meet Torin: a 28 hour labor & delivery story. (long & pip)

ebeemcg

Our story started friday morning, feb 18th; the morning after the full moon, at 40w3d. 

I woke up around 7:00 that morning, feeling perfectly normal. I hadn't had any contractions at all for several days. At 10:30 my water broke! I'm going to be honest, it was pretty gross. I called my midwife to let her know what happened, and she said my water had definitely broken based on what I described to her! I should add that at my appointment two days prior I was 4cm dilated & 50% effaced. I thought it was going to be just a matter of time before the contractions started. 

My mom was in town so that she could be here for the birth of her first grandbaby. Her and I went to lunch, and then the mall. I was trying to continue my day as normally as possible so I wasn't focusing on my up & coming labor experience. At around 4:00, at the mall, my water started gushing even harder and I soaked my pants through the pad I was wearing! Needless to say at that point I called my husband to come home from work, and I headed home myself to get my things ready to go to the birthing center.

The evening came, and I still had not started contracting! Finally at around 8:30 I decided I was going to go to bed with the hopes that I could get some sleep before my labor really kicked in. By the time I got in bed at 9:30 I was starting to get uncomfortable, and by 10:15 the contractions had started, and they started strong! I started timing them and they were already between 4 & 5 minutes apart, lasting 45 seconds to a minute! I was able to fall asleep for an hour, and woke up at 12: 20. I timed them for another 20 minutes and then called my midwife. She told me to get some more sleep, that they were not regular enough. I was in so much pain at that point that there was no way I could sleep through them! So again, I started timing them. at a little after 2:00 they had been very regular, and I wasn't able to talk through them! I woke up my husband and had him call the midwife and we were on our way! 

We got to the birthing center at 3:15. I was checked, and was only 5cm and still 50% effaced! My contractions had also calmed down from the car ride over there. She was pretty upset that I came in and had not made more progress. She suggested I get in the tub to hopefully slow them down enough that I could get back to sleep.

 The tub had the opposite effect on my contractions! They got even closer together and lasted for what felt like forever! I was also having horrible back pain and was starting to doubt that I could go through with the natural birth I had been planning. By 6:00 the morning of the 19th, after only getting an hour of sleep in 23 hours, I was in so much pain I couldn't stand it! I had my midwife check me again and I was STILL only 5cm! At that point I decided I needed to go to the hospital for an epidural if there was any hope for me getting some sleep. So at 6:15 I was loaded up in an ambulance and was on my way.

The EMT who was with me timed my contractions the entire way to the hospital and they were 1 1/2 min long, 2 min apart. No wonder I was in such misery! After I was admitted into the hospital, the nurses had to come in and get me to sign paperwork, draw blood, wait for the results, etc. Finally at 10:15 feb 19th, 24 hours after my water broke, I got my epidural and was finally able to sleep! Quite a bit happened between then and 12:05, including my being put on oxygen, but I was so out of it I can't really remember those details. At 12:05 I was checked and it was finally time for me to push!

I pushed for 1 1/2 hours and still had no outside baby. At 1:30 they checked the position of the baby and found that he was "sunny side up", which explained the difficulty I was having getting him out. Around that time his heart rate started dropping, and when the took my temp it was 103! Panic entered my delivery room. Faster than I could keep up, about 30 people we in my room, including the neonatal team. The doctors started talking about a c-section, but he was already to low in the birth canal so they had to pull him out with forceps.  At 1:51pm my beautiful baby boy entered this world, not crying. I didn't get the skin to skin I wanted, I didn't get to let the cord finish pulsing before my husband got to cut it. Instead in a matter of 10 seconds my baby was whisked away to be examined. 

He was having a lot of trouble breathing, which was obviously a concern. And with my fever being so high and it being 28 hours after my water had broken, they were concerned about infection in both me and the baby. They brought him back to me, let me hold him for 15-20 seconds and he was gone again.  They brought him to the NICU & found a pneumothorax in each of his lungs so he was hooked up to all kinds of machines & put under an oxygen dome to hopefully improve his situation. 

The doctors kept telling us that it would be at least 48 hours before the pneumothorax would maybe heal itself, and that he would likely be in the NICU for 7-10 days! The next morning they took another x-ray and found that in his left lung it was completely healed, and the right lung was more than 50% better so he was able to come off the oxygen! I am happy to say that 3 days after his birth, Feb 22nd, he was discharged from the hospital with a clear bill of health!

He is 9 days old today, and has been home with us for 6 days. He is the absolute best thing that has ever happened to us, and despite the struggle we went through I'm glad we decided to leave the birthing center. I hate to think what would have happened if his lung condition hadn't been detected soon enough!

 

katkat74

how scary but what a beautiful reward he is!

homediva

Congratulations on your beautiful baby boy! All that hard work was worth it!