Long Birth Story :)

Meg 'n' Eric · August 2009

So sorry that I have taken SO long to post this!

On Wed July 22^nd, I went in for my 39 week check, and by blood pressure was high, so the OB (not my Dr since she was on vaca) decided I needed to be induced. So, that night at 9pm we went off to the hospital to start the induction. I got the cervix softening med inserted right when we got there, and about midnight the nurse started my IV fluids and gave me a sleeping pill. I didn?t sleep well at all, and started having somewhat painful contractions at about 2am. They gave me some sort of pain med then, which actually did put me to sleep for about an hour, but that was all the sleep I got on Wed night. Thursday morning rolls around and the resident OB checks me at 9am, thinking she?s going to break my water. I was only 2cm, which was unfortunate since I had been 1cm for the last 3 weeks. She decided to do the Foley ball, which was uncomfortable, and sucked when I was having contractions, but it did the trick and got me to 3-4cm. Once the foley came out I asked for the epi. I had told myself all along that I was going to go natural unless I was induced. The anesthesiologist (male) came in with a nurse anesthetist (female). She got me all set up and I wasn?t having super strong contractions so I was joking with my regular nurse having a grand time. The nurse anesthetist poked me twice and couldn?t get the epi started so finally the anesthesiologist said, let me do it, and on the third poke, he got the job done. So then I was feeling great for about 2 hours, the resident came in and broke my water and things seemed to be moving slowly, but were at least moving. Then, I got to between 6 and 7cm and I could feel every single contraction. The epi had been acting up the entire time, the pump would beep saying it wasn?t going in right. The guy had come back to fix it once, but then when it quit working he had to redo the whole thing. I was in a lot of pain by this point. So I sat on the side of the bed for the second time, and after two MORE pokes (of course he didn?t get it on the first try!) he got the second epi in and I was good to go. By 11pm I had made it to 10cm and waited as long as I could to start pushing. For those keeping track this was 26 hours after the start of the induction, and I hadn?t really slept since Tuesday night. I pushed for the first half an hour and it wasn?t so bad, I thought, hey I can DO this. After an hour I wasn?t so sure. After an hour and a half, I started to lose it. I was so exhausted. I just kept saying I can?t do this, and my DH and the two Drs (one resident, one intern) kept saying yes I could. They told me I could take a few contractions to just rest, but to be honest the pushing hurt a lot less than just breathing and resting through the contractions. The thing that was most frustrating to me (and still is) was that I could never tell the difference between what the Dr said was a great push and what wasn?t. I felt like I was just blindly pushing, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn?t.

Finally the attending OB came in to check me, she said I had a lot of space under the baby?s head and that seemed to make it so that the baby couldn?t get passed my pubic bone. So thank goodness, the attending said, get out the vacuum, we?re delivering this baby! It took me about five pushes (2 hours of pushing!) once the vacuum was attached, but we got our baby.

A GIRL! 6lbs 14oz and 21inches, born at 1:09am on July 24^th. Her name is Isla Mae (Eye-La May) and she is perfect. She is named after her great-great-grandmother. DH and I have made the decision not to post pictures on the internets, too many whackos!! Not that any of you ladies are crazy?right??! That?s our story; I can?t believe it was a month ago!