May 2021 Moms
mrosek91
member
STM+ Share your birth stories
mrosek91
member
There was some interest in this mentioned over the weekend, and I think it's helpful for anyone whether this is your first or fourth to hear about different experiences.
Share as much or as little as you are comfortable with.
Share as much or as little as you are comfortable with.
Re: STM+ Share your birth stories
I was GB+ for all my births. My mom lives a 4 hour drive away. I told her that I understand that labor is unpredictable, but since they say it usually takes several hours I would like her to be in the room if possible.
With DS#1 we kept having induction scares thanks to low fluid, but I basically drank my weight in water, and was able to stay above the threshold were they would have forced me to be induced. I made it to 40+6, I woke up with mild pain that I thought couldn't be real contractions because it didn't hurt enough. I worked from home all day, and at 6 pm after having the pain on and off all day, I decided to call my doula. She said that what I was describing could be labor, or could be Braxton-Hicks, I should take a bath, and try and sleep. DH forced me to eat dinner. I called my parents, and told them that this could be it, or it could be nothing. Since they are both morning people they decided to get an early nights sleep and head out when they woke up around 5/6 am. I took a bath, and then went to the bathroom, and had a bloody show. I called my doula, and she said the show could appear days before labor really started, and I should still try and sleep. I told DH he should get some sleep, because who knew if he's be able to in the coming days. I lay in bed, and had irregular contractions. Sometimes I dozed between, and sometimes I read. After every contraction I felt the need to pee, and every time I went to the bathroom there was *TMI* yellowish green mucus. At around 3 I texted my parents that they should head out as soon as they woke up. At around 3:30 am my contraction were about 10 minutes apart, and the mucus has been consistent for hours. I called my doula, and she said that mucus was not uncommon, and it didn't sound like there was enough that my water broke. I mentioned that I couldn't remember the last time I felt the baby move, and she said that once labor starts it's not uncommon but if that and/or the mucus had me worried I should listen to my instinct and call the doctor. While I was on hold with the doctor's answering service I needed to pee again, so I woke DH. The doctor said the same thing as my doula, but said that if it would make me feel better I could go to the hospital for a check of the baby's heart rate. We headed to the hospital fully expecting to be sent right home, so we told my doula to wait, since they only let one visitor in the triage area, and it didn't make sense for her to come to the hospital, if she would just have to go home with us.
We got to the hospital around 5 am, and while we were waiting to get called into triage my parents texted that they were on their way. We went into triage, and it turns out that my water was leaking, and I was 5 cm dilated!!
We told my doula to come to the hospital and in the time between when I was admitted and she showed up they asked me if I was sure I didn't want an epidural 3 times! By the third time I told them, "yes, and stop asking me until my doula shows up and reminds me why I don't want it."
They put me on monitors and started an IV drip of antibiotics for the GB. They said the drip would take 20 minutes, and once it was done I would be allowed to "labor freely" without the monitors. At this point time lost all meaning. I labored in a rocking chair for a while. Then my OB came for another check and I was 8 cm dilated, and starting transition. My doula asked my OB if I could labor in the shower and she said yes. It was the most amazing thing. The pain was unbelievable, but I leaned on the bar of the shower, and my doula aimed the handheld spray at my lower back, and it really helped. After I changed into a dry gown, and got into the bed, my OB came back and did another check, and I was complete. They told me I should start trying to push, I got up on my knees, and did a few pushes in that position. At that point my mom walked into the room. The OB recommended I try pushing on my back, so I did that, and after what seemed like a very long time (and several screams later) I had a beautiful boy in my arms. Born 8lb 5oz at 11:12 am. My OB said that the difference in my pushes before and after my mom showed up was very evident, and it was obvious I was subconsciously waiting for her.
DS#2 started off in a similar manner I woke up on my due date with on and off contractions all day that I wasn't sure if they were real or BH. By 11 pm I was pretty sure it was the real thing, but they were still very far apart so I told DH to get some sleep, and we would let the parents know in the morning (Mine so they could drive down, his so they could take DS#1). I woke DH at 4 am with a change of plans. They were about 7 minutes apart, so it "wasn't urgent" but we should probably tell his parents to come out since they live 20 minutes away, we called them and made arrangements. A few minutes later the contractions suddenly jumped to just 3 minutes apart. I called my doula and the doctor and they both said to get to the hospital. We called my ILs and said change of plans meet us at the hospital. We called my parents and said get in the car as soon as you can.
