Charlie's birth story (long)

I've only posted a little, but I enjoyed hearing everyone's birth stories so I wanted to share mine, too

 I went in for an induction on Memorial Day @ 7 PM, I was at 41w5d, was 1 cm dilated and 25% effaced.  They started me on Cervidil and waited overnight.  Next morning, I had only progressed to 50% effacement, no additional dilation by around 8 AM, but I was finally starting to have contractions.  Nothing major pain-wise, just uncomfortable, but I was able to breathe through them.  They were anywhere from 5 to 10 mins apart.  My first Dr. was headed off her shift, but said they'd likely start pitocin soon.  About an hour and a half later, the next Dr. comes in and says that she'd like to try Cytotec, which she explained was similar to Cervidil, but only took 4-6 hours.  Said it may take 1 or 2 doses to get things moving.  So they start me on Cytotec, come back and check 5 hours later, and not much has changed.  She says we'll go for the 2nd dose and see how it goes.  About 4 hours into it, she comes and tells me her "plan".  She says if I haven't progressed, I can eat something and take a shower, and that they'd like to try one more dose overnight of either Cervidil or Cytotec, and no matter what, they'd break my water Wednesday morning and start pitocin from there, but essentially, they really wanted to try for a vaginal delivery.  (The entire day of Tuesday felt like an eternity!)  Lo and behold, when she checked me after the 2nd dose, I had only progressed to 50% effacement, and about 1.5 cm dilated, so we went forward with the plan.  I was definitely getting tired of this process, and nothing seemed to be progressing.  I should also add that LO still hadn't dropped at all and was up very high.  This, and the fact that he was expected to be pretty big was definitely worrying me.  Wednesday morning came and the Dr. said I was up to 2 cm dilated, still only 50% effaced.  But as promised, she went ahead and broke my water around 7AM.  (This was pretty awful, but I was relieved something was FINALLY moving forward).  They began pitocin shortly thereafter and my contractions started to get a little stronger (probably a 4 on a pain scale of 1-10).  2nd Dr. finishes her shift, and I'm really getting anxious at this point b/c I feel as though I've been there forever, and nothing's really moving forward much.  Around 10:15, the 3rd Dr. comes in and says that she knows I've had 2 doses of both Cervadil and Cytotec, and she'd like to check me to see where I'm at b/c every dr's finger size is different, lol, and that she'd like to insert an internal monitor to measure my contractions.  She goes to check me and tells me that she can't even reach my cervix!  That it must have been an act of divine intervention that the other Dr. was able to reach as far as she had to break my water.  She also said that from what she could tell, my pelvic bone size might not be big enough for the baby's head to fit through.  She said that, plus the fact that I hadn't really been progressing much in terms of dilating or contractions, led her to recommend a c-section.  She said she felt that we truly had given it our best try, and that it was my decision, but that she felt that this was our best option.  Although I would have preferred a vaginal delivery, after waiting for what felt like sooooo long, through numerous induction attempts, I was so relieved to hear this.  The last thing I wanted was to go through an intense labor only to end up with a c/s afterall, so if that was our best option, I was so ready to meet my LO.  Once I agreed, everything moved at lightning speed from there.  The spinal was a little rough b/c I kept flinching every time they tried to use the local to numb me, but once that was in, we were full steam ahead.  After what felt a bit like the Dr. and nurse having a tug of war to pull LO out of me, finally, at 11:18 AM, my sweet little monkey Charlie was finally out!  They held him up and my first thought after all of the joy and relief was "holy crap, he IS a big baby!"  The Dr's and nurses were guessing his weight, and the Dr. had the biggest estimate at like 8-12, but I thought he might have been bigger.  A few minutes later, DH came back to confirm that he indeed was a big boy, weighing in at 9 lbs 5 oz, 23.5 inches long!!!!!  The Dr. said that a c/s was the only way he would have ever come out!

 Recovery has been a little rough, but I'm feeling  better each day and I am so completely in love with our little boy!!!