MrsL2B's Birth Story - long & mentions c-section details
MrsL2B
member
tl/dr: I was induced starting Tuesday night and about 30 hours later had an emergency c-section. Baby Boy is doing great! 6lbs 4oz, 19.5 in.
I checked in to the hospital for my induction on September 30, 2014, at 7:00 p.m. The nurse put the first strip of Cervidil in around 8:20 p.m. The first hour was pretty dull, but contractions with a little pain started during the second hour. I was hooked up to the fetal heart rate and contraction monitors the entire time, which did not seem to be ideal, since any position that I found comfortable didn't agree with the fetal monitor. Also, the hospital had no portable monitors, so I couldn't walk the halls or do any yoga poses out of bed, as I had hoped to do as part of my pain management strategy. After a while, every time I got up to go to the bathroom or sat up to stretch to relieve my lower back pain, the nurse would come in to make me lie back down, since the monitor would suddenly be unable to pick up the baby's heartbeat. But the nurse was more than happy to offer me all the drugs in lieu of letting me move around, including an epidural, Stadol, and even Ambien. I was extremely uncomfortable from lying down for so long, but I refused the drugs because I really wanted to have an unmedicated birth. It was important to me that I fully experience the sensation of my child entering the world and that I be clear-headed enough to remember as many details as possible.
During the first 12 hours, I experienced a few periods where I would have contractions every two to five minutes and then have none for a long time. The contractions were not painful. When the OB checked me in the morning of Wednesday, October 1, I was only 1 cm dilated and about 40% effaced, but she said she could feel the baby's head in position. She decided to start me on a second round of Cervidil around 10:00 a.m., with the idea that it might be enough to send me into active labor. I was allowed to have a shower and eat breakfast before the nurse put in the Cervidil again.
Most of Wednesday I was stuck in bed lying in hip and lower back-searing positions. I was getting more frequent and more painful contractions, but like the night before, sometimes I would get them every two to three minutes for a few hours, and sometimes I wouldn't feel anything for a while. I also experienced a cramping sensation at or near my cervix. The big excitement was getting up to pee regularly, and I got to sit in a recliner for a while in the evening, which was a fantastic break from the bed. However, I experienced what I thought was my water breaking during one contraction, so I had to get back in the bed. The nurse tested the liquid that had run down my legs, and it turned out not to be amniotic fluid, so apparently I was contracting hard enough to piss myself at that point.
When the nurse checked my cervix at 10:00 p.m., I was dilated to 2 cm and about 75% effaced. The OB decided to start me on Pitocin. She said she would start it on a low dose and assured us that it could be stopped if needed. My husband asked for a ballpark estimate of how long it might take me to become fully dilated, and the OB said it might take another four hours for me to get to four centimeters and then to expect it to take about an hour per centimeter after that, which added up to a possible total of another ten hours of labor.
Very soon after the Pitocin drip started, the contractions became more regular, more frequent, and much more intense. I was feeling not only the overall abdominal contractions, which were not bad, but also the lower cramping sensation, which was accompanied by the expulsion of a dark reddish brown substance and was rapidly becoming unbearable. I tried doing my breathing exercises, moaning, and cursing, but none of that helped. I was grabbing the side rails and pulling on them so hard during the contractions that I lifted myself off the bed. About half an hour into this experience, I decided I probably couldn't do it for another nine and a half hours. At that point I asked for an epidural. The nurse told us it would take an hour for them to pump enough saline into me to get me ready for the epidural. Of course I started watching the clock at that point, so I know that they didn't call for the anesthesiologist for at least 90 minutes. Once he arrived, it took about ten minutes for him to insert the epidural. After the epidural went in, another cervical exam revealed that I was already seven to eight centimeters dilated, so it only took a little over two hours for me to go from two to nearly eight centimeters. If I'd known how fast I'd progressed at that point, and that I had that much pain behind me, I might have decided to go on without the epidural after all. However, it was probably a good thing that I had it.
My husband had stepped out of the room for the epidural insertion. As soon as the doctor was done, the nurses went back to trying to pick up the baby's heartbeat on the monitor. They had me change positions several times but couldn't find it. The OB suspected that the umbilical cord was somehow compromised and had me rushed to surgery for an emergency C-section. My husband was on his way back down the hall to my room when he was suddenly passed by the team of medical personnel pushing my bed to the OR. Someone threw some scrubs at him and told him to get dressed.
Thankfully by the time they got me on the table, the epidural had mostly kicked in. My husband managed to get his scrubs on and find the right OR just in time. He was able to hold my hands while they shook uncontrollably from the anesthesia as the OB finished pulling out our son. Our baby was wiped off and wrapped up before he was brought around the curtain to meet us while the OB removed the placenta and stapled me shut. The next thing I vaguely remember was being in the recovery room when a nurse brought our baby in for his first skin-to-skin session. He was weighed, measured, and given his eyedrops and Vitamin K before they brought him to us in recovery.
The rest of the first day is a hazy memory for me, since I was given morphine on top of the epidural's local anesthetic. A nurse came by to give the baby his first bath, which I think was about eight hours after his birth. According to the feeding cards I've been filling out, I made several attempts to get him to eat, and he pooped a lot. The breastfeeding has gotten easier, although he seems to like to go for marathon sessions. I was lucky to get to see two very helpful lactation consultants while in the hospital. We are headed home this afternoon, as soon as my staples are removed and steri-strips are applied to my incision. I feel like there are still a lot of details I don't have about what happened at the end of my labor and during the delivery, so I plan to follow up with the OB who did the surgery next week.
Thanks for all your well-wishes and congratulations over the last few days!
Re: MrsL2B's Birth Story - long & mentions c-section details
Eta. Hit post too soon.
Me: 34 DH: 34
TTC since Jan '13
BFP#1 - EDD 3/24/14 - d&c 7w5d
BFP#2 - EDD 6/14/14 - cp 4w2d
BFP#3 - EDD 10/28/14 - It's a BOY!!! - Born 10/26/14
O14 January Signature Challenge: Snow Fails
[MC 11.20.11] [DS born 9.24.12] [DD born 10.15.14]
Married 8/27/2011
BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012
BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w
BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014
BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d
BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017
BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018