My contractions stayed consistent in the car, and when we got to the check-in desk my water broke. I highly recommend it, it meant we got to skip triage, and go right to a room. As my doula was helping me change into a gown I asked her if it was possible I already felt the need to push. She said yes, and walked me through holding a push. They then made me hold off pushing for 20 minutes while I got the IV antibiotics (holding in a push is almost as hard as pushing.) I was finally free to push. It had happened so fast that when I started pushing the hospital's on call OB was there, because my doctor hadn't made it in yet. My doctor did show up in the middle of pushing. My practice has several OBs, so you deliver with who ever is on call, the OB I had with DS#1 was a woman who had given birth herself and had no problem with my screaming. The OB with DS#2 was a man, and he kept telling me to stop screaming and put that energy into pushing, I wanted to scream at him, that he could tell me not to scream once he had pushed a baby out of his private parts.
DS#2 was 8lb 1oz and born at 6:02 am. (My parents didn't show up until several hours later.)
For DS#3 I went in Tuesday morning for my 39 week check-up, and the doctor said I was between 3&4 cm dilated, and 50% effaced, and she was pretty sure that they would be seeing me back in the hospital in labor within 24-48 hours, but if they didn't they would want to do a repeat ultrasound on Friday and possibly induce because my fluids were low. I called my doula, and she told me to relax because woman can walk around 3-4cm for a while, and I should drink lots of water to get my fluids back up, she also mentioned that she had a class that night, so I should let her know by 5 if I thought I was in labor, even if it was early labor. That day I went to a client, and had a data center tour, so I was doing a ton of walking. That night after bedtime, I broke down crying to DH, that I didn't want to be induced, and why wasn't I in labor yet, I said "I shouldn't be so upset, because we haven't even reached my due date, but I'm so ready to be done, how did I stay sane when I was 6 days late with DS#1." He responded "You didn't" After I forgave him for that, I asked him to do some nipple simulation. I started to get mild contractions, after a while I got one bad enough that I had to change position and breathe. So I called my doula, she picked up and said I'm still in my class what's happening. I said I had a few contractions nothing consistent, you can call me back after the class. So of course they stopped. She called me back about half an hour later, and I said I had been having contractions about 10 minutes apart, but they stopped when I called you. She said it could still be early labor, and I should relax and try and sleep. So at 9 pm I went to bed, woke up at 11 with a contraction, and fell right back to sleep, woke up sporadically with contractions until about 12:30 when they started getting painful enough that I had to reposition to deal with them, so I got out of bed, and started timing them. Around 1 we called my MIL, and asked her if she could spend the night at our house. Various phone calls with the doula, and conversations with DH. Around 2 I called my mom and told her I was in labor, and if she wanted to be there she should come. About 5 minutes later I called my doula again, I told her that even though they were only 7 minutes apart they were lasting around 90 seconds, and were really intense, and I would feel better if I was in the hospital, so she said, OK, call your doctor. (My doctors practice has privileges at two hospitals HC, and SG, when you call them they decide based on if they have other patients in labor which one you should go to.) I called my doctor and she said "Dr. R is going to be on call tomorrow, and has an induction at 7 at SG, but I just finished a delivery at HC, and I don't really want to go to SG, and I know you prefer HC, how likely do you think it is that you'll give birth before 7 am." I said, "well it's baby #3, and these are really strong." So we said good-bye to my MIL, and left for the hospital. It's officially a 20 minute drive, but I think DH did it in 15. My doula met us there, and only one person is allowed in triage, so I took her in instead of DH. They told me I had to sit so they could check me, and give me the IV anti-biotics, probably the hardest part of labor, sitting was so painful, my body just did not want to be in that position. They checked and I was 7cm, so they took me right back to a room, I was shuffling down the hall, leaning on the IV pole, and the nurses kept trying to convince me to get in a wheel chair, and I was like, you do not understand I CANNOT sit.
