided to get in the bath, just to relax for a while. It slowed my contractions, but it was nice to just sit and be comfortable. After I got out, the contractions felt a little stronger, so at 6pm I asked to be checked again. I was 8.5 cm! Holy cow! I was ecstatic. My nurse was going on and on about how amazing I was, and that they should make a movie about me and how labor should go. She said I was the best natural birth patient she'd ever had. She brought in all the delivery equipment b/c she said I'd be delivering very soon. At 7pm a new nurse came in and she checked me. I was still an 8.5, so I decided to have my water broken. An in house dr does stuff like that, so we were waiting on her. It was pretty annoying b/c she didn't show up until 9pm! She broke my water, and then I was checked again at 9:30. I was an 8! I was so upset. They said my water was bulging so much that it probably had pushed my cervix open a little more, and now it was gone, so I shrunk back.

I took this as a sign that I needed to walk around more, so that is what I did. My mom and sister were in the room as well, and had me trying all different positions for the contractions. This whole time I am still having them every 3 minutes, and lasting for only 55 seconds (and my mom wanted me to wait to go in till they were a whole minute, yikes!) At 10:30, I was sure I'd made progress and asked to be checked. Still an 8

My nurse came back and said my dr wanted to start me on pitocin. I did NOT want this. I asked her to give me till 12am to move around on my own. She agreed, so I got moving. At this point I was hurting a lot. My back was raw from all the massaging, but it was the only thing that would get me through the pain. Also, from being on my feet pretty much nonstop for 24 hours, my legs would shake constantly. I was checked at midnight. Still an 8. I was devastated. I thought for sure I'd have progress. The nurse said the dr was really pushing the pitocin. Again, I was able to push it off till 2am, but agreed that if I had made NO progress, I would start it at 2am. Here is where I really started having problems. I had been awake for 41 hours straight, and was exhausted. When I would lay down, my contractions would slow down to 5 minutes apart, so all I wanted to do was lay down and sleep between them. I did that for an hour then got up and moved around for the next hour. The pain was getting to be horrific. I started throwing up, which gave me some hope that I was progressing and going through transition. At 2am, it was time to get checked. I was still an 8. I was so upset. I couldn't understand why my body was not progressing. My bottom was so tense with every contraction, that I just could not relax. I agreed to the pitocin, but I was terrified. The contractions were horrible as it was and I couldn't imagine going through another minute. At 2:30am I lost it. I started crying and I told my mom not to hate me, but that I needed an epidural. She was very reassuring and told me she understood. I had no idea what to expect with an epidural. It was nothing like how they show on the baby story shows. It took an hour to place it. The dr couldn't find the right place, and at one point it felt like an electric shock went up my leg. At 3:30 I was finally feeling ok. They told me to sleep a little and they'd check me in the morning. At 7 am the nurse checked me. I was 100% effaced and 10cm. I was so HAPPY! The baby still needed to drop some more, so they said they'd give her some time to do that. My dr came in at 8:45am. She was heading to a c-section, but said I could start pushing at 9am. This is when my sister decides to tell me she pushed for 4 hours! OH NO!
At this point, I started feeling the contractions again. At first it wasn�t bad, but then they got worse. I was feeling tons of pressure in my bottom. The nurses told me to push the little �extra epi� button, but I wanted to feel the urge to push. I had been told my baby est. weight was 8lbs 13oz, so I knew if I had trouble pushing, the dr would want me to get a c-section, and I did NOT want that. My nurse asked if I�d taken a birthing class, and I said no, so she told me that when I felt the contraction peaking, to take a deep breath and push for 10 seconds, rest for 1 second, push for 10 seconds, rest for 1, and push for another 10. We started at9am. She called this practice pushing, but it felt real to me! 10 seconds was WAY too long to push, especially 3 times in a row. I pushed through 3 contractions, with the nurse glaring at me the whole time. My family was there and luckily they were very supportive. After 3 contractions the nurse told me to �rest�. HA! Rest? Every contraction all I wanted to do was push. I decided I didn�t really care, and started pushing a little with every contraction. My mom and sister could see her head! At this point, the nurse started to get worried, and called in the in house dr. Oh, I also had mentioned the nurse might just have to deliver the baby because I needed to push, and she said she was capable, but she�d have to fill out an incident report if that happened, and she didn�t want to do the paperwork. Man I hated her! So at the last minute, my dr came running down the hall. I pushed through one more contraction, then I noticed her getting scissors to cut me, and then she said �push, push, now�. It was not a contraction, so I thought something might be wrong. I pushed hard, and there she was! Her cord was wrapped around her neck twice, around her belly once, and had a knot in it. I guess this was the cause of the urgency to push. They put her on me for a second or two, and all I could see was her bloody blue head. Then they took her away. I could barely see her through the rails on my hospital bed, so that was really frustrating, but my sister ran over and took a bunch of pics of her, then came over and showed them to me while I got stitched up, so that helped a little. Her apgars were 7/9. Her heartrate was really fast, and they said she was pale, but she got color back pretty quick. She also had a temperature which they said was really weird, b/c I didn�t have one. Of course b/c of her mildly high temp they had to take her away which really sucked. I was still exhausted, so I slept while I waited for her to come back. They had to test her blood, since I had the Rh thing, and she�s A+ and I�m O-, I guess this can cause jaundice, which of course she ended up with, so they put her on the billibed, which meant we could only hold her to feed her. It was horrible! Later I found out her level only got up to 11.5, which they told me was bad, but after doing some research, I found out its not bad at all. They made us go home with the bed, then later I found out there�s a blanket you can get that you can hold them in. I was pretty mad about that. But she�s off the bed, and healthy as can be. She weighed 7lbs 7oz, 21 in, born at 9:30am, after 34 hours of labor, and about 20 minutes of pushing.