Pregnant after 35

Finally! (Birth story - long!)

Well, Dominic Alan finally decided to show up this morning at 8:30, after about 32 hours of labor. Contractions started Sunday at 1 AM. I labored at home until 10 AM when contractions were every 3-4 minutes and lasting 1 minute plus.

In triage, they measured me at 70% effaced but only 1.5 cm dilated. I think they were about to send me home, when my water broke, so they admitted me. I continued to labor unmedicated until about 6 PM, which was miserable, but tolerable, until OB came in to tell me I had not progressed any further, because the contractions were not strong enough and had slowed to every 7-8 minutes. She suggested pitocin to get things moving, especially since my water had already broken. I agreed to the pitocin, because I knew the increased chance of infection once water has broken, and I was getting very frustrated that I had been laboring for 16 hours with almost no progress.

Once they hooked up pitocin, contractions became intolerable, so I wound up with an epidural, too, which thankfully worked well. That was at about 7:30 PM, and I pretty much slept through the rest of labor, except when the nurse came in to flip me over every hour, and a couple of times when baby'heart rate went down and every nurse and doctor came running into the room (that's one way to scare the heck out of first time parents).

At 7 this morning, I had finally dilated to 10 cm, and they said they wanted to let me "labor down" so his head would descend more before I pushed. At 8:00, I started pushing, and he was out by 8:30. After 32 hours of labor - only 30 minutes of pushing! Woohoo! Its good, too, because afterward, the OB said his heart rate was going down again during pushing, and if we didn't get him out quickly, we may have had to do a c-section.

So anyway, if you've read this far, thank you! We are now hanging out in postpartum until Wednesday morning, figuring out breastfeeding and realizing that our swaddle skills leave a lot to be desired. I am feeling tired, but very relieved. I definitely have to call my chiropractor and thank her - I think getting my hips aligned may just have been the help I needed to get me started.
Baby Birthday Ticker Ticker

Re: Finally! (Birth story - long!)

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