We get to the room, and they have all these forms they need me to sign, they say your husband can read them to you, so that you can sign them, I say to DH, "Can't you just forge my signature" and the nurse said, "I'll pretend I didn't hear that." I told them I was feeling pushy, so they called the doctor. While we waited DH read me the forms between contractions, and I somehow signed them, his forgery would probably have looked more like my signature than my signature did that day.
Doctor got there and said I was complete, and could start pushing. Pushed for a little bit, screaming with each push. Then there seem to be a longer than usual break between the contractions. I made a comment to my doula, that I didn't want the next contraction to come since they were so painful, but at the same time I wanted it there so that I could get this over with. The doctor told me I could try pushing without a contraction, but instead of screaming I should hold my breath. I could feel her pushing my opening around the babies head trying to stretch it out. I gave a really long hard push, and DS#3 made his appearance at 4:42 am, he was my smallest at 7lb10oz.
I went into labor with my first at 39+2 which was on a Saturday. I woke up early-ish (6am) that morning with some cramping that I thought was just bad gas. I ended up getting out of bed and going downstairs to watch tv for a while. I think my husband got up around 9-ish? At that point I realized the gas pains were happening somewhat regularly but I honestly didn't think they were contractions because they weren't that painful. But, since there seemed to be a pattern I decided to grab a shower and shave my legs just in case. My husband poked his head in the bathroom to ask if he should start on breakfast and I told him to hold off because I may or may not be in labor and I was thinking maybe I should go get checked just in case. So we spent a little while prepping just in case: we neatened up the guest room and put clean sheets on the bed since my mom was planning on hopping a plane as soon as I was in labor. We cleaned up our room a little bit, cleaned the kitchen, double checked my hospital bag, and packed up the dogs' food and called to make a one night boarding reservation at doggy day camp. We grabbed breakfast from a drive-thru and then I helped get the dogs out of the car and into camp.
After that we headed to L&D at the hospital. I went to check in and told the lady I felt really silly because I thought that maybe I was in labor but I really wasn't sure so she just shrugged and said they would get me back to check to see if I was dilated (I think I was like 2 or 3cm at my last OB check a few days before?). This was probably around 11 and by then I wasn't really feeling anything anymore so I was sure it was just some gas that had passed. They hooked me up to a monitor for about 15 minutes and then the on-call doctor came in and checked me and found that I was 8cm and fully effaced. So, we texted our families to let them know and around noon the nurses got me checked me into a room and asked if I wanted an epidural (100% yes I did). The "cramps" or as I knew then contractions had started to come back but still didn't feel like much but I knew if they got bad I wouldn't handle it well. The anesthesiologist came back to administer it and told me it might take about 15 minutes but it hit me immediately.
Labor slowed after that (likely due to the epidural) and at some point that started me on pitocin to get things going again. I spent the whole day just lying in bed watching Law & Order SVU and chatting with the nurses when they would come check on me. At one point they were talking about breaking my water since it hadn't broken on its own but as the nurse was checking my cervix it went so she stopped mid-sentence and said "Nevermind! There it is!" DH spent the day on the sofa in the room reading books and sending non-updates to family and extending the dogs' boarding to 3 nights.
Around 6:45 I was almost fully dilated so the nurse had me do a few practice pushes. The doctor came in to deliver around 7:05 - 7:10 and Odessa elbowed her way out of my vagina at exactly 7:15pm as the doctor said "let's hold for one second." She was 7lb 9oz and 21.75" long and her first order of business was to poop on my chest.
Post-birth was the bad part for me but thankfully I didn't really feel it due to the epidural. Because she literally elbowed her way out, I tore pretty badly. It wasn't a front to back tear, more like an inside to outside tear and it took about an hour to stitch me up and lots of suction and then I had to have a catheter overnight because they didn't want me getting up/moving around a lot. I also kept getting really lightheaded and had to keep passing her off to my DH so that I could lie the bed back down.
I finally got to a recovery room around 10-10:30 and got the last sandwich available on the floor which at that point was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted because I just desperately wanted food since I hadn't eaten since that morning.
