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November 2014 Moms
shan24
member
William John's birth story ***kinda scary***
shan24
member
William John was born on Tuesday, November 18 at 11:37 pm. While he is healthy and the light of our lives, his birth story isn't necessarily a positive one, so for those of you with inside babies, you may or may not want to read.
On Monday, November 17, I woke up early to pee and saw that I had lost what I assume is the rest of my mucous plug. All that day, I was having contractions on and off, but nothing really timeable. When I went to bed around 10, I thought that maybe things would progress the next day. I woke up at 1 am with stronger contractions. I timed them and found that I was 3-1-1, so I woke SO, called L&D and we made our way over to the hospital.
Once there, the nurse tried to check my cervix but found that it was still too high for her to reach, so she had to get another nurse to try. She said I was between 4 and 5 centimeters dilated, so they admitted me.
In my birth plan, I had stated that I wanted to try and go natural, but wasn't opposed to medication if I had a difficult labour. I didn't know at that point how difficult it would become. I started out in the tub, but the heat made me feel faint and sick to my stomach, so I got out. In the delivery room, I was offered the gas and took it right away. My contractions were more painful than I expected them to be and the gas took the edge off.
Fast forward 5 hours. Nurse shift change. I had been labouring on the birthing ball with the gas all night. The nurse rechecked my cervix. I was only dilated to 5 centimetres. I was shocked and a little devastated that in 5 hours I had only dilated half a centimetre. The nurse reassured me that the baby had dropped significantly lower and that all was well.
At this point, I wanted to labour in bed, on my side, so we did. I continued with the gas as it became less and less effective. A number of hours later (I really can't remember how many) the doctor came in to check on me. He checked my cervix and now I was dilated to 6 centimetres. I was so upset that I asked him if he was fucking kidding me. Nope. He broke my water in the hopes of picking labour up. They also started pitocin. The contractions got worse.
A few hours after that, the doctor came back in and, seeing how I wasn't tolerating the contractions well, suggested that I get an epidural. I agreed immediately. The problem was that the anesthesiologist was in surgery and wouldn't be available for an hour and a half. They offered me morphine, and I took it. It didn't work, so they offered me fentanyl and I took that. My contractions were so strong and so painful that I didn't really know where I was. There were no breaks in between.
An hour or so later, the anesthesiologist came in and I got my epidural and I was finally able to sleep some. SO had been in regular contact with my parents and they were heading down (they live 5 hours away). The OB came in to check on me. While she was checking my cervix, she noted that she could feel a lot of stool and assumed I was constipated. She suggested an enema so allow the baby as much room as possible to exit. I agreed. Most humiliating experience ever.
Another nurse shift change. My epidural was wearing off a little, so the upped it. Finally, at about 8:30, they told me I was completely dilated. They said that because I had an epidural, they were going to wait for me to get an urge to push. At about 9, I got that urge, so I started. The pushing part was fine, but the in between parts were so painful to me. I told the nurse and she seemed a little perplexed. I had been pushing on my side, so she suggested pushing on all fours instead. It helped some, but not a lot.
Two hours of pushing later, the OB comes back in the room and checks me over. Tells me that my pushing is perfect and to keep it up. She then asked the nurse how long I had been at it. When the nurse told her two hours, she rechecked me. She told me that the baby was posterior, so facing up instead of facing down, and that my chances of birthing without assistance were low. She suggested forceps. At this point, I was so tired and in so much pain, I would have agreed to anything. Within minutes, the room was set up. The OB was there, the general practitioner who had been following me the whole pregnancy was there, a resident was there, my nurse, another nurse and SO. The OB was as gentle as she could be in inserting the forceps. I don't remember this hurting a lot, but who knows? I was a little out of it.
