Since Babycenter decided to get rid of their blogs I have to upload this here to save it.
Alexandra Elizabeth
Born 10-22-2011 at 8:07 am.
5lbs 15oz. 19 inches
(38 weeks)
My
birth story actually starts on Thursday the 20th. I had my 37 week
appointment with my midwife group. I had been planning to give birth at
the birth center with the midwives.
Thursday morning I had a
migraine headache but otherwise felt okay. I went to my midwife
appointment as planned. They took my urine sample and my blood
pressure. My blood pressure was high, in the 140s but I attributed it
to the headache. Also, they found protein in my urine. My midwife
Suzanne told me they wanted to do a 24 hour urine collection to be
sure. I took the two orange jugs home. I decided to call off from work
on Friday because I didn't know how I would be able to collect the
urine while at work, plus I wanted to rest. I was drinking a ton of
water but not peeing much. I barely filled half a jug in 24 hours.
I
went to my follow up visit on Friday. They were concerned about the
lack of urine in the bucket. They had me give another sample and found
protein again. They took my blood pressure and it was still high. My
midwife got serious and told me with the two high blood pressure
readings and the amount of protein in my urine, that I was too high of a
risk for the birth center, and that she was going to have to recommend
we got to the hospital. At first I thought she meant once I went into
labor, but she actually meant right then. I started crying immediately,
I was so upset that my plan of giving birth in a home like environment
without interventions was being squashed right then and there. I was
afraid I would become a victim of the cascade of interventions and wind
up with a c-section. She told us she would call the hospital and send
over my records, and have a doula contact us in case I wanted to use
one.
I cried all the way home. My husband and I decided to pack
one bag in case we were just sent to L&D for the night and then
released, and then pack another in case we had to stay for the long
haul. Unfortunately I had procrastinated and not packed a bag yet so I
forgot tons of stuff that would have come in handy. We live really
close to the hospital, so my husband would go back home and get the
bigger bag if it came to that.
We got to the hospital, checked
in with L&D. They put us in a room and had me put on a gown. The
doctor came in pretty soon and told me that because I was showing signs
of pre-eclampsia, and my pregnancy was considered full-term, the best
thing to do would be to induce labor. She checked me to see if I was
dilated, and then broke my water. That was some of the most pain I have
ever been in, by the way. I was dilated to 1 and my cervix was
somewhat effaced, so they went ahead and started me on an IV and a low
dose of pitocin.
I labored from about 6:00 pm to 2:00 am with no
drugs. My body did not make much progress, and the contractions
started to get really bad. I felt that because I was confined to the
bed, it was harder to handle them. If I could have changed positions,
walked around, etc, I would have been able to tolerate them and relieve
my pain. This is when I started to consider the epidural, I was afraid
of being numb, but at the same time, I didn't think I could wait to
dilate the rest of the way in this much pain. The nurse made things
worse by bringing in the anesthesiologist and offering it again. I
weighed my options, and decided to go for it. Having it placed wasn't
as bad as I had expected it to be and the relief was almost instant,
except for the shaking. Once the shaking was gone, the nurse asked me
how the last contraction was. I was happy to say I didn't even feel it.
I
was able to get some rest, even though the nurses came in to make me
switch sides every hour so that I would stay equally numb on both
sides. They told me to tell them when i started feeling pressure in my
bottom. I started feeling it a few hours in and they checked me and I
had progressed to a 6. I think the epidural helped me relax and allowed
my labor to progress faster in this case. The nurse made me wear an
oxygen mask, which was supposed to be good for both me and the baby, but
I found it annoying and just made my lips and mouth dry. After another
hour or too, I started feeling a lot more pressure and it was starting
to hurt, and I was trying to up my epidural to numb it out but it
wasn't working. I then started feeling like I needed to push. I told
the nurse and she told me not to push, just to breathe because she was
afraid I was pushing against a cervix that wasn't complete, but she
checked me and it was.
Then came the longest 45 minutes or so of
my life. Because I was completely dilated, they called the doctor to
get ready, and they let me push with the contractions. The nurse held
one leg, and my husband held the other. It felt good to push, and I
felt like i was making progress, but then they made me stop while we
waited for the doctor. However, my body wasn't going to listen, and it
was pushing whether I wanted it to or not. The nurses were afraid they
might have to catch the baby, because she was coming fast. The doctor
barely had time to set up the end of the bed before the head was
crowning. I remember feeling the ring of fire, but not caring because
the pushing contractions were so strong. I must have torn, because she
stitched me up, but I didn't think to ask about the severity.
The
baby came out pretty fast, one push for the head and one for the body.
She was gray and alien like, but they put her on the little table and
rubbed her and she started crying and didn't stop for at least 5
minutes. Her apgar scores were 8 and 9. She had to be tested for her
sugar level several times but it never went too low. We had a little
trouble with breastfeeding at first, but we have had luck with a nipple
shield and hopefully we can wean her off that at some point. We stayed
in the hospital until Monday the 24th. We love our little family!
