long labor turned csection - very long

This is going to be extremely difficult for me to type up. A lot of details are really fuzzy but I'll try to be as accurate as I can.

Early Labor

On Saturday, September 12th I woke up with horrible back and hip pain. It continued throughout the day and I started having some bloody show. By night time, I was leaking so bad that I soaked through a pad. We called up the hospital and they told us to come in and see if it was Amniotic Fluid. We got to the hospital around midnight (Sunday Sept. 13th) and they confirmed that my water had broke. I wasn't having steady contractions but they decided to admit me overnight. I took an ambien and some pain medicine to help me sleep. In the morning, they decided to start Pitocin.

Labor

Once Pitocin was started, things started picking up big time. I still felt all of my pain in my back and hips. I got the Epidural around 4-5 centimeters dilated. The epidural was great and I labored fine. Around 7 centimeters dilated (about 8 pm sunday night) my epidural started to wear off by my right hip. The pain soon became almost unbearable there and the anesthesiologist refused to come and redo it because he said it was just a hot spot. They finally convinced him to come around and redose me around 8/9 cm. I was able to fully progress and it was time to start pushing.

Pushing

By the time I started pushing, my epidural again started to wear off. I still only felt contractions in my hips and back so it made it difficult for me to know when I was having a contraction. Pushing was extremely difficult and I felt a lot of pain in my right hip again. I pushed for almost 2 hours before the doctor decided to use the vaccuum. The vacuum was HORRIBLE. My doctor would brace his feet on the floor and pull as hard as he could when I was pushing. I was in so much pain and telling them I couldn't do it any long, that I wanted to go home. He used the vacuum for about 30 minutes before he decided it was time to do a c section. We waited about 30 minutes for everybody to show up to the hospital for my "urgent" c section.

C section

I got redosed with the epidural one last time for the c section. It was HEAVEN! I was so tired because it was about 22 hours into labor by that point. I would stay awake long enough to answer a question and then fall asleep before anybody could answer. I was asleep when they wheeled me into the operating room but thankfully they woke me up in time for the surgery. My husband sat by my head as they got started.

This is the part that is hard for me to remember. They started the c section and I felt the normal kind of pressure. Then I heard the Dr say that there was a problem. The baby was stuck in my pelvis. Her hand was up by her head and both were firmly lodged inside the birth canal. We think the reason I had so much right hip pain was because of her hand being by her head. The doctor was able to free her hand but her head was still stuck. I felt a lot of pulling and they decided they needed to cut me further. Then another Dr inserted his hands so both could pull at the baby. She still wasn't coming. They had a nurse insert her hands through my vagina to push at the baby's head. I had two doctors pulling through my stomach and a nurse through my vagina. Even with the epidural, this was painful. It took them about 30 minutes to get the baby out.

Once Natalie was out, I heard the nurses saying that she wasn't breathing. She was pink and had a decent heartbeat but wasn't breathing. I started crying and told my husband to go over to her but she was surrounded by nurses. It took about 3 minutes before I heard cry. She ended up swallowing a lot of amniotic fluid which is why she had such a difficult time breathing. They thought they had broken her shoulder while trying to get her out but thankfully, she is okay.

Natalie was born at 11:59 pm on 9/13/09. She was 8lbs 10 3/4 oz and 21 inches long. We are both doing extremely well and have impressed all the nurses and doctors. While in recovery, the doctor who delivered me came in. He apologized profusely, told me I was a patient he would never forget, and was saying how that was the most difficult delivery he has ever had in his 32 years of experience. I'm just glad we are both okay but I told my husband while in the delivery room that it was the worst experience of my life. I doubt we will be doing this again any time soon.

Here's a picture of my little girl.