My Long, Overdue Birth Story If Anyone Cares To Read

jessa1228 · November 2014

I wasn't originally going to type mine out, but I like reading other people's so why not.

Thursday November 6 I went to work as usual. Around 3pm I started having contractions that, while not painful or particularly close together, were fairly consistent and I suspected were more than just BH. I texted H and asked when he was planning on leaving work. He said he wasn't sure so I told him about the contractions and told him to get home ASAP just in case (he works 40-ish minutes from home).

I left work at 5:30. H and I ate dinner and watched some TV while I started timing contractions. They were only about 7 minutes apart and I still wasn't convinced it was the real deal. At 8:15, in the middle of watching The Big Bang Theory, my water broke. I freaked out and ran to the bathroom because it was coming out fast and heavy. I called my doctor's office (they told me to call them first so they could meet me at the hospital) and after playing phone tag for what felt like an eternity, but was really only about 5 minutes, I got a hold of one of the midwives. She asked me a few questions and then told us to head to the hospital.

We live about 45 minutes from the hospital. My contractions picked up drastically on the car ride there. I told H to put on his flashers and run red lights, which he did, although luckily at this point there was barely any traffic anyway. We got to the hospital and checked in and we were taken to our room. They tried to check how dilated I was but were having a hard time since DS's head was so low. They hooked me up to the monitor and saw that my contractions were about 2 minutes apart, so they admitted me. A little while later they checked me again and determined I was 5cm. My contractions were becoming more painful and I threw up twice, so I asked for the epidural. The anesthesiologist was amazing, he was in and out in no time and I barely felt him put it in. They told me to try to get a nap while I finished dilating. At this point my sense of time went out the window, so I have no idea at what time certain things happened. I know I progressed to 10cm very quickly, to the point where all the nurses were convinced I was going to have this baby in a matter of a few hours.

Well, things got complicated when I started to push. My heart rate dropped so I was put on oxygen. DS's heart rate kept plummeting during contractions and then rising again. My contractions slowed to 5 minutes apart, so I was given pitocin. I pushed for a hour with barely any progress. They told me to rest for an hour and we'd try again. This happened 2 more times. After 3 hours of pushing, they determined that DS's head was cocked to the side and therefore slightly stuck (they had told me at my u/s 4 days prior that his head was cocked but I guess it didn't raise any red flags). The doctor said he was going to try using the vacuum, but that he would only try 3 times and if it didn't work, I'd have to get a c-section. Luckily after the first try with the vaccum and me pushing, DS was able to come out. He was born Friday November 7 at 8:27am, 7lb 5oz and 20.5in. They had warned me that he may not cry at first because of all the trauma he had just gone through, but he definitely came out screaming. At that point I started bawling because I was just relieved that he was out and ok, and I was freakin exhausted.

I had multiple 2nd and 3rd degree tears and lost a lot of blood. It took them a while to stitch me up and I remember H starting to panic when he saw all of the blood. They kept me an extra day in the hospital which turned out to be a blessing because I had a lot of trouble going pee (I had to use a catheter for a while) and I kept passing out from the blood loss. H was a wreck because he was convinced something was wrong with me, but the nurses kept telling him that apparently this was all normal. DS was a tiny bit jaundiced but took to breastfeeding right away so they weren't too concerned. We were discharged Sunday afternoon.

I think that's everything. Like I said, things got a bit fuzzy after I got the epidural. I wasn't even sure I wanted an epidural but boy am I glad I got it. I couldn't imagine doing all of that med-free, kudos to the girls that can!