Night 1 was great because the nurses practically handled everything. I didn't sleep much because you're constantly getting checked on and there's all of the hospital equipment so there's a good deal of light/noise but I still felt rested. Here's a tip for you FTM: at least in my experience, Night 2 is what gets you. At our hospital, they basically leave you to fend for yourself the second night and for us it was EXHAUSTING. Night 1, baby is all sleepy but Night 2 they are ready to experience the world. Our hospital (and I think a lot of hospitals now) doesn't have a nursery so DH and I were basically passing her back and forth alllllllllllllllllllllll night and she would only sleep on one of us. It's the one thing I wish someone had warned us about, tbh.
Second, I briefly thought about trying for a vbac, but my cervix seemed rather stubborn with my first kid, so I just didn't think it was worth the risk. We decided on a repeat c-section at 39w1d. TW: Traumatic details in spoiler
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
First off I’m glad this thread was created because I tried to write out my daughters birth story after she was born and then got a rush of anxiety about other people reading it or leaving out something important and never finished it. So I’m keeping this for myself too 😂 I haven’t read through others’ stories yet but I will!
My daughters birth was a very positive experience and I worked really really hard to prepare, lay out exactly what I wanted, & was privileged enough to have the support to make it happen. I want so much for all people to have an empowering birth experience & I know that can mean completely different things for different people. I wanted an intervention-free birth for probably a hundred different reasons & I attribute most of my success to staying home as long as we did - although we likely should have left sliiightly earlier 😂
I didn’t allow any cervical checks until 39 weeks because I wanted to mentally prepare to go over 40 weeks, based on FTM statistics. At my 39 week check I was about 2 cm dilated and had some slight cramping. On the 4th of July I lost my mucus plug - I remember because I texted my doula and said - Happy 4th! I lost my mucus plug! The last thing on my to-do list was getting my hair done on the 5th, and I remember that night in the shower I finally figured out that rubbing coconut oil on my nipples would rub away the crusty colostrum build up, and I remember feeling so pleased like - my hair is ready, my nipples are ready 👌🏻 I remember rolling over to go to sleep at 9:30 and feeling some kind of twinge but thinking nothing of it.
My husband was sleeping in the guest room because I got up to pee so much. Around 11:30 I woke up feeling a cramp, looked at the clock and went back to sleep. This happened a few more times and I realized I was waking up about 10 minutes apart, but I kept going back to sleep. I remember thinking if I still feel like this in the morning, I could probably still drive myself to my chiropractor appointment (nope).
Around 1:00 I felt a popping sensation & felt baby move. I got up and went to the bathroom, and put a panty liner in and laid back down, for some reason it wasn’t really clicking that my water could have broken ( but it absolutely did). I kept going through panty liners and eventually was sitting on the toilet thinking I should probably wake up my husband because things were feeling intense. I walked down the hall and he sat up in bed and said “is it happening?!” And I said “I don’t know, I just feel like you should be awake.” I texted my doula and told her I had had pretty intense cramping for the last couple of hours. Pretty quickly after this I was in a super detached, inward mental state and really couldn’t focus on anything but dealing with what I was feeling. I wouldn’t necessarily describe my contractions as painful but just very intense and overtaking my whole body. I remember all I could do was count my own breaths during contractions. My husband was having trouble getting a grasp on contraction timing, and he eventually downloaded an app to time them (I remember between contractions looking at him and he had his credit card out trying to buy some app 😂) Anyway by the time we grasped this concept it seemed like my contractions were not stopping, they were just blending together. In hindsight I was likely in transition. I had so many labor positions planned but I just wanted to sit on the edge of my bed. Our doula suggested trying a warm bath but I hated it, and when I was in the tub I started feeling an intense feeling of my body pushing down at the height of each contraction. A few contractions later I realized I might be pushing. I told my husband, “tell the doula I feel like I’m pushing down” and he started texting her, and I’m like CALL HER! She was really skeptical because it’s only like 5:00 but heard me over the phone and asked if I had tried to check my cervix, which I had told her I wanted to do before going to the hospital. I washed my hands and checked and just felt something hard. She said “ok that’s probably baby’s head, I’ll meet you at the hospital”. I remember her suggesting that I change my breathing to short, shallow breaths to try not to have the baby in the car, and I wish I hadn’t done that