Blake Katherine (PIP)

kateb171 · April 2013

Blake's Birth Story

(it's long, so I'll do pictures first!)

Blake Katherine- 8 pounds 8 ounces, 21 1/4 in long, born 11:08pm on 4/5/13

At about 11:45 pm on April 4th, I was laying in bed and started having irregular uncomfortable cramp-like feelings in my lower back. As they progressed, the uncomfortable feelings started moving to the front and it felt like menstrual cramps. After unsuccessfully trying to sleep it off for a bit, I got up at 1:30 am and started to get last minute things around for the hospital. At this point my contractions were coming consistently every 2 minutes. We were surprised how they went from irregular right to 2 minutes apart, so we figured we better head to the hospital. We got there and were admitted by about 3:30 am and I was only about 2 cm dilated. My dilation wasn't really progressing, but my contractions were really consistent so by 7:00 am they took me to a birthing suite and the doctor broke my water. I continued to not progress so at some point in the afternoon they gave me my epidural and started me on pitocin. A while after that they inserted some internal monitor thing inside my uterus to actually measure the strength of my contractions because even though they were still consistent I was not dilating much. Sometime after that I started to develop a fever which hit about 103 and started to shake uncontrollably which turned to seizing that lasted a couple hours. Things start to get hazy for me around that point. They started me on antibiotics because I think they noticed that Blake's heart rate was getting high since my fever was putting stress on her. I remember toward the end they had me in different positions because they figured that the reason I wasn't dilating like I should be was because of how her head was positioned against my cervix. Not long after that they said I was finally fully dilated and they were going to have me start pushing at 11:00 pm. The nurse was getting me prepared, so the doctor left as they expected me to push for at least 2 hours. As soon as the nurse had me do a couple practice pushes, she had to page the doctor back because she said she was already coming. We started pushing at 11:00 pm and Blake was born at 11:08 pm on her due date- April 5th. The doctor said he couldn't believe it and was very impressed, he thought the page must have been wrong! They took her right away and had about 3 people there just for her, it all happened so fast. They let me hold her for not even a minute before they took her away to the NICU because she was breathing fast, and due to the fact that they knew she had been stressed because of my fever. It all happened so quickly, she was already gone and everyone was out by 11:30. It was just me, DH, and my mom in this dark empty room and I'm pretty sure I was in shock. After almost 24 hours of labor and being so ill, then pushing her out so quickly, I had went through all of that and yet she was gone and I had nothing to show for it. I didn't get to see her again until about 2 hours after she was born when they took me to the NICU. It was a very rough week after that while they kept her there. She had an IV in her head for antibiotics the first few days which was just hard to see, but it seemed a little better the last few days when it got moved to her foot. She had pokes all over the tops of her hands and on her feet, monitors stuck to her...we couldn't move her to hold onto her more than 3 feet from her bed. The main concern was her having the infection that I developed during labor, but throughout her time there they mentioned concern with her fast breathing, worried about her body temp, heart rhythm, sugar etc. They scared the crap out of me, but all of this stuff turned out fine and either wasn't a problem after all or it corrected itself. I think the hardest day was Saturday when they said that they wanted to do a spinal tap because they were concerned about meningitis. I had a breakdown. After giving her pain meds and poking her (yet again) in the back, they drew blood instead of spinal fluid so they failed to even do it correctly. I was livid. Then the next day the doctor that spoke to us said she was doing well enogh that meningitis wasn't even a concern at that point...which made me even more mad that they unneccesarily did the procedure. Anyway, the last several days all of her labs kept improving and everything looked perfect! They kept her there to finish the week long round of antibiotics but said from her all of her lab results that it didn't look like she even developed the infection, so it was more precautionary. (Also, they told me their best guess was chorioamnionitis from my water being broken early and prolonged labor- but didn't really give any exact answers). Everything else has been great, she's been home for a week and a half and is doing so well. She even sleeps through (most) of the night already- until about 5:00 am anyway! And breastfeeding has been going awesome, she latched on right away at our first attempt and we've had no problems since. She is such a good baby, and she is so loved- we absolutely adore our strong little girl.