My birth story-Long story as Team Green goes Pink

cstw · September 2009

My sweet baby girl Maya arrived about a week ago, 3 days early, on Sunday September 13th. We were Team Green and the moment was priceless. She was 6 lb, 11 oz at 19.5" long and pure perfection.

I started having sporadic contractions on Friday night-maybe one or two every few hours. By Saturday morning, they seemed about the same so DH and I went for a 3 mile walk. I had to stop a couple of times to catch my breath but I still figured Braxton Hicks. They basically felt like period cramping. Around 1 pm I noticed that they seemed more regular and sure enough, I started charting 20 min apart for about 25 seconds. The day stayed this way until about 10 pm. In the meantime, DH said he noticed my demeanor changed and I was pretty quiet. All I wanted was some spicy pho soup for dinner from our local Thai/Vietnamese restaurant because I had no appetite.

At 10 pm Saturday, they really picked up and damn...these were NOT period cramps anymore. By midnight we were 5/1/1 and we went to the hospital at 1 am and I was admitted at 3 cm. I barfed what was left of my dinner shortly thereafter. The epidural came around 2:30 and it was HEAVEN! I could feel everything except the pain so I knew what was happening. Our nurses were the absolute best and my room had an ocean view which was really nice when the sun came up. I took a dose of pitocin around 10 am when my dilation plateaued at 6 cm. I hit 10 cm about noon and then labored down for another hour until I started pushing.

It was very calm, just DH and my nurse were with me while I pushed for about an hour and listened to my Ipod mix. The doc came in at the end and out popped Maya! Very minor tear with three stiches and no real grossness to report. (sorry TMI).

DH was annoucing her sex as we were Team Green but since he only had a side view and her labia was engorged, he goes "It's a boy?" thinking it looked like balls. I swear, the room stopped for a minute while the doc turned Maya and DH shouted, "Oh my God! It's a girl!" I laughed so hard.

Then the little troublemaker gave us a run...Maya had trouble breathing/transitioning so they took her immediately up to the nursery to clear out her lungs. She had some fluid and could not breathe well at all. DH went with her while I got cleaned up and I joined them about an hour later. That was the lonliest hour of my life. Thank God the nurse brought me a turkey sandwich to keep me company.

Thanks to the nursery, Maya was put on a list to receive bloodwork every 6 hrs. This was a blessing in disguise as she would not have received any bloodwork otherwise (of course) and could have come home as a very sick baby without us knowing it. Turned out she had a strain of strep in her somewhere (not GBS which I was negative for) and after having her with us for about 16 hours, she showed two samples with the strep and was whisked away to NICU to receive more testing and antibiotics. Talk about scary. But the NICU was fabulous, Maya turned out to have the strep on her skin only (and not sepsis or in her spine which was the big fear) and the NICU nurses were so wonderful. They worked with me on breastfeeding, brought me a pump and a glider to encourage my milk flow/feeding patterns, bathing, and allowed us to spend as much time with the baby as we wanted. They even provided me a room to nap in. Maya came home after 4 days in NICU perfect, healthy and on an awesome schedule. She is incredible. Good luck to you full-termers! This is the best!