because it was really hard to get back into deep belly breaths once we got to the hospital. I remember squatting down to have a contraction at our door, in the car (were 10 mins from the hospital) and at a bench outside the hospital. When we got there my husband had to park and some woman wheeled me upstairs in a wheelchair and put me in line to check in. I remember thinking what the hell, I’m literally pushing, but I was past the point of communicating. Eventually it became obvious and they got me right into a room. I instinctively crawled up onto the bed and then regretted it because they strapped the monitor on me and gave me a fluid IV. But I did remember that I did NOT want to push with my butt flat on the bed, so I told them no stirrups and ended up mostly upright but on my side. I remember trying to ignore the coached pushing and go by how I felt. They had a mirror and my daughters head looked and felt like a little white bowling ball. When her head was out my Dr said, “grab your baby!” and I reached down and pulled her out. We had arrived at the hospital at probably 5:15 and she was born at 5:42. I forgot to even ask about the sex and my Dr reminded me we should check, and my husband told me it was a girl, and said “it’s Maren!” (We had decided our girl name in advance). She stayed right on my chest and found my nipple pretty quickly, but literally gave me a hickey on my nipple as soon as she latched on the first time. They gave me about an hour but my placenta had not come out, so I agreed to the routine pitocin shot which i had initially declined. My Dr was worried about bleeding and wanted to get the placenta out by manual removal. They asked if I wanted someone else to hold the baby but I said no, so I held her while my Dr had her whole hand up there massaging my placenta until it came out. Again I wouldn’t say this was painful but verrrry intense and a lot of pressure. Definitely worse than contractions. I remember my husband saying “just make sure you don’t squeeze her” to me, in regards to the baby😂 Anyway eventually it was out but came out in pieces and I didn’t get to see it. 100% want to birth that damn thing myself this time. I was too lightheaded to pee by myself after which I’ve been told is common if you tend to have lower blood pressure, so I asked for a catheter. We went home the next morning after literally zero sleep because my daughter wanted to sleep on top of me and nurse every 20 minutes which continued for at least a year 😂 My god I’m sorry that was so long!
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
BFP #1 January 28, 2016
Felicity Joy, born September 2, 2016
My Chart
BFP #2 September 11, 2020
EDD May 23, 2021
I’m going to try my best to make this short, and it will be shorter than the original since it’s been 14 years and I’ve forgotten a lot of it, thank goodness.
On my due date with DD1, I had an ultrasound to check if she was ok and assess what we should do from there. I was measuring a few weeks ahead, and she was measuring at about 9lbs. The ultrasound tech spent a lot of time measuring her head, and wouldn’t answer any questions I had. At the time, they knew DD’s head was over the 100th percentile but didn’t tell me. The dr decided I should be induced because of DD’s overall size and my petite size. Also, I had pre-eclampsia so I was very swollen and had high blood pressure.
3 days later I started my induction at 7am, when I was hooked up to the machines, I was already having regular contractions every few minutes. I’d become used to my Braxton Hicks, and had several false alarms. I was only dilated to 1cm and my cervix was ‘long and hard’ so they inserted cervadil, which sent me into full blown labor within an hour. My contractions were really close together and very painful so they gave me some medicine to help the contractions ease up- which ended up stopping the contractions 🙄. Then they started the pitocin around 10:30 am. By 1pm my contractions were super painful, with less than a minute between. By 3pm I was having excruciating contractions, right on top of each other, and had the worst diarrhea of my life. At this point DD’s heart rate was dropping with each contraction, but still considered ok. My contractions felt like someone was stabbing me with a sword from my belly button to my pelvis. By 6pm I was pretty out of my mind with pain, there was no break between contractions, and I was losing it. I had wanted a natural childbirth with no medication of any kind. We had the nurse check how dilated I was, and I was only dilated to 2cm!!! I was not happy. That’s when I asked for the epidural, and received one at about 7:30pm. It was great, I slept for a few hours but I kept having to shift in bed because DD’s heart rate was still dropping with contractions. By 1am I was dilated to 5cm, and that is where I stopped dilation, this is also when they inserted a scalp monitor on dd. Also, my blood pressure was very high! By 5am, my epidural had stopped working on my pain, just my legs were numb. So I was back into full blown labor, in pain, and feeling like I needed to push. We talked about the possibility of a c-section, but we weren’t to that point yet. DD’s heart rate was still dropping. It was chaos. This went on until about 9:00 am, 26 hours after we had started induction.
