Labor story and picture! Long...

Friday night took a shower hadn’t taken one all day. I was still working on Friday, but DH and I weren’t doing that much work. We decided to go to a few daycares on Friday for the 2nd time. (for reviewing) Maybe the walking around set things into action. I had been having contractions since cerclage removal (2 wks prior). My contractions although very frequent were never regular or painful. I had the winded feeling that made it hard to talk, but my REAL contractions were very painful and more like severe PMS cramping.

I am trying to recall all of this from memory as I didn’t write down exact times.

Matt (not his full name – email me if you want to know) was born on J.anuar.y 17th
He weighed 7 lbs and was 19 in at birth. Ultrasound 4 days earlier was really off - it had him at 7lbs 5oz (well estimate not really from u/s). I was estimating he would be 7.5 lbs or almost 8 lbs by induction date. Dr who delivered says it can be off by quite a bit.

Had some cramping during the night and had some dreams that I was in labor. Woke up at 6am to painful contractions. Woke up DH and he thought it may be a false alarm, until he saw how much pain I was in. I had spotting (bloody show – kinda pinkish) and some diarrhea. We started timing them and they were about 8-10 minutes apart. We called the drs office and the on-call nurse said I probably needed to wait until they were closer (but I explained that I have IC which means labor is faster). When the oncall nurse called back – by then my contractions were 6-9 minutes apart. She told me to go to L&D to get checked out and she would call them that I was on my way.
We get to L&D at about 845am. I was starving, but DH wouldn’t let me eat anything. I get checked out by the nurses and put on the monitoring machine. Contractions are coming regularly, but I guess they can’t tell the intensity. I was in A LOT of pain. They told me that I’m 3.5 centimeters and maybe 90% effaced. For those who don’t know- I’ve been 3 cm for 2 weeks at this point. I’ve been 70-80% for 2 weeks at this point too. The L&D dr comes in and tells me I might not be in full labor yet. I don’t even explain to her about IC, but I’m in so much pain I tell DH there is NO way I will be sent home. They say women just know. We live 5 min from hospital too.
They tell me to walk around and see if anything changes.
As I walk around, I’m having contractions every 2-5 minutes and I’m in severe pain. The nurse comes back and measures me an hr later to find I am only 4-4.5 cm BUT my bag of water is now bulging. She says she will recommend to the dr that I get checked in. I was so happy she said that. I kept thinking they would send me home and they don’t understand that as part of IC that labor goes quicker.
I get checked into L&D. Brand new hospital or at least brand new L&D section. It’s a nice room and I’m glad to be out of triage.

By now it is between 10 and 11am. We call my father in law and my mom and sister. My mom doesn’t answer as she is at a party and doesn’t hear her phone. The on call dr from my practice comes in and checks me and says she is here to break my bag of water and to check on me. I’m surprised I’m at that point and she says it will speed things long. I forget if I got a check before that, but my hospital says they don’t check constantly – I feel that is weird, but oh well. Dr. checks me and I’m 6cm and she breaks my bag of water. I think this was between 11am and 12pm. With the broken bag of water, my pain continues and intensifies. The dr says I will have the baby this afternoon and it should be a quