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Birth story

rouge411rouge411
in 3rd Trimester

I woke up at 3am on Monday with decently painful (but definitely tolerable) contractions. I couldn't fall back asleep so I got up to time them. They were about 2-5 mins apart, lasting about 45 seconds on average. After timing them for an hour, I called my doctor and he told me to come in. We got to the hospital about 6am (took our time), and I sat in triage on the monitors for 7 hours. The first time they checked me I was 1.5cm, can't remember how effaced, and I think she was at -2 or -3. They were trying to a reactive NST from her (they wanted to see her heart rate, which was a baseline of about 130 or so, jump to 150 or above twice within 20 minutes.) I guess babies who have reactive NSTs tend to do well in the womb for at least another 3 days to a week. The monitor kept losing her heart rate, she didn't seem to like the monitor so she kept trying to move away from it, and it would have to be adjusted.

They finally got a reactive NST, and were going to let me go home since I said I wanted a natural birth and was only at about 2.5 cm. They gave me the option of admitting me, but said that they would break my water and give me pitocin, which would make it very hard to go natural. The nurse midwife advised me to walk, get in a warm tub (she said that often will help you get to 6cm), and have sex if I could before I came back in. We were going to go home but then I guess another nurse disagreed about the NST results, so the nurse midwife said she would internally stimulate the head(poke/scratch with her fingers) to see if she could get the baby's heart rate to jump. She succeeded, but my water broke during the test, at 12:45, so I had to be admitted.

The contractions were still tolerable until they put me on pitocin and cranked it up. After several hours (about 4:30pm), at a dosage level of 8 (the dosage increments are 2-30 in increments of 2), they did another internal on me and said I was 3cm. I was so tired at that point and holy crap were the contractions intense. I knew I couldn't keep up with them for another hour, let alone 10 or so, so I caved and got the epidural around 5pm. It really is amazing! I felt better almost right away.

At 6pm I was 3.5cm, 90% effaced, and baby was at -1 station. At 8:45, I was still only about the same, and my OB told them to check me again around 2 or 2:30am. I started feeling rectal pressure probably around 11 or 12, but they held off on checking me because they worry about infection once the water is broken and try to limit internals. At 2:30, I was 9.5cm and the baby was at +2 station (hooray!). The nurse told me to let her know when I started feeling a lot of pressure, like I needed to push. At 4am, I started feeling that. The nurse checked me and said the head was right inside and I was definitely ready to go. I started pushing around 4:20 or so and she was born at 4:42am! They were getting ready to use the forceps because her heart rate was dropping, but the last push was big enough that she came out (very quickly) on her own. I have a second degree tear from that last push, which the OB stitched up and said should not be much of a problem. 

There was meconium when my water broke, so they were ready to sweep her away and suction her lungs and such when she was born. I guess the cord was wrapped around her neck but the OB caught it right away, so she cried almost immediately.

Madelyn Mary, 7lbs 5 oz, 20.5 inches, red hair! 

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