The OB told me that she couldn't pull if I wasn't pushing so at my next contraction, we were going to work together. When my next contraction hit, I started pushing and she started pulling. It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. I went completely primal and tried to scoot away from her in the most fight or flight manner possible. My parents had made it to the hospital at this point and my mom said that she could hear me screaming from the waiting room. I'm not sure how long this went on for, but finally the OB said that the baby's head was born and at the next contraction, we could do the rest. Except at the next contraction, it was discovered that the baby had shoulder dystocia and all of a sudden I felt the OB's hand inside my vagina, trying to pull the baby free. Finally, William John was born at 9 lb 10 oz.
Because of all the issues, I ended up with an episiotomy and multiple tears. Also, a fourth degree laceration of my rectum. It took them 45 minutes to stitch me up, which was a little surreal. Hearing things like "Hey, Paul, do you think this goes here?" is a little freaky. But, the baby was perfect and it looked like I was going to be ok. The general practitioner told me that with posterior babies, it can sometimes feel like they are 2 lbs bigger than they actually are, which would have contributed to my very hard labouring.
After all was said and done, they gave William, who had been on my chest while they were stitching me up, to SO and tried to move me to a wheelchair to get me back to my room. As I sat up, I felt like I was going to be sick, so I asked for a bucket. The next thing I knew, I was laying down on the bed and the nurse was practically on top of me screaming my name. My blood pressure had dropped quickly and I passed out, I found out later that as I fainted, I was making as though I was vomiting at the same time and the nurse was scared I would choke myself.
The next day, they ran tests on me and William. It turns out that I had lost so much blood during delivery that my hemoglobin dropped from 130 to 111. They wanted to watch me. William was having a hard time latching, so I worked with a number of nurses to help that. They also told me that William was tongue tied and they could snip it if I wanted them too. I agreed. That day was rough as I was very sore, very swollen and bleeding quite a bit. Getting up out of bed was a two person job.
The following day, they ran more tests on both of us. This time my hemoglobin had dropped again, this time to 88. They told me that at 80, they would start thinking about blood transfusion. They were iffy on giving me iron supplements because of the laceration of my rectum and didn't want to do anything to constipate me. Also, they told me that William's bilirubin was high and they wanted to monitor that.
The next day (Friday) I heard rumblings about me possibly being sent home that day and I was getting excited. My hemoglobin had not dropped any more, so they were feeling a little more confident. Except that William's bilirubin was continuing to climb, so they wanted to watch him for another night. It was here that they sent in a lactation consultant to meet with me. We discovered that I have low breast tissue and am not producing enough milk, on top of William's poor latch. They think that it may have been contributing to his jaundice because he really wasn't pooping (because he wasn't eating). I start pumping and supplementing with formula.
Saturday rolls around and I am certain that we are going home today. Then, the nurse comes in and says that the blood work they had done on William came back high again and the doctor had ordered phototherapy for him for 24 hours. They started him on the bed at first, but he hated it so much, they put him on the biliblanket. At least that way, we could hold him. They continued to test time all that day and into the night. The poor little guy had so many pricks to his little heels. It was a long night.
Finally, on Sunday, the doctor said that his bilirubin was low enough that we could take him home, but we had to bring him back the following day for another blood test. At this point, I had been in the hospital since early, early Tuesday morning and I was ready to go. We brought him back on Monday and his levels were fine.
We're continuing to work with the lactation consultant for William's latch and my milk production. I currently am taking a cocktail of Tylenol and Advil for pain, colace and metamucil to keep my stool soft, and domperidone, fenugreek and blessed thistle for milk production.
As much as William's birth story kinda sucks, we're so grateful that he's here and that he's healthy.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: William John's birth story ***kinda scary***
Sorry his birth was traumatic. Ouch!
Dx: PCOS
DS1 born 11/2014
DS2 born 11/2018
3 previous losses
Rainbow baby due 12/2021 - Team Green
BFP#4 3/17/14 - rainbow Baby BOY arrived 11/10/14 !!
DX: Uterine Septum - Resection 9/5/13 || MTHFR Hetero A1298C || My Chart
Wishing you easier days from here on.
William is beautiful!!!