Brady's entrance..

Hi All,

Ive been feeling the baby blues and reliving the trauma of my birth experience so I thought if I get it off my chest here, it might help.

At 33 weeks,I woke up one morning to blood in the toilet. I freaked out! But, it stopped and I had no more blood. I called my OB and he said to just watch it since the bleeding had stopped. He said it was due to my husband and I having sex most likely. I felt fine.

The next day (a Friday), I had the nursery painted. I hadnt done anything to get ready for the baby except this. I thought I had plenty of time. When I got off work that night, I cleaned up after the painter, vacuumed, cooked dinner, bathed my two year old and put him to bed. At about 8pm, I started bleeding again and felt "pressure" in my pelvic area. I just felt something was wrong so I drove myself to the nearest hospital just to get checked out. The hospital I was to deliver at is located 45 minutes away. I was scared and by myself since my husband was home with our two year old. I didnt see any need to get him out of bed and sitting at the hospital. They did an ultrasound and the baby looked fine although my amniotic fluid was low. Turns out the pressure I was feeling were "contractions". I had no idea what those felt like as my first birth was a planned C-Section with no labor (due to breech position). The bleeding continued. They gave me meds to stop contractions and sent me home to be on bedrest and instructed me to see my OB on Monday. They told me if the bleeding got worse or if contractions got stronger then to go to the hospital I was to deliver at.

I was home for about 4 hrs and decided to drive myself to the hospital at 7am. Again, I didnt think I was having the baby..(maybe I was in denial).. I didnt even take a bag with me. I just showed up with my  purse. The Dr. couldnt believe I drove myself there. Anyway, He told me they didnt know why I was bleeding but they would get things under control before I left the hospital so I better plan on staying at least one night.

They gave me a steroid shot in case the baby was born in order to help his lung development. 2 hrs later while I was lying in bed, my water broke. The plan of care changed at that point. I knew my son (who was also breech) would be born soon. They wanted to hold off on doing the C-Section until they could get a 2nd steroid shot in me which had to be 24 hrs since the first shot).  The 2nd shot was scheduled for 9am the next day.. (it was 11am at this point and I had 22 hours to go).

I spent the next day of my life in what seemed like hell. I was having contractions every 5 minutes but was not dialated. They would not let me drink or eat anything since emergency surgery was a possibility. They did not give me an epidural either. It was a horrible night. I did not sleep a wink. I would try to close my eyes but only to be awakened by a doozy of a contraction minutes later. I watched my husband sleep on the cot next to  me. About 6am, the nurse came in and told me I only had 3 hrs to go. OMG!! I thought to myself. 3 MORE HOURS!!

20 minutes later, the contractions came on like gangbusters. Instead of every 5 minutes, they did not stop. I was in so much pain and I just wanted to  push. The nurse came in a checked me and could feel the babys feet. I went from not being dialated at all at 2am to being fully dialated at 6am.

The next thing I knew I was being whisked into the operating room. My Dr. had been called and everything was happening so fast. I was trembling huge giant trembles .My body was literally lifting off the gurney. The nurse said I might have to be put under general anesthesia as we may not have time to do the epidural depending on how the baby was doing. Luckily they go the epidural in and could be awake for the birth of our boy. I never felt more relief in my life than when that epidural took effect. Within 15 minutes, my Dr. had made it luckily and delivered Brady. He wasnt breathing at first and they were able to revive him. He weighed 5 lbs. That was pretty big for a baby born 7 weeks early.

 He spent 18 days in the NICU. I pumped and brough breastmilk everyday. It was really the most trying experience of my life. We were finally able bring him home and it has been challenging to say the least. But, I truly feel lucky it has turned out well.

I guess I am just mourning the last 7 weeks of pregnancy (even though its uncomfortable) and the happy birth experience I wanted to have. It was very stressful and the C-Section was hard to recover from. VERY painful.

Maybe I have a bit of PPD. Every day is getting easier but it has been a long hard road. Thanks for listening (reading).