Birth Stories

Bryker Ronald is here!

I was scheduled to be induced on Monday, March 10th due to gestational hypertension for the past month (it'd be getting out of hand and our baby was already good size at 35 weeks so they decided to go ahead and induce).

With a lot of anticipation, we arrived on Monday morning and were ready for the pitocin and anything that was going to come with it. Doctor arrived at 8am and broke my water and they started the lowest dose of pitocin. I was contracting so well that they stopped the pitocin after 20 mins and I went into labor on my own at that point. Contractions were 1-3 mins apart all day and I held out until 1pm for the epidural. I could have held out longer but I had a big fear of missing my opportunity and my bp was rising so they really wanted me to get one if I was okay with it (which I was so it took no convincing).

By 6:30pm, the contractions got a lot more intense and we kicked everyone but our nurses out. By 7pm I wanted to push but I stalled at 9cm for about an hour and a half - this was the worst part of it all (not being able to push). By 8:30 the doctor came in and we got the ball rolling. Luckily, my epidural had been a bit selective and while it was more painful than I ever had expected, it helped with the pushing a lot cause I could feel the progress, etc.

I pushed for two and a half hours and with the help of the vac - delivered Bryker Ronald at 11:08pm on March 10th. He was 8lbs, 13oz and 22 inches long. The closest weight guess any of the nurses got was 8lbs, 8oz. If we had gone to 40 weeks, he would have easily been 10lbs my doctor said...eek :) I did have a 4th degree tear and recovery has been slow but now that we're home and settling - everything is going great.

I am breastfeeding but supplementing with formula right now because apparently (I didn't know this before) when you have high blood pressure or take a blood pressure medicine it can slow your milk down from coming in. Another couple of things I wish I would have known... The high blood pressure meds cause for more IV fluids which causes some serious edema afterwards (which I still have a lot of), it goes away after 7-10 days they told me but its nuts - even my crocs don't fit. Last thing - "pressure" has a lot of meanings in a birth center :)

Oh - and I always thought it was so neat how women that posted birth stories would say how they're more in love with their husbands now and just thought it'd be neat to understand what they meant. OMG - its so true. My husband is a whole new man to me and while I thought he was wonderful before, he's even more incredible to me now.

Re: Bryker Ronald is here!

  • FYI- by supplementing with formula you could be slowing down your supply even more. You may want to talk to an LC and start pumping. Congrats!
This discussion has been closed.
Choose Another Board
Search Boards
"
"