Sorry this is sooooo overdue, but I just FINALLY found some time to type it up...
As some of you know, I was originally scheduled to be induced on Thursday 10/22/09 beginning at 6pm that evening, due to blood pressure complications I'd been having throughout the pregnancy. Well, our little miss had her own plans apparently. Around 12:30AM Wednesday morning (10/21) after relaxing and watching TV and getting ready for bed, my water broke. At that point, I wasn't feeling any hard contractions, but I called the doctor on call and he asked me to come into the hospital. I asked him if it was okay to shower first since I knew it would be quite awhile until I would be able shower again.
Around 2AM, we made it into the hospital and I was getting more uncomfortable, but still not feeling hard contractions. They put me into a Triage room to confirm that my water did indeed break. At that point, I was only about 1cm dilated and 75% effaced, so they figured it would be quite some time before delivery, but informed me that since my water was broken it "starts the clock ticking" and they like to deliver within 24 hours to minimize the risk of infection to the baby.
After Triage, I was moved in a Labor & Delivery room to try and get some rest for the night and let my body continue to labor on it's own. The doctor kept checking me every hour or so and by 8am, decided that I hadn't progressed enough (still only 1cm dilated, but 100% effaced) and that our best bet was to start Pitocin. The Pitocin was started around 9am and they kept increasing the amount every 30 minutes. Unfortunately, they kept loosing the baby's heartrate with the external monitor, so they had to insert an internal monitor which meant I was not able to labor in the tub like I had hoped. The contractions kept getting stronger throughout the day into the evening and I finally asked for some Nubain to lessen the pain. Unfortunately, the Nubain did very little to ease the pain and I finally asked for an epidural quite late into the process (I believe around 8 or 9pm??). At this point, I still had not progressed very much, only about 4cm and they hoped that once I had the epidural, my body would relax a little and dilate a bit quicker since the 24 hours were coming up quickly.
Around 11:30pm, my own OB/GYN came in and checked me. Even after all that time, I was only dilated to 5cm. She became a little concerned that we were quickly going to reach our 24 hour window and while the baby was head down, she was sideways. She gave us the option of laboring for a few more hours or going ahead with a C-section. She personally felt that even with laboring a few more hours, the baby would still have to be delivered via C-Section. After much consideration, Justin and I decided to go ahead with the C-section.
They began to prep immediately. Even though I had already had an epidural, I asked for a spinal block as well since I was told that it would give better pain control after the surgery was completed. I was wheeled into the OR and they began. For the most part, things went smoothly, but I felt incredibly nauseous throughout the surgery, though I never did throw up. Mari was born 12:18am on Thursday 10/22/09 with Apgars of 8 and 9. They had a NICU team standing by to exam her because my water had broken so long ago. Luckily, everything looked great and she spent quite a bit of time with Justin as they were sewing me up. They ran into some slight complications since my uterus apparently would not contract easily, so it took them longer than usual.
Coming out of recovery was quite an ordeal since the epidural and spinal led to a lot of shivering/shaking on my part so I wasn't able to hold Mari until about 2 hours after she was born. Around 4am, we were finally wheeled up to our room on the Mom & Baby floor. The rest of our time in the hospital was quite eventful as well with Mari having difficulties initially nursing, being jaundiced and needing to be under the lights, and my blood pressure skyrocketing and the doctor's afraid that I would have a stroke. We were finally released from the hospital late Monday evening (10/26) after having been in the hospital since early Wednesday morning.
Luckily, nearly 7 weeks later...things are going MUCH better...
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Mari's Birth Story (long and way overdue!)
Thanks for sharing, Tina. I am so glad to see new pics of Miss Mari--she is beautiful!
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