Tobias Arrived! Birth Story (Long)

Arinias · May 2014

Short Version:
Contractions started Friday afternoon, went to hospital a little after 9am saturday, was admitted and had waters broken around 11ish. Slow progression through the night, received phentonol, then an epi and pitocin. Not much progress on pushing, they thought his head was turned, I also had a fever so ended with a C section. LO arrived at 9:58am on Sunday.

Long Version:
So last Friday, at 40+2 I went into work as normal. I spent the morning preparing diets for the animals and was experiencing cramps throughout. Eventually I started timing them, By 2:15 they were consistently 7-8 minutes apart and I was beginning to think I was actually having contractions instead of just cramps. I finally called my Doctor's office and was told to keep an eye on it and if they started getting closer together or more intense to go in. I kept working until about 6:30 when they had seemed to be about 4 1/2 minutes about, I called my back up in and went home around 7 to time them, they dropped back to 7-8 minutes apart. This continued throughout the night. I finally called around 3am because they had been at 5 minutes apart for an hour and was told to wait another hour to see if they stayed consistent before going in. They of course went back to 7-8. They were definitely getting stronger but still bearable. From 7am-9am they stayed consistently around 5 minutes apart so we called and finally went in. I really hadn't slept much all night. Of course when I got there and into triage they went back down to 7 minutes apart so they had me walked the halls for an hour before rechecking. The first check I was a 4, which was up one cm from my appointment on Wednesday. I made it up to a 5 but she had expected more progress. She offered to let me go home, or said I could get checked in to L&D and have my waters broken since I had already had contractions all night. We went with that and got into our room. After my bag of waters was broken I did not progress well. Contractions continued to get more intense, but I stayed dilated to a 6 for hours. I had originally wanted an all natural birth but went in with the mentality if I ended up needing drugs or getting an epi, especially for a very long labor or if I needed pitocin, I was not going to beat myself up about it. I labored for a while in the whirpool tub which was great, I only got out when I got overheated. I also really liked the birthing ball, I think sitting on that was the most comfortable for me, but I was also exhausted and the bed was easier for in between contractions.I finally tried some phentonal (sp?), it let me rest a little bit, but contractions were still pretty intense. I am surprised I did not break poor DHs hand. Eventually I decided to go for an epidural, because I was so exhausted and still dilated only to a 6 though I had thinned out more. I am not sure on the times when I got these, it had been hours of laboring first. The epi went well, was less painful to get then I expected. I could still feel and move my right leg, but the pain was gone. I dozed a little. I continued to make slow progress, but finally made it to a ten by around 7am. However, at this point my epi was wearing off, I still was not in pain from the contractions although I could feel them coming, but I could feel my legs and move them a bit. I also had developed a pain along the left side of my back. They thought this was from his position, and while I told myself it was better than the contractions it was really awful. I also had come down with a fever in the lat couple hours and could not stop shaking. I was so exhausted and pretty darn miserable. Twice during the last couple hours we experienced two decelerations in baby's heart rate, one lasting four minutes and one seven, both occuring whern they tried to turn me. It was a scary few minutes, I had to be put on oxygen and I felt like there were a million people running around. He stabilized both times though and we kept going. The only good thing about going through the night was the nurse I started with came back on shift at 7am and she was absolutely amazing. They let me progress a little further and we started pushing around 7:45. I pushed for about an hour before we took a break. He had progress a tiny bit but not very well in this time. The nurse thought his head was turned to the side. Before we went further she waited until the Dr. could check me but she mentioned we may have to consider a cesarean. When the Dr. came in she told me she agreed his head was turned. She also said although she was allf or vaginal births because they were much better for you and baby, and of course less risks, but she thought I could continue pushing for another three hours and not make any more progress. They were also concerned about my fever, and at this point I had been laboring for over 20 hours. So I agreed to have a C-section. I cried, despite trying hard not to, I was a big old jumble of nerves and exhaustion. My Mother and DH had been with me the whole time but only DH could come to the operating room. Mom had been in the background mostly anyways with DH being and amazing support, but it had still been nice to know she was there. We were worried about DH not making it through the surgery since he does not do well with such things, but the nurses set up a chair for him and made it so he couldn't see any of the surgery. They made him wait outside while they got me ready and administered the medication. The anesthesiologist was so nice, I cried while he was going over the procedures and he was so reassuring. Once they had me prepped they brought DH in, I could feel what they were doing, but no pain. I had a nurse by my head telling me what was going on which I liked a lot. When DH came in he sat by my head and held my hand, he sat down and said "Hello, my name is Josh and I will be pretending to be your doctor" It made me smile and the nurses laughed. Unfortunately part way through when they warned me I would feel lots of pressure I also felt a good bit of pain. They upped my medication and gave me more meds through the epi. This helped but I could still feel a little pain in one spot. Finally Tobias John made his arrival at 9:58am sunday morning at 8 lbs 6 oz and 20.5 inches. I waited to hear his squeaky cry. DH cut the cord (I was so proud he didnt even get wobbly through the whole thing). Tobias did have a fever and had to go to Nicu but DH was able to bring him over to me all wrapped up, I got to touch his cheek and see his sweet face. Totally cried again. I was stitched up and had to wait two hours in recovery before I could go see him. Mom came to sit with me and DH came back up to tell me baby was doing well. I still had my same nurse and she was going over some recovery pointers with me. She had to squish down on my uterus several times to make sure I did not get blood clots built up, I had bleeding every time she squished and it was exceedingly painful. Finally I got to go see and hold my beautiful boy. We tried breast feeding even. He was wonderful and so worth everything we had been through. I stayed in the hospital until Wednesday evening, he will be there until Saturday night. It was hard because he had to stay in the nicu the whole time so we were going down there to feed and visit with him every three hours. Even now I have been spending most of my time there with him, luckily we live close to the hospital. He had to stay because he had two rounds of blood tests with an elevated white cell count, but his fever did not last. Poor munchkin had a spinal tap as well just to make sure there was no other signs of infection. Luckily results were normal other wise he would have had to be there 2-3 weeks instead of just 1. I am sorry that was long! I appreciate any one who took the time to read it

Thank you so much to everyone for all the support, I love being a part of this group and have learned so much from it. Love seeing everyone's babies arrive! Here a few pics of our little man.