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September 2014 Moms
wrightpalomo
member
Joaquín's birth story (WrightPalomo) This is a long one!
wrightpalomo
member
Hello Ladies!
First off, thank you all for the well wishes during my labor. Extra thanks to my labor buddies @jen9608 and @sparklegrump for updating and being so supportive over the last couple of weeks!
I apologize for kind of falling off the radar since my labor. I had a bit of a rough transition to motherhood and have been dealing with some anxiety (officially, "adjustment disorder"). I've been working with my OB and a psychiatrist and I'm feeling better every day. My husband, parents, ILs, and friends have been very supportive and helpful. I have to recommend that anyone feeling overwhelmed, hyper-vigilant, anxious, or just pushed to her limit speak up and ask for help. There are a lot of resources available to new mothers- even if you don't have mental health coverage in your insurance plan.
Now on to the story!
I want to start out by saying that I really surprised myself with how much I enjoyed labor. I expected it to be awful, painful, and scary but my labor experience was very positive.
On my due date (Sunday 9/7) I woke up feeling extra grouchy and spent my morning in bed watching Netflix and feeling like I'd never go into labor. Tired of feeling sorry for myself, I psycho-style cleaned my house (I even scrubbed the grout in the shower- official sign of labor). I started feeling contractions at about 4:30 that were about 5 or 6 minutes apart, but I was in a shit mood so I brushed them off.
My sister and I had plans to go to dinner so I drove down to Pacifica where she was staying waiting for me to go into labor. We went to a Thai restaurant (food was good, service was comedically bad) and at 6:30 the contractions became too strong to ignore. We decided it would be best to call the hospital soon so of course we went to Target to buy some Jolly Ranchers, Werther's Originals, and newborn pants (I had a sudden realization that Joaquín didn't have enough pants! What would we do without more PANTS!?!?!). By this time my bad mood had disappeared and I was having a great time.
We finally got back to my house to pick up my husband at 9. Of course, even with 2+ hours notice, he hadn't taken a shower or eaten yet so we had to wait for that. My contractions were 45-60 seconds long and 3-4 minutes apart at this point so I called L&D and they said to come on in! I was super excited and too amped to let anyone else drive so my sister and husband piled into the car and I drove to the hospital (only a 10 minute drive with no freeway, so nbd). We got to the hospital at 10:30 and I was only dilated 3cm- but the on-call doctor said to admit me because I wanted an epidural.
We got up to the delivery room just before midnight and I scored the last open room with a tub! My first nurse drew me a bath and then there was a shift change. I labored in the tub for a couple of hours (such a nice change of pace- the hot water really helped!) but when I got out the contractions were not tolerable any more. My second nurse called up for the anesthesiologist and I had my epidural sometime after 2 am. I was really happy with the epi and it didn't hurt at all to have it put in. The nurse checked me before my epi and said I was 6cm dilated but my water hadn't broken yet. She was pretty confident I'd have the baby that morning, maybe even before her shift change. I have to say those L&D nurses are the masters of the pillow fort! My nurse wedged about 100 pillows under me in the perfect spots and turned that awful hospital bed into a magical cloud palace. I was way too excited to sleep but my husband and my sister got in a little nap.
8am came and went and I got a 3rd nurse. She did a cervical check because, surely, by this point I must be close- but she said I was "barely 6cm... probably actually closer to 5". This was kind of a blow- and the new on-call OB came in to do a check at 10 and agreed that I was only at 6cm. She recommended that we start Pitocin to get things going. I was kind of anti-Pitocin because I'd heard that the contractions were awful with it (in retrospect this was silly because I'd already had the epi and wasn't feeling any pain) but we waited another 2 hours to see if I made any progress on my own. The OB came back just after noon and I hadn't progressed at all, so we started the Pitocin and the OB offered me a C-secion if I didn't make any progress by 2. I was pretty set on a vaginal delivery so we discussed our options and decided that a long as Joaquín was doing well we wouldn't go for the C-section. By 2 I had progressed to 7 cm so the OB broke my water and upped the Pitocin and we waited it out. Joaquín tolerated the Pitocin well and his heart rate was great throughout the entire labor. At 4 I got my 4th (!!) nurse and she promised I would deliver on her shift.
