Here's how it happened:
On Feb 21st we went to a Mardi Gras parade and we had a LONG LONG walk back to the car around 2:30pm. I had a couple contractions, first in my LIFE and I commented to my Richard that wow, I think I had a real contraction!!!! But, no biggy, I was 37 weeks, 4 days, just thinking my body was behaving by doing a little something.
Around 4:30pm I notice a few more real contractions, so around 4:45, I decided to time them...for fun. With myself timing, I counted it at 4 minutes apart, but only lasting 30 seconds. Around 6pm, I called my doula. She seemed to think 30 seconds was a bit short, so maybe I was dehydrated from the parade and walking. She suggested a bath and ignoring the clock for a couple hours and to call her back around 9 or 10pm. Looking back, maybe the 30 seconds was only the most intense part, but not the whole contraction...how was I to know!!?!?!
So, I drank tons of water, took a bath, layed on the bed...and these contractions were not going away. Around 8pm, I started to time again, 3 minutes apart and lasting a minute!!!! I told Richard that this was getting too intense to be fake, let's call the doctor!!! I was ready and needed to go to the hospital to get settled in and start focusing for the long haul. The on call doc told me to go ahead and come in to be checked. (I told Richard that I was gonna be so mad if they turned me away as false labor..lol)
We also called my Brother in law, as he was coming to get Brookston. At 8:45pm we were standing in the living room making sure everything was packed and ready and "POP" my water broke!!! At that point I realized, THIS IS FOR REAL!!!!!!!! Yes, it took THIS to make me realize I was really in labor.
I arrived at the hospital at 9pm, and checked into the assessment center, I was between 5-6cm. I went straight up to labor and delivery and was already 7cm. By 9:30pm I was 10cm and ready to push! Holy cow that was fast!!!! And intense!!!! I couldn't believe it!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe I did almost ALL of my labor at home...and fast...me!?!?!?! No way!!!!!!
My instinct was totally kicking in and I just did what felt right and natural. Richard was an amazing birth coach. And my doula there to encourage me and support me was priceless. We did a lot of pushing and it was a lot of pain, but it was so empowering to feel it all and know my body was doing it's thing.
I pushed for about an hour and 30 minutes and my baby girl's head just would not come down (just like Brookston, she was sideways and not interested in making the rest of the turn down) and I was starting to get discouraged.
At this point, my OB gave me a suggestion, he said he could turn her head, but that he would really suggest an epi as it was literally him reaching up there and turning her!! He seemed confident that it would work. And the only reason I really wanted a natural birth was because it increased my chances for a VBAC...but she wasn't coming down and turning her gave me the change at my vbac...so I signed up, give me the epi...I want my baby!!!
So, I got an epi, and continued to push for 30-45 more minutes. In the end I got an episiotomy, agreed to forceps, and 2 nurses applying fundal pressure like crazy.....and out she came!!!! Phew! That was crazy intervention for a baby with a small head!!!!!
I GOT MY VBAC and that's all that mattered to me! I did not regret a thing and while and episiotomy is not fun, I birthed a baby and I did not get cut OPEN!!!!!
My baby girl is here, I'm so in love and I DID IT!!!!!!!!!!
The medical afterwards, short version, written Feb 26th (poss trigs):
She scored an 8 and 9 on apgars, but as Richard was holding her in his arms afterwards, he noticed her breathing wasn't right. This landed her with 5 hours of monitoring in the nursery. Which I was bummed about. After she joined us in our room, just 5 more hours later, I was going to nurse her and I noticed she was very unresponsive. I watched for her chest to rise and fall and when I didn't see movement I freaked as I saw blue lips!!!!! I ran out to the nurses station screaming help me, she's not breathing!!!! A nurse grabbed her and ran her down to the nursery with a code blue over the whole hospital intercom. I have never been so scared in my life!!!!! That was my baby they were talking about!!!!! Richard was down stairs at the time and his daddy instict must have known because he knew when he saw it was ME calling his cell phone, that code blue was his baby girl.
Luckily she started breathing on arrival to the nursery, but this gave her a minimum 48 hours stay in the NICU as they needed to monitor her. Luckily as of today, it hasn't happened again! She was found to have an infection, luckily a spinal tap (I was so not excited about this for my baby!!!!) showed it was not menengitis...thank GOD! But she was required to stay for 7 days in the NICU, both to be monitored and to allow for 7 days of antibiotics.
Going home without my baby girl was hard!!!! But, I know it's what's best for her. I want her to be healthy! I don't want to have regrets about rushing her home and something going wrong, so I know this is what's right, but it doesn't make it easy! It's also exhausting as I'm going up there about 5 times a day...but so worth it to see her! And luckily my parents are in town, so it helps to have someone to watch Brookston and not worry what to do and when to go!
The doctors expect her to come home Sunday and don't really see any reason why she can't...so we're really keeping our fingers crossed. I can't wait to have her home and start our family of 4!
No comments:
Post a Comment