Michaela Rose Has Arrived!

manda82585 · April 2013

My punctual princess, Michaela Rose arrived on her due date, April 10th at 4:56pm. She was 8lbs, 4ozs and 20 inches long. I woke up at 1:30 am on April 10th with some painful contractions. I tried to time them, but they were pretty inconsistent at point starting at 30 mins apart. They kept getting closer together and were definitely more painful than any over the contractions I had been having, but were still inconsistent. With all of the false labor I had been dealing with, i didn't want to jump the gun again and be wrong about it. I felt like the girl who cried wolf! At around 5:30am, I was timing the contractions at 6 minutes apart and about a minute long and noticed some light bleeding when I went to the bathroom. I decided to call my mom (she's a maternity nurse) and she said to go ahead and call the doc. I went downstairs and woke up DH (poor guy's been sleeping down there for weeks since his pregnant wife has been impossible to sleep with lately) and let him know that I thought it was really time and that we needed to go into the hospital. I'm not sure he really believed me at first, but he got up and moving. We got to the hospital at around 7am and they timed my contractions at 4mins apart and I was about 5cm. We got the word that we were being admitted. We got upstairs to our l&d suite and the next few hours contractions were about 3 mins apart. My doctor came in and said I was about 6cm and said she was going to break my water. She had a difficult time since she said baby's head was pressed so far down on my cervix, so while she was sure she snagged my water, I never really saw any of it come out. At that point, my contractions picked up becoming 1 minute apart and even stronger. The doctor came back andnsaid she wanted to run some pitocin (which I still don't know why, since my body was doing what it needed to do on its own..had I not been in so much pain, I probably would have fought back against that). As soon as I heard the word pitocin, i finally made up my mind to get the epidural. Getting the epidural wasn't bad at all and my body and baby had a good reaction to it. Thank God I got the epidural. I hadn't slept all night and by that time, my contractions were back to back with pretty much no breaks inbetween and were taking so much energy to breathe through. The epidural allowed me a few hours reprieve before it was time to push. I started feeling the contractions and all of the pain again at the end. I never really felt pressure in my butt and the urge to push like the nurses kept saying I would. It just felt like the epidural had completely worn off. They began telling me to push instead of breathing through the contractions and that felt so much better than not pushing. After the first few pushes, I looked at the clock. It was about 4:30. I decided to myself that this baby was going to come out by 5:00, or else I didn't think I would have the energy to get her out if it took any longer. She came out at 4:56 and was much bigger than anyone had expected. I ended up with a 2nd degree tear, which I suppose isn't too bad. Breastfeeding is going well, although it is causing a lot of pain. Michaela was tongue tied at birth (the flap of skin under the tongue came out further than usual). The lactation consultant is the one who noticed the next day when I described the pain I was having. Baby girl's tongue couldn't come out past her gums so wasn't providing that barrier between nip and gums (holy ouch...I had a blood blister after our first feeding and thought my nips were just sissies or something lol) An oral surgeon came and clipped underneath of Michaela's tongue and things have been much better and she didn't even cry! My nips are still recovering, so still having a lot of pain, but no new damage and she's got a great latch. Being a Mommy is the most awesome thing ever! Makes all of the pain instantly worth it! Sorry so long, and for some reason, the bump isn't letting me out spaces between paragraphs. Congratulations to all of the other April moms with babies on the outside now and good luck to all of the ones that have yet to deliver! :-)

DarlingNIkki1028 · April 2013

Congrats! My baby has tongue tie too, but the pediatrician isn't sure how bad it is. I see an LC on Thursday to decide. My nips are in BAD shape so I've been using a shield.