I was ready to push by 6 and we started just before 6:15. I was thinking, "Alright! This is going to be done in 2 hours! I'll have my baby to squish by 8:30!" Ha! Totally jinxed myself. Joaquín got stuck behind my pelvic bone and we really struggled to get him past it for quite a while. He also really wanted to come sunny-side up. The OB had to turn him twice. My husband and my sister were really awesome during the pushing. They were great at motivating me and keeping me strong. I stayed in a great mood through the whole labor and delivery, joking with the nurses and not being my usual stress-moster self.
Finally, at 9:37 (29 hours later!) Joaquín made it out! At the last minute he pooped and flipped sunny-side up again. The OB put him on my chest and my husband cut the cord. Before I knew it he was off of me and was on the warming table with what seemed like 100 doctors and nurses around him. In my post-delivery-hormone-high I thought, "Oh my GOD! All these busy doctors came just to look at my beautiful baby! Everyone loves him!"-- uh, RIGHT. Thank God for those hormones because I don't think I could have processed the reality of the situation at that point. His 1-minute APGAR score was 5 but his 5-minute APGAR was 9. We both had a fever. The OB and pediatricians were on the fence about sending him to NICU but the three issues together (meconium, 1-minute APGAR at 5, and the fever) were just enough to need to send him in to rule out infection.
***Possible triggers in the next paragraph.***
I did not handle my time in the hospital well. The NICU environment was very stressful. Getting back and forth from my room to the NICU took forever and my nurses were constantly harping on me for being in the NICU and "difficult to track down". Being hooked up to an IV for 2 days for my own antibiotics as well as all of the monitors and Joaquín's IV made breastfeeding difficult. The lactation consultant was less than helpful with her 3-minute visit. I did not sleep more than 10 minutes at a time the whole time were were in the hospital. Despite indications to the contrary I was overwhelmed with worry about Joaquín's possible infection. The NICU nurses were very intense about his lack of BMs or wet diapers in the fist 24 hours because he was on the antibiotics and needed to flush them from his system. I was pumping like a madwoman trying to get just 5ml of colostrum for him. The whole thing was a blur. I was discharged on Wednesday night at 10pm and we were allowed to "room in" with Joaquín in a small room next to the NICU. I didn't sleep that night either. I was terrified he would stop breathing, that his temperature was too low or too high... was that noise labored breathing? I took him back to the NICU for the nurse to examine 4 times that night. Finally, on Thursday at 1 Joaquín was discharged and we got to go home. By Friday, with another sleepless night behind me, I had come completely undone and went in to see my OB.
I am so grateful that he is healthy and doing well at home. He is gaining weight. He sleeps really well. We have figured out breastfeeding. I am sad that I had such a hard time dealing with him being in the NICU. I feel like I really didn't hold it together well and that I could have done a better job for him. But I learned a lot from the experience and in reality he was well cared for and safe the whole time.
If you made it this far, thank you for reading! It was really therapeutic for me to write it all out.
And now pics!
Me and Joaquín- trying to get some burps!
Joaquín and the Hubbs taking a nap:
After-lunch nap on the Boppy while mommy writes a 100 page birth story:
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Joaquín's birth story (WrightPalomo) This is a long one!
BFP#1 4/17/2013 EDD 12/25/2013, MC 5/17/2013 8 weeks 3 days D&C 5/18/2013
BFP#2 1/20/2014 EDD 9/28/2014, Baby Evie born on 9/23/2014 at 8:50pm. 6 lbs 15 oz!
*O17 June Siggy Challenge - You had 1 job!*
baby #3 arrived in September 2014...cannot get ticker to work no matter what I try!