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Isabel Sonya - A Birth Story (@sempre_staccato)

k2k2togk2k2tog member
edited June 2014 in June 2014 Moms
(This is long... sorry.)

TL;DR: Isabel Sonya was born at 8:38 pm on June 24th, weighing 7lb 9oz. She wanted to be delivered sunny side up, which meant incredibly painful back labour, which drove me, happily in the end, to an epidural. However, because I had a fever during labour, we're still in the hospital due to some tests Isabel needs to pass before we can leave. 

She's breast feeding like a champ and we're all surviving, but homesick.

--~*~--

I feel like Isabel's birth story isn't actually done yet, but we're stuck at the hospital for a few more hours yet (6? 8? 10? I'm not sure...) so to pass the time, I thought I'd share the events of the past few days. 

I was overdue a full week, feeling pretty frustrated and annoyed after three bouts of contractions that seemed to progress, only to stop after hours of discomfort and the building excitement of "Is it time to go to the hospital yet?" All day Monday, I lost bits of my mucus plug with some bloody show, but that had happened before too, and lead to nothing. I went to bed Monday night optimistic, but not particularly hopeful.

At 2:00, I woke up with a contraction. Got up, went pee, went back to bed. Same thing around 3:00. This time I couldn't really get back to sleep, but none of the contractions seemed regular or particularly intense. I managed to sleep on and off until 5 or so, at which point I started timing contractions in earnest. At 6 am, I got DH out of bed - a mere half hour before he normally would. By 7am the contractions were so intense, some of them had me on my knees, clinging to the edge of the kitchen counter. There was also more blood than seemed normal when I peed. Contractions were falling somewhere between 3-6 minutes apart, lasting a minute, and they had been for about 45 minutes. I called the hospital. The nurse told me to come in, but I didn't think she sounded so certain that we'd be staying. We lingered at home for another half hour, then snuggled the dogs and got them some treats, and headed out into the morning. 

For some reason, they made us wait at reception for what felt like forever, but was probably only 15 minutes. Finally at triage, we discovered an even bigger issue: there were no delivery rooms. The hospital was having One of Those Days, dealing with my city's baby boom, and there was no available delivery room for me, even if I was going to get to stay. I checked in, got hooked up to fetal monitor and a contraction monitor, got checked - 4 cm dialated, so nope, not being sent home! - and settled in for what would be 3 hours of intense back labour in the discomfort of triage, listening to the nurse call every 15 minutes or so frantically trying to find me a room. Originally, I had hoped to deliver without the assistance of an epidural. As contractions hit one after another, I quickly gave up on that idea, but for those 4 hours, it didn't matter. Until I got a room, there would be no epidural. So, there I sat in triage, that woman making all passerbies uncomfortable with the sound of labour pain, feeling my energy drain away with each contraction. It became even worse when the triage nurse had me lie back down on the bed, so she could check the baby on the fetal monitor, and monitor my contractions again. Fifteen of the worst minutes of my life. 

Finally, I got a room. They got the epidural guy in pretty quick for me. That thing? Is magic. Almost instant relief. Unfortunately, it did exactly what epidurals often do - slowed labour right down. When I was finally moved to my room, I had progressed to a solid 6-7 cm. When they checked me again 2 hours later, I had progressed maybe half a cm. Not good. Up went an oxytocin drip, a very low dose, to increase the frequency and intensity of my contractions. Still, labour was long and kind of boring. DH and I hadn't really thought to bring entertainment. After all, I had been planning on delivering without pain meds, and thought I would need all of my concentration to make it through contractions, and a lot of DH's support. Epidurals, on the other hand, are boring. I watched the clock a lot. I checked in here a lot. I slept a lot. 

When I got to 9 cm, the epidural stopped being able to block the contractions. I'm not sure if that was the oxytocin talking, or simply the fact that those contractions felt different. But, they were easy to manage, and in a way, I appreciated them. I didn't appreciate them so much anymore a couple hours later when there was still a 'little lip' left to go, nor a couple hours after that when I had been sitting at a solid 10 for 30 minutes, wanting to push but... remember how the hospital was ridiculously busy? I needed to wait for two other women, it turned out, to deliver their babies. On top of that, when my water broke - in triage - there was meconium in it, so they needed to assemble a team from pediatrics to stand by, just in case. Because of that meconium, they were also concerned about getting baby out fast once I started to push. My nurse warned me that if necessary, the doctor may be required to use the vacuum, but it would be best if I gave it my all while pushing. 

So, that's what I did. Because the epidural both a) didn't fully block those contractions and b) ran out towards the end, I was still able to feel when and how I needed to push. I had an amazing nurse who did an excellent job of coaching me through each contraction and, 30 minutes after I started pushing, Isabel Sonya was born. She cared not a whit about the meconium she'd been swimming in and came out with a healthy set of lungs, happy to settle in for some skin-to-skin right away, and get down to the most serious job of her life: pooping. Which, she did on my stomach, almost as soon as she was born. 

I ended up with some tearing and some stitches, which have not been pleasant at all, but there has been a bigger problem that has prevented us from going home yet. I developed a fever during labour, which was nothing for me - I didn't even feel it - but which can have some pretty serious implications for Isabel. They did some tests 6 hours after she was born and one - testing for bacteria or infection in her blood - she did not pass on the 24 hour culture, so they have to wait 48 hours. She also didn't pass her jaundice test. I have been so desperate to go home, but last night, very close to the hour we thought we would be let go, they came and let us know that we would not be leaving until today - this afternoon. DH was exhausted because they don't provide any sleeping accommodations here for the partners and, on top of that, a huge storm flooded our basement last night, causing our basement apartment tenants to call in a frenzy, at a loss of what to do. I sent him home so he could deal with the situation, make sure the dogs were doing ok, and get some proper sleep. 

So, that's where we're at. DH came back this morning, and we're waiting for the test to be retaken. Exhausted, a little stressed, homesick. But there's a beautiful silver lining:

image

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ETA to fix what exactly it is we're waiting for. I'm not very good at remembering or getting explanations from nursing staff... 

DD1: June 2014 - VBM4lyfe
DD2: October 2016
DC3: coming May 2019


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