[doxie2]

My due date was May 10th. The morning of May 9th, I awoke to really strong contractions. I went back to sleep, expecting to wake up in the morning in full labor. To my surprise, I woke up to nothing.

We went to the dr on the 10th for our 40 wk appt. The u/s and NST looked good, and the dr expected labor in the next day or two. She instructed us to go to the hospital ASAP if I get contractions like the prior night. Well, the 10th and 11th brought no contractions but a significant bloody show. The evening of the 11th I went to bed with contractions about 6 minutes apart, but much stronger than anything I'd felt before. I woke up many times during the night, but had a hard time sleeping because of the intensity of the contractions and sensing this was the real thing.

At 3 am, I woke up DH and told him I was getting up to count/monitor my contractions. He said no way, the dr said just to come in. I took a shower and gathered our bags and went to the hospital. I was 3-4 cm and 100% effaced with contractions 5 min apart lasting one minute. The triage nurse felt like sending me walking around the hospital was the most appropriate measure. Then, as she prepared to call my dr, I had a really strong contraction and the baby's heart rate responded poorly. Immediately my dr admitted me and they started me on oxygen.

OMG, I was kind of freaking out! I actually wanted to go walking! I got up to L&D and a few hours later they decided to break my water because labor wasn't really progressing. Within another hour or so, we started pitocin. It turns out, I probably wasn't in true labor when I arrived, but because I was 40+ wks and the baby's heart rate was questionable, my drs felt it was best to proceed and augnment labor as necessary.

I spent most of the day on oxygen and with painful contractions. At about 6 cm, I decided to get a walking epi. By about 8 cm, I got the full epi. My labor picked up toward the end, after about 18 hours. Next thing we know it was time to push! We waited a bit at 10 cm for the epi to wear down and for the pitocin to crank up as I was having trouble feeling the urge to push. Finally I started pushing, and pushed for a good 2 hours. After an hour, things were not progressing. The baby was not descending properly. We tried every position, pulling/pushing on the baby, but saw no results. After an hour and a half, the dr advised that I would likely need a c-section. This was at 1 am or so after 21 hours of labor. I was devastated and cried. I had never envisioned having a c-section!

I decided to keep pushing as the dr said I could push for up to 4 hours before having the c-section. However, it was obvious really quickly that we were going no where. His head was swelling and the birth canal was swelling, essentially locking him in place. He was stuck on my pelvic bone but they could not get him out. His heart rate was not responding well, so I was on oxygen again. I was so upset, but with no epi left, I decided to quit. The dr said it was impossible for me to deliver him.

So, off we went to the OR. Because I had been pushing for hours, the first step was to try to push him back up in order to get him out. Then, they proceeded with the c-section. The dr still had trouble getting him out - he was still stuck in my pelvis! They administered some extra medication to relax the uterus and got him out. I was initially told it would take about 5 minutes to get him out. It took at least twice that long, but finally I heard him crying. I cried too! He was born at 4:04 AM, about 24 hrs after we arrived at the hospital. I was tired and mentally drained, but could not be happier to finally hold my little guy!

[survey77777]

Awww...what a sweetie. I'm too close to my own delivery to comment much more than that, but I'm glad that you're all happy and healthy now.

[Banned-Wehadamoment]

He is so adorable Adele!!