Induction...13 Hours of Labor...Emergency C-Section

I'm FINALLY getting around to posting my birth story even though the wee-one is already 7 weeks old! Since she's snoozing in her swing, I figured it'd be the perfect time to reminisce about how she came into this big ole world...

On Tuesday, August 7th, I sat up in bed around 9:00 a.m. and felt a warm trickle down *there*. Thinking it was regular pregnancy discharge, I didn't pay it any mind and got ready for my NST appointment that was scheduled for 11:00 a.m. that day.

Walking into the birthing suite (where they have all of their NST test/ultra-sounds), I was hooked up to a machine and handed a button that kind of resembled the ones that they used to use for hearing tests in elementary school. The nurse told me that for 45 minutes they were going to monitor the baby's movements and heartbeat. I was told to press the button every time that I felt the baby kick because they wanted to see if her heartbeat would rise with movement and fall with stillness.

About 30 minutes into the test, the nurse came back into the room, unhooked the monitors and said that I had to go into a different room to get an ultra-sound. She said that she was concerned with the low heartbeat and wanted to double check that everything was alright. The ultra sound indicated that I had very low amniotic fluid surrounding the baby (which meant that my water had broken that morning...so, yes your water CAN break without you knowing it!) The fluid level was too low for the baby and, being 41 weeks and 5 days at the time, I was beyond ready to get her out.

I was admitted at 11:30 and put on my first dose of pitocin at 12:00 p.m. At first the contractions were hardly noticeable...I was walking the halls with my husband, making phones calls, laughing, talking. Fast forward 4 hours and the contractions were unbearable. They felt like the worst period pains of my life mixed with a sharp, stabbing feeling in my back. The nurse suggested that I go into the whirlpool birthing tub to help ease the contractions....ease the contractions it. did. NOT.

By the time I got back to my room, I was way past being ready for an epidural. My poor husband told me to breathe through the contractions and I screamed "I AM F**KING BREATHING!!!!" (he still doesn't let me live it down especially since I'm usually such a timid, soft spoken person).

I was about 7 cm dialted when I got my epidural which, little fun fact, was administered by Jenny Thompson the Olympic gold-medalist swimmer. Apparently she is an anesthisiologist when she's not...you know...winning olympic gold medals. She walked into the room and saw me in my half-naked, agonizing glory and I was mortified/sooooo relieved to see her all at the same time. She was a sweet heart though and did an amazing job. I couldn't feel a thing!

As I went from 7 to 10 cm, the baby's heart rate started dropping and my OB noticed that she wasn't decending into my pelvis. I tried turning on my left side, my right side, onto my back...her heart rate kept decelerating to a dangerous level. At the point where I finally did get to 10 cms, my OB had already ordered an emergency c-section and I was already signing the consent forms.

After 13 hours of labor, dialating to a complete 10 centimeters and not even getting to push because the baby felt like hanging out up by my ribs...I had a 2 hour long emergency c-section, lost 1900 mls of blood, puked all over Jenny Thompson, and birthed a beautiful 8 pound 8 ounce, 21 inch long baby girl on August 8th, at 2:26 in the morning.