It was around 9:00 am that several doctors and nurses rushed into my room and started messing with the machines and talking in urgent voices. One doctor came up to me and said ‘I don’t want you to panic, but your baby doesn’t have a heartbeat right now and we need to get you down the hall for an emergency c-section. We need you to roll over on your hands and knees to take pressure off of the baby.’ Someone immediately gave me a shot of medicine in my leg to stop the contractions. And I was wheeled down the hall with my naked butt in the air, while crying and telling DH to call my mom.
Once we got to the OR, the contractions had stopped thanks to the meds, and DD’s heart rate was fine. So DH was let into the room and I was given a spinal block since my epidural had worn off. The docs started the c-section around 10:00am. At this point, I hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink in well over 24 hours. My nose was stuffy from crying, and my mouth was so parched it felt like I was going to choke on my tongue. DH rubbed ice cubes in my mouth but I wasn’t allowed to actually eat any.
When dd finally emerged, the silence was huge. She wasn’t crying or making any sound at all. She had inhaled a significant amount of meconium, and the nurses and doctors spent the next 10 minutes suctioning her lungs while DH silently followed and watched dd. It was probably the longest 10 minutes of my life. The relief I felt when she finally cried was astonishing, and once they had gotten her lungs cleared she was fine. She was 8lbs 12 oz, but I like to count her as almost 9lbs because she had pooped so much already! Her head was over the 100th percentile for her gestational age. She was beautiful and perfect in every way, with a full head of hair that was about 2 inches long!
In recovery, she breastfed well, and was alert. Once we got settled into a private room for rest, we both slept for about 18 hours solid. I only remember waking when nurses came to check on me and help change dressings and pads. Once we did wake, I was in a lot of pain. My scar hurt so bad, any movement, even a cough, was super painful. Getting to the toilet was like torture. But most importantly, we made it through alive. I’m very thankful for that.
I was traumatized from our first experience, and I skipped more minor things that went wrong to keep this reasonable! I had nightmares for months, and felt like I had failed because of the c-section. But looking back, I realize that without the c-section, dd and I wouldn’t be here.
I’ll post my other two stories together, they are way shorter, more pleasant, and with fewer complications because they were repeat c-sections.
Well got to hospital at 10am and was checked in and was only 2cms or 4cm (cannot remember) dilated so would not admit even though was having consitent contraction 4 minutes apart at this point. Had me walk hospital for hour rechecked was same so they sent me home and told me to come back when I was dilated more. Like how was I suppose to know ... anyways.
Well made it till 6pl of having strong contrCtions that at this point were only 2 minutes or so apart and was like I have to have made progress lets go back. Well get back and still at same point so they want to send me away again and I was in fight mode. No way was I going back home after 24 hours of labor, 12 that were intense and having made no progress sk I argued and they eventually admitted me. I got pictocin and the epidural within an hour of being admitted. Then was able to sleep a bit. Finally around 9am the next day I was 10 cms dilated and ready to push. Pushed for about an hour and he was out. Did end up with them cutting me as well as a natural tear so that took a while to stich up but he was nursing well and we made it through.
*Rainbow 8/2015*
*Expected Rainbows 12/2018*
*Loss of Twin 5/2018*
DD2’s birth story is much less exciting than DD1’s. Thank goodness! Due to the many complications and close calls with DD1’s birth, I did a LOT of research to find a great practice at one of the best hospitals in the area. DD1’s hospital (UCSD) was a learning hospital, so there were a lot of doctors and nurses in training that were assessing and treating me. It led to a lot of frustration since we had so many issues. DD2 and DS were born at Overlake in Bellevue, WA.
DD2 was a repeat c-section, and I can honestly say that that there is a HUGE difference in recovery of a planned c-section vs. failed labor that led to a c-section.
It is nerve wracking giving permission to doctors to cut you open and remove your baby while you are awake. Even though a spinal block blocks all of the pain, you can still feel snapping, tugging, pulling, and many other sensations that I am not a fan of. But my RCS started with admitting, signing papers, and making sure I hadn’t eaten in well over 12 hours. They also shave the top part of your pubic hair, which is weird. The spinal block comes first, I always try to joke around with the anesthesiologist like ‘hey please don’t mess up... haha’. Either way, I find getting a spinal block pretty unpleasant. You bend forward as much as possible and stay still. They numb the outer area, and then insert this tube and inject the block which feels like someone pouring ice into your spine.
