Vanessa's birth story, repost

Reposted at vbac, and on jan 2012.

The plan was a natural VBAC. The plan was to breast feed or at least give BM by pump. Plans change.

On the night of January 10th, I went to a going away party for a friend of mine. The standing joke among our friends now is that the party put me into labor.. that or the incredibly loud DJ at the place we all went. I started with some random cntrx around 10pm. By 11:30pm they became regular, about 5 minutes apart. I started to speed up fast, we expected me to be at 5-1-1- for a few hours. Instead, by 1:30am I was down to 2 minutes apart. Crazy how I sped up right?

So The 2-1-1 cntrx intensified by 2am and we said, "uh oh" and a friend came over to watch our toddler until my mom got there. My mother lived a few hours away, and was already coming, but it was TIME to go.

I was in intense labor at 2-1-1 in the hospital for a loooong time. So intense, the nurses kept wondering why I wasnt dilating, or asking for the epi. I was determined ya know? But after standing in a shower for an hour with cntrx so intense I was crying, still 2 min apart, I finally said yes! give me the epidural. I just couldnt deal with it anymore.... That was at 6am ish. They checked me first, the staff really hoped that after all that work, my body would have done what it was supposed to.... NOPE. 3cm dilation. Hours of intense active labor basically wasted in my mind.

My hospital was great, they let DH stay with me for the epi, he held me in place actually. After the epi started kicking in, they put the fetal monitors back on. The nurses noticed that Vanessa's HR dropped to about 90 with every cntrx. When it was obviously a pattern, not a random thing, they got the doctor. Also, the feeling is that this had been happening for a while, not caused in any way by the epidural.

When the Dr told me they had to stop the cntrx to give LO a rest to see if she stablized, I knew the VBAC was over. The terbutaline did its job, the cntrx stopped. LO got herself stable and the Dr suggested I rest a bit. We all wanted to see if I would start back up contractions on my own once the med wore off. I took a nap, the cntrx never returned.

Since I was a VBAC, pitocen was out of the question, especially since my body was obviously great at strong cntrx without help. When I woke from my nap, i told them to do the RCS. Vanessa was born on Jan 11th, 2012 at 11:36am. Exactly 3 years, 2 days and 2 minutes after her older sister.

She has a cleft lip and palate, severe. and spent a week in NICU learning to eat. But thats another story.