LTMama birth story (sorry so late!)

LTMama · August 2014

Hello, lovelies! Sorry this is so late, but I wanted to share my/Faris' birth story with you all, and thank you for all of the wonderful, wonderful support and love you showed me through this stressful process. I wasn't posting but I was peeking in, and your good wishes really helped encourage me through it.

So, the story! Saturday evening, 8/9, DD and I were hanging out at mom's house and I was lying down, when I felt what I thought might be a small gush of fluid. I couldn't tell if I had peed a little or if my water had broken, so after checking, I got up to go lie back down. Then, water started running down my legs, and kept gushing every time I stood up or sat down. Doc said to come in, and since I wasn't having any contractions, she'd probably put me on pitocin (at that point I was 34w2d so she said baby should just come). I kept having gushes for hours - it was almost comical how much fluid came out of me. The nurse said that since DS was still relatively high, his head wasn't keeping the fluid from coming out.

By the time we got to the hospital, I was having some contractions, so we didn't do pitocin. I was still only 1cm dilated, same as I had been on Monday, so no progress there. Contractions were about 4 mins apart, so we settled down to wait. After an hour or so they offered me an epidural, since the contractions were pretty painful. Got my epi, which was nice, but it didn't numb me the way my epi with DD had - my legs were tingly but I could still feel and move them. Anyway.

Through the night, I progressed to 4cm then stalled out, and contractions stayed around 3-4 mins apart. By morning, my doc ordered a very low dose of pitocin to try to get things moving. During this whole time, it became apparent that my epi wasn't really working. I had an hour or two of less pain in the middle of the night, but even with the anesthesiologist dosing me again, I was still feeling my contractions pretty badly.

So, right after the nurse confirmed I was still 4cm and hooked up the pitocin (she said it would take about 30 mins to work), I suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to push. She checked me and I was 10cm, so she called the doc and we got ready to do it. The cx were coming much faster at this point, and were super painful and it was almost impossible not to push. I started pushing before the doc was ready, but it was ok

According to DH, it was about 3 mins later that little Faris popped out. He came out screaming, and I got to hold my sticky, gooey, beautiful baby right away

(I didn't get to hold DD right after she was born, so this was a big deal to me). And after pulsing the cord, DH got to cut it. So, despite never planning on having a relatively med-free birth and not being prepared for it, I got through it ok! Born at 5:58am on Sunday, 8/10, little man was 6lb, 4oz, and 19.75 inches long.

It was a wonderful birth experience. My little guy spent 8 days in the NICU with normal preemie stuff - keeping his body temp up and some jaundice, mainly, and he came home yesterday. We're loving having our family all together, and DD is being a wonderful big sister.

A pic of my little man (not sure why it's flipped):