While I was getting numb, they did more prepping, laid me down on the operating table, and usually bind your hands to it. The screen went up and pretty soon they were removing previous scar tissue and cutting into my uterus. It’s fairly fast, 1-2 hours. And DD2 came out screaming! It was AMAZING to hear her scream right away and not have all of the panic that I had with DD1. Then she immediately pooped all over one of the nurses! She looked so different from DD1, it was pretty surprising. She was shorter and chubbier, at 17 in long and 8lbs 8oz. She was so perfect though.
Once I was seen up and in recovery, she ate well. I went to take off her baby hat and she had a huge lump on her head. It turned out that the dr used a suction to help get her out because she was ready to come out the good ol fashioned way. The lump on her head was a:
Cephalohematoma (CH) is a collection of blood between a baby's scalp and the skull. Damaged blood vessels release the blood, and the blood pools into a mass under the skin of the scalp. The blood vessels are often damaged during labor and delivery.
She seemed fine otherwise, but had a rough night. She got a fever and was inconsolable all night. So she spent a few hours in the NICU to do an ultrasound on her head to make sure it was just on the outer layers and not in her brain. Also to just do some general screening and observations because she was just freaking out. I gave in to giving her a bottle of formula and that made all the difference. She was just hungry and my milk hadn’t come in. Once my milk came in she was all good!
DS birth:
DS was scheduled for an RCS two days before my due date. But I went into labor with him the day/night before. I was running errands the day before because I knew I’d be stuck for a while once I had surgery. I started getting really intense contractions every 20 minutes while out at the stores. I had to stop and couldn’t talk or walk through them. But I also knew I wouldn’t dilate, because I just don’t dilate well. I didn’t really tell anyone because I wanted to sleep in my bed and they were far enough apart that I was not worried. By the time I went to bed that night, they were about 15 minutes apart, but definitely painful and real. I have loads of Braxton Hicks, and these were not them. I woke up around 4am with contractions around 10 minutes apart, but I wanted my doctor so I was going to wait until my RCS appointment that morning! Stubborn? Yes.
I woke DD’s up around 7:00 to get ready for school and by this time contractions were about 7 minutes apart. They got on their school bus at 8:15, then I went to wake dh. I woke him up and told him I was in labor and we should probably go to the hospital a little earlier than planned. Idk if he didn’t hear me or didn’t understand or what, but he was super calm. He showered and then said ‘I’ve got to send a couple of work emails’. So I’m sitting on the steps with contractions now every 5 minutes apart while he spent about 30 minutes sending emails. He came out of the office and asked what was wrong.... um, I’m in labor for real!!! Then he finally grasped that I was in labor... like I said...
So I called the hospital, let them know I was coming in a couple of hours early because I was in labor. When I answered all of their labor questions, they were pretty pissed that I didn’t come in earlier. But I was on a schedule! My kids going to school was their babysitter for the day until my step dad picked them up later that afternoon.
On the way to the hospital, there was a ton of traffic and my contractions went to every 3 minutes and I had to do the breath exercises to get through them. They were a squeezing pressure feeling (not like the stabbing ones induction gave me). When I finally got there, I was 2 hours early for my RCS and my doctor was not there yet. The panicked nurses checked me, thinking I was going to be dilated. But I was not at all dilated! Not even 1cm! (Which turned out to be a problem later). So they let me hang out in labor while I waited for my doctor. I didn’t want anyone else.
I was hooked up to all the machines, including a heart rate monitor for DS. Well, guess what started happening? His heart rate started dropping with each contraction. At first, I was ok with it, it wasn’t too much. But within 30 minutes, it was dropping more and more with the more intense contractions that were about every 2 minutes. I started having flashbacks of DD1’s labor, and of almost losing her. So I decided to just take the on call doctor for my c-section.
Everything went just like with DD2, and as soon as DS came out he pooped on the doctor that I didn’t want to do my c-section! It was a hilarious. DS was 23in long, 8lbs 8oz just like DD2. He ate like a champ, and the nurses were all surprised that I had milk already. But I’d never stopped lactating after DD2, so they were ready!
