My Birth Story!

Lilly Michelle

Born: March 9, 2013 @ 11:28 p.m.
5 lbs. 14 oz.
19 3/4 inches long

 

I started with contractions earlier that week at 6 a.m. I called the office and they said to sit with my feet up and drink water and do a kick and contraction count for an hour and call back. After the hour I measured my contractions to be about 3-5 minutes apart so the nurse said to go into the office. After going in, the contractions were 3 min apart like clockwork, and I was obviously in pain. They checked me and said I was only 1 cm dilated. The doctor sent me home to labor at home with some ambien to sleep. I had a feeling no one believed me.

 

The next couple of days were fuzzy so I am going to have to wing it...

 

One day we went into L&D in the afternoon. After monitoring and finding out I was definitely having contractions, the doctors checked me and I was still only 1 cm... I burst into tears from being so exhausted and being told "it's gonna be a rough couple of week" about 10 times. They the doctors decided to give me "therapeutic rest" since I was so tired... I was admitted to L&D in a room and was given morphine and phenergrin (sp?). I slept for about 6 hours while Eric hung out in the L&D "hotel suite" we called it. Beautiful room! It was a very calming and relaxing day and we both said it was a very good day... even though we spent it in the hospital.

The next day we went in at 1:30 am but can't for the life of me remember wth happened. Sigh mommy brain. Basically another "these are mild, you aren't in labor cause you aren't dilating, go home and put your feet up and drink water, yadda yadda yadda... here's some ambien go to bed."

 

After contracting all day... I went in again... the medicine they gave me the day before had done nothing. My actual OB was on call that day and she came in to chat. She said she was very worried about me because I was only having Braxton Hicks contractions and they were VERY mild... she didn't doubt that I was in pain and was feeling them as much as I was, but she was super worried that when I did feel those actual 8 or 9 pain level contractions, I would pass out and make the birth an emergency situation. I was so tired I didn't know what to do I just wanted the pain to stop. I didn't want her to come out but I knew for a fact there was no way i'd make it with this pain to my due date... She said she could not induce me because if something was wrong with my baby, it would be malpractice. She couldn't do a c-section until atleast 39 weeks. She seemed very concerned. She gave me a shot of turboline (sp?) to stop my contractions and more of that wonderful phenagrin to help with the pain and to sleep. I went home feeling okay...

 

At about 10 pm that night the contractions started again... I had hubby make me blueberry pancakes :oP I tried to sleep and it wasn't happening. Knowing hubby had to wake up early and pick up his k9 the next day, I didn't want to bother him... I took a bath at midnight... and 3 am... 6 am... Nothing helped. I paced the halls moaning and holding my belly KNOWING that this wasn't right... but I knew no one could take me in that day... or would since I was still being told the same thing. Hubby left around 9:30 am and my family came for about 10:30. They seemed thoroughly surprised at my state... I don't think anyone really knew how bad it was. They were very helpful. My mom started making corned beef and cabbage and my dad helped clean the house. My sister tended to me... They tried to get me to eat Gatorade and a muffin but I wanted nothing about it... I tried laying down to sleep but the contractions were horrible. BH MY ASS!!! Suddenly I didn't feel good, ran to the bathroom, and threw up my insides into the toilet. I was pumped cause I KNEW someone would take me to L&D now! I jumped into the bathroom and screamed for someone to come clean it up and start the car. I was done... DONE! "maybe we should wait a little while?" *death stare* "RON! STart the car!" lol... and in we rolled....

 

Got to L&D and saw the sympathetic faces... I was now hanging out with the people I met the first day I went in. They didn't even hook me up to a monitor since I couldn't even sit and they knew it was probably crap. They just laid me down to check me and BAM 4 cm!!! I burst into tears and asked "Are you going to take her out?! Is this going to be over soon??" They said "well, you are going to push her out but yes she will be out today". HALLELUJAH!!! My mom went out to call the family and hubby and I got wheeled up to my room and admitted.

 

They pumped me with an IV right away and two meds... Phenagrin maybe? And something else. IDK... then hubby arrived shortly after. I was checked a lil bit after that and I was 5 cm. They were happy I was progressing. They broke my water (SO WEIRD!) and then called the anesthesiologist. He came down a lil while later and had my sit up for my epi. As I sat up, the rest of my water came out... on the poor trainee :o/ Boo! Then it was all gravy for a few hours. My family visited to come wait for the baby and said hi, I couldn't feel a thing. I guess my contractions were pretty high up there but I hadn't a clue... Eventually they had to put the electrode into Lilly's head through my nether regions and the monitor stopped measuring my contractions. They dosed me with Pitocin twice but i'm beginning to think it was the computers fault.

 

Going on 9 pm I felt my body starting to convulse and I knew it was time to push... I started pushing my magic epi button to amp up production and began to push.... it was just me, hubby, a nurse, and a trainee. She was from another floor and looking to start in L&D. She was great. She had one leg and hubby had another and I pushed for a while, then they gave me a bar and a sheet and I pushed with that... they wanted me to squat but that wasn't happening, we went back to the legs. Since the monitor wasn't measuring my contractions, I had to go by the pressure I was feeling down below... and then they would feel my belly and confirm the contraction and I would push. 3 pushes for 10 seconds each, per contraction. I pushed for 2 & 1/2 hrs. LORD. At the end of pushing I kept hearing "one more push! one more push!"... I was completely exhausted and began to give up but hubby was GREAT encouragement and kept me going. I couldn't have done it without him. I pushed out her head and hubby said it looked like a potato! Not the typical cone. He was freaked out. She came out with her hands by her face... and ended up very very bruised. Then her body got stuck and my doc went "oh shit"... grabbed the scissors and snip snip down to my bum to get her out. I heard it but I didn't feel a thing. Pure adrenaline. Her cord was only like a foot long! Doc said she needed to clamp and cut it right away so hubby didn't get to cut the cord but the doc kept saying "she looks great, good job" even though she didn't make a sound. She was cleaned up and I heard that blissful cry and all was well...

 

Then my epi wore off I swear... out came my placenta and then I got stitched up. IMO, the stitching was way worse than the birth. I was cut all the way down and tore all the way up. Nightmare. That was done and I got to hold my lil baby girl. She was so sweet! We did skin-to-skin right away and even tried BF... she did good! Everything measured great. We had her for 12 hours in our room... the next morning her blood sugar measured low... She needed to be a 45 and she was a 41... they wanted to formula feed and I said no I wanted to try to raise it through my breast milk and the new nurse was helpful with that... then I BF her and she was a 41... then we gave her pumped colostrum in a syringe and she was 41... then we gave her formula in a syringe and she was 39 (ha! BM wins! kinda lol) so they had to take her to the NICU.

 

She was under the warmer bed in there with an IV in her foot (since her hands were too bruised to do an IV) for a while... they put her in a regular bed after that and began weaning her IV and she did great! By the next morning she was off... then the jaundice came and she had to do 24 hours under the bilirubin lights. That was hard to watch because she loved snuggly blankets to much and had to take them all off :o( After that she wasn't peeing enough so we had to make sure she was making enough wet diapers... The next day we went home! It has been an interesting ride since then <3 I never knew how much you can love a little being! I keep saying... "why the hell didn't we do this sooner?" <3 my Lil Lillybear!