Birth and PP story ~ very long
jkfranklin
member
I had my 39 week appointment on Monday, January 11th. I was a finger tip dilated and ?really effaced?. I wasn?t expecting much since my OB was being sent to California by the Army one day before my due date so I was sure that I wouldn?t go into labor early. I picked a different doctor in the practice and set up an appointment with him for the following Monday.
That night, DH and I had sex and I sat on the ball and rolled and bounced away. On Tuesday night I did the ball again and DH and I had sex again. We both thought something felt different and it wasn?t as enjoyable. I fell asleep early that night watching American Idol.
I woke up at 2:30 am Wednesday with a contraction. I said, ?son of a ***!? DH had just come to bed so he asked me what was going on. I said I just had a contraction. We didn?t have our bag packed so he asked if he should start packing. I told him that he should just wait until we are sure. I laid in bed for an hour and the contractions weren?t that bad. Then we got up and DH started packing our stuff. I started timing the contractions on the bump and they were very irregular but they were lasting about a minute each. I would have some about 4-5 minutes apart and then not have one for 14 minutes. They weren?t very painful and I was able to get a little sleep in between. DH did not. I think he was nervous. I logged on to work and sent a few emails and got some stuff together that I hadn?t finished and passed it on to my boss and coworker.
I took a shower around 9:30am and it started getting bad. I did not want to be standing up during the contractions. I wanted to be laying down. I finished getting ready and packing and we left for the hospital. We dropped the dog off at my parent?s house and they came running out to see me. My mom tried to touch me and I yelled at her. We made it to the hospital around 11am. I didn't lose my muscus plug or have a bloody show.
They checked me and I was 4cm so yeah!!! I was staying and my OB was going to deliver my baby! I asked for an epi right away and so they started an IV and went through all my history and questions and stuff. The anestheologist came in and put in the epi. It didn?t hurt at all and the relief was almost immediate. He did say that he couldn?t get the cathader in very far so I had to be careful not to pull it out when I rolled over. The nurse put in a foley cathader that came out right before I started pushing.
The nurse stayed in the room with me almost the whole time. I got kinda annoyed with that, but I guess they have to monitor you really close with the epi. Baby was doing good and so was I. We watched TV and waited.
I was at about 5-6cm and they called my OB and he was going to come break my water. He showed up around 4pm and I was 6cm. He broke my water. Right before this I got a new nurse who was older. Once my water was broke, she made me turn on my side. I didn?t want to because I was comfortable on my back semi reclined but she insisted. That was when it all went down hill. I started feeling pain again and it was really bad. The nurse told me that it was just pressure from the head moving down. It didn?t feel like pressure, it was like the pain I was feeling before the epi. The nurse called the anestheologist and he said there wasn?t anything he could do. She told me to turn on my other side and when I did she found that the epi and come disconnected from the medicine on the IV pole. Gee, no wonder I was in so much pain! She called the anestheologist again and he gave me a little more medicine. At this point, it didn?t help at all. I started feeling the urge to push and the nurse checked me and I still had a little lip left so she said not to push. I really couldn?t help it. I tried really hard, but I would push a little bit with each contraction. Finally she said to just let my body do what it wanted so I could push.
She called my doctor and he came in and I started really pushing. DH had one leg and a resident held the other. I pushed for almost 2 ? hours. My contractions were not very strong so I was basically pushing on my own with no help from the contractions. At one point the bp cuff, which went off every 15 minutes, filled up and did not let the air out. I was trying to push out a baby and my hand was numb. I looked down and it was purple. It was very distracting and painful. They started some pitocin to help with the contractions. I was getting really tired and I finally heard them suctioning him out. They told me to push some more and I said that I couldn?t. They told me I had to and I pushed real hard and all of a sudden I felt something warm on my tummy and I heard my little man screaming. I don?t know why but I was really surprised at how warm he was. DH still had my leg and the camera and they gave him the scissors to cut the cord and he awkwardly went under my leg to cut it. It was funny in hindsight. Dylan screamed bloody murder and he was screaming so loud that I couldn?t hear the doctor tell me to push out the placenta. I had to ask him to repeat himself. He then started stitching me up. I needed 5 stitches and I was ?very swollen? down there.
Dylan Edward was born at 6:45pm on Wednesday, January 13. He weighed 8lbs 6oz and was 21 inches long. We have no idea who he looks like. He is very dark complected and DH and I are both pasty.
I was very sore after the birth. The most surprising part was how sore my arms were. I never thought I would work out my arms, but I should have. They hurt from pulling myself up with my hands behind my legs. They got me up about an hour after I had him to take a shower and I couldn?t even wash my hair, my arms hurt so bad. They then gave me some ice to put in my undies. It felt very good.
The next morning my OB came in and told me that that was the biggest baby that I would be able to have vaginally so the next one would probably be induced earlier and I shouldn?t get diabetes. I?ll try not to.
I found out that DH decided to take a picture of when the head was out. That picture needs to get filed away somewhere safe.
We went home on Friday. We took Dylan to see my chiropractor and got him all adjusted and I got done as well. We got home and my parents brought us supper and our dog back. Bella didn?t even really care about the baby. She sniffed him a little and that was it. She still doesn?t notice him much.
On the early morning of my 6th pp day, I woke up shivering. DH asked what was wrong and I wasn?t sure. I asked him to go get me the thermometer. I had 100.9 degree fever. I thought maybe it was caused by my milk coming in so I got out WTEWYE and it said if you have a fever for more than 24 hours to call. I went back to bed. Dylan was awesome and slept for almost 5 hours. When I got up my fever was 102. DH had a doctor appointment for a f/u after his knee surgery, which he already had to reschedule because we were in the hospital. I called the OB office and they called back around 2pm and told me to go to the walk in. I took a shower and went to the walk in. They told me I had to go to the ER. At the ER they did a chest x-ray, vaginal exam, and tested my urine via a straight cath and found nothing. The vaginal exam wasn?t as bad as I thought it would be and it was very quick. The straight cath cleaning hurt more than the actual cathing. My white cells were high so they said I had a pp infection and I had to be admitted. I was back in the hospital on IV antibiotics for 2 days. They let Dylan stay with me as long as there was another adult there to take responsibility for him. DH had to stay and the regular hospital rooms are not as nice and comfy as the birthing center rooms. It was a miserable two nights and as soon as they took the IV out I got dressed and ready as fast as I could and got the heck out of there.
We had a doctor appointment for Dylan on Thursday and he was back up to 8lbs 4oz and everything looked good with him. We are all very happy to be home and hope to get in a routine now.
Re: Birth and PP story ~ very long
Oh yeah, here are some pics.