But, not everything was peaches and cream. A couple of hours after my surgery, my regular Ob finally arrived and checked me. She didn’t say it, but I could tell by the look on her face that the other dr didn’t do a good job on my incision. She was really upset. Then my uterus wasn’t going down like it should, it was growing again. And it turns out that I was so not dilated that nothing could come out of my uterus. It was blocked. So she warned me that they were going to do something very painful to help. She gave me some serious pain meds, brought in two nurses and started a procedure. Two nurses were putting all of their weight and rolling down on my uterus while my ob had her hand up my vag to try and open my cervix. It was excruciating. DH was holding my hand, but he looked scared. It ended up working, but it was a solid 20 minutes of this procedure.
My 3rd incision wasn’t healed enough to take the staples out before I went home. So my ob gave me the option of staying another day or two in the hospital or going home and making an appointment for a few days down the road to have my staples removed. I chose to go home. Mistake! The office couldn’t fit me in with my Ob, so I took another. By the time I got in 4 days later to have my staples removed, my incision was infected and I was in so much pain. My Ob saw me sitting in the waiting room and immediately took me in to take care of me. Oh, and I had mastitis too. I was a hot mess. So please ladies, take good care of yourself and if something feels off, go get it checked out!!
With DS I was 39+2 on a Saturday and I was having a few minor contractions in the morning. We took a walk to try to get things moving but they stopped. I felt pretty crappy all day so I laid on the couch most of the day and slept on and off. We went to bed around 9 (I slept in the guest room because I was so uncomfortable at that point and it was across the hall from our only bathroom, besides the basement one). Around 11:30pm I woke up to more contractions but drank a bunch of water and figured they would go away. About a half hour later I went and woke up DH thinking this could be it. He came down and started timing the contractions. They were fairly consistent but about 8 minutes apart. We tried to test but were too excited and every time I kind of fell asleep, a contraction would wake me...plus uncomfortable! Around 4:30am DH called the doctor. She said to go in when I felt I could use an epidural (bad advice to a 1st timer 😂). I took a shower and got everything for the dogs packed up so my ILs could come take them. We called them around 5:30 and said we were heading in because I was in labor. We got to the hospital around 6am and my contractions were consistent and strong, but when they checked me I was only at a 1. They gave me the option to walk for 2 hours or go home so I chose to walk. I work at the hospital so we went over to my office so I could clean it up, finish up a few things and put up my away message. I was told to go back around 8am or when I could no longer walk. So I got to the point where the contractions were so painful I couldn't walk so we went back to triage. They checked me and I was still only at a 1 so they did a quick untrasound and he looked good. That is also when I lost my mucus plug and had a bloody show so that freaked me out. I didn't realize how much bleeding would happen before the actual birth. The nurse handed me a pad and told DH to help me put it on because I didn't bring anything with me 🤦🏼♀️. The doctor then told me to take an ambien and go home to rest. This shocked me and I told her I wasn't comfortable doing that. So she said try a tylenol PM. DH called his parents to tell him we were sent home and asked them to go pick up some tylenol PM. They did and I took one when I got home. I tried to lay in the guest room but was so uncomfortable so I walked around the house.
Finally I decided to get in the shower but that's when the tylenol PM kicked in and I started falling asleep so DH had to help me huge and pregnant and wet out of the shower 🤦🏼♀️...I do NOT no matter what they say, recommend taking any sort of sleep aid if you know you're in labor. It did help because I was able to relax and get a little rest but by 1pm I was in so much pain we called the doctor and told her we were coming back. I told her if she sent me home I was going to refuse to leave because my pain was "at a 13 out of 10 at that point" 😂. She said she wouldn't send me home again so back we went. I was a 4.5 when I got back so they admitted me and I got an epidural. It only worked for about an hour then it didn't work on my left side but my right was so numb I couldn't move my leg. They broke my water and labor sped up. I finally was ready to push around 7pm. Pushing was such a relief to me that I actually ended up in a great mood and was laughing and joking with the nurses and doctors. Once my doc got there, she tied a sheet around the push bar at the end of the bed and I was able to use that to pull myself up and push. DS arrived at 8:50pm! I honestly don't remember much after that...I birthed the placenta and they stiched me up from a first degree tear but I was so infatuated with DS that all of that is a blur.