Had my baby! Birth story....

Mabillon · April 2012

We welcomed our daughter, Genevieve Leigh, into this world on April 15 at 7.40am.

She is overall wonderful and we're over the moon. However, NOTHING happened as I'd expected so I want to share my birth story (yup, long) as soon as possible so that I could remember it too!

After work on Friday the 13th, I went to the store to buy a whole bunch of groceries. My plan this weekend was to cook two weeks worth of freezer meals so I spent a ton in prep. Had some BH while at the store but this was not unusual. I was super-excited to sleep in on Saturday since I knew that I was about to hit 39 weeks and this could be my last weekend. However, at 3am I woke up feeling like I'd wet my pants! When I stood up to run/waddle to the restroom, that's when "pee" really came (luckily none on the mattress). I was in a little shock sitting on the toilet. I couldn't believe this would be happening to me and certainly not at 38.5 weeks! I honestly thought it might be urine...until I tried to stand up again.

I woke my DH and we talked about what was going on. We called my doc and since the fluid was clear and I was full-term, she told me to come into the hospital around 9am (six hours later) to get checked out. We tried to go back to sleep but that was easier said than done. The alarm was supposed to wake us at 8 but my contractions hit first, starting around 6. Took a long shower and we took our time getting ready, still waiting for 5-1-1 which hit around 9am anyways.

My doctor wasn't on duty so I saw a physician they share call duties with - she ended up being awesome. By the time she checked me internally, it was 10ish but I was only 2-3cm Hung out and walked a lot for the next couple of hours, trying to dialate more. Ended up being pretty unsuccessful. By 3pm (around 12 hrs after my water broke), I got a dose of pitocin. After about 3 more hours of progressively more painful contractions, I was feeling super-positive but was sad to learn that I'd only dialated another half centimer or so. They notched it up a bit more and that's when I finally relented and went for the epi. That went in and it was ok. I felt freaked out by the numbess but it was nice to sleep.

By 2am or so, I'd finally made it to 7-8cm. The doctor could feel the baby's head getting really swollen but not actually dropping so she was getting really concerned about my pelvis size. Kicked up the epi more and I was still only at 9cm by 5am...26 hours after my water breaking (and longer than my hospital usually likes people to go for). Baby was also have some heart decels so they stopped the pit for a while but I failed to progress after that as well. When my temperature started to spike around 6am, I request a c-section to avoid baby's NICU stay. DD was pulled out at 7.40am!

I feel like the whole staff did everything they could to get me to a vaginal delivery and really went out of their way (against usual policies). I am grateful to them for that...since nothing went as planned!

My OB said after the c/s that she still thinks my pelvis was the problem and that I may not be a good VBAC candidate in the future (unless baby was measuring super-small). DD was only 7.5 lbs but had a GIGANTIC cone head at birth! It's deflated some but it was reeeeeeally freaky. Otherwise, she's completely gorgeous. A little jaundice problem and she's in the nursery until bili lights now which is how I'm getting online.

Good luck to those still waiting on outside babies!