Scarlet's Smooth/Unexpected On-time Delivery
Scarlet Anne-Marie was born on Friday, August 13, 2010 at 1:44 PM. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces and was 20 inches long. Her due date was August 14th so she was one day early! It turned out to be a great delivery and the perfect day!
I woke up thursday morning at 5 AM with what felt like a lot of gas and bloating. I got up and it then started feeling like mild menstrual cramps that would come and go. I had gone to the doctor the day before for my 39 week appointment and my cervix was still completely closed and firm. My doctor and I had talked about an elective C-section on thursday the 19th if by Tuesday the 17th my cervix was still unfavorable for induction. DH woke up and had two finals that day so he headed to study at the library (however I'm not sure how much he could focus on school work at the time) Around 8 AM I called the doctor because the cramps had not gone away and he had me come in to be examined. He checked me again and I was still closed and firm and he said I was probably in early early labor and these were some contractions - more like "false labor" even though he didn't like to use that term. So I had the choice to go get monitored at the hospital or to go home and I went ahead and went home to see if they would go away. At home I laid in the shower and that felt great and actually made the contractions go away for awhile and way less intense. Around 7 PM that night the contractions started again at full force. They were getting pretty bad so by 9:30 I called the doctor to tell him they hadn't gone away and were getting worse. The on call doctor told me to go ahead and come to the hospital to get monitored. So we headed to the hospital and thank god we did! I arrived at the hospital and was only a fingertip dilated and they admitted me. I was in SO much pain! The contractions were awful and I asked for an epidural- which had been my plan all along. However, the on call doctor wouldn't let me have one until I was at least 3 cm dilated. So my nurse started an IV (ouch!) and gave me a pain medicine Dubane that was suppose to take the edge off...yeah right! At this point I was begging for some help! My nurse had also disappeared for about 45 minutes so we called for a nurse and another nurse came in and saw how much pain I was in and checked me. She said I was about a 3 1/2 to 4 cm dilated and was getting my epidural! And boy did she get the ball rolling! The anesthesiologist came in and my old nurse came back while they made DH and MIL leave the room. The epidural wasn't bad at all, I felt it but nothing compared to the contractions I was feeling. I felt almost immediate relief and was so happy I had progressed so quickly in only 2 hours! Now the waiting game begins... I had a little bit of a hotspot in my left side- it wasn't painful but I could still feel the tightening of the contractions and stuff and being so anxious I couldn't get any sleep! The nurse anesthiologist gave me a bolus of epidural. My mother and stepfather got in about 4 AM to be there. I continued to progress till 7 cm and then stalled. I had a new nurse at this point because of the shift change and she said I would need some pitocin. I was very hesitant about this because I knew how pitocin can make the contractions much stronger and I didn't want to feel that pain again in the hotspot. It took about an hour for DH and my mom to talk me into it because the only other option at the point was to take me into a C-section. So the nurse gave me very little pitocin and it worked like a charm! I was 10 cm! My doctor came in and said I would probably be pushing for at least 2 hours because the baby was still at a -2 station. 2 hours?! I thought there was no way- I was so exhausted and had been in labor for about 17 hours! I thought I didn't have the energy and since she was still high that she just wouldn't be able to come down and would have to have a Csection anyways- but once again DH and my mom talked me into pushing and said okay but after an hour I was done- just take her out! SO everyone left the room except for DH and we started pushing! I ended up pushing very well and the nurse was very impressed at how well the baby was progressing down. This was by far the best part of the delivery! Even though I could feel the pressure and it did hurt I had the adrenaline going and was so excited I was pushing good and was about to meet my baby girl! After only 30 minutes of pushing the nurse told me to stop that she had to page the doctor because I was about to have the baby! We got my mom in there to videotape her arrival and the nurse paged the doctor and all the delivery staff. Well my doctor was getting out of the OR and we waited for him for 15 minutes before he arrived! That was the hardest thing not to push when I was having a contraction! Finally, he got there and we pushed maybe four times and the baby was born within 15 minutes! They didn't hand me the baby right away because she wasn't crying and had some fluid in her lungs but I got her about 10 minutes later and she stayed with us for about an hour.
It turned out to be a great delivery and I'm so glad that I persevered through it and didn't give up to a C-section because it turned out to be a great experience! I was so sure I couldn't do it and was so impressed by trusting my body to do what it is suppose to do! Our little girl is healthy and turned a week old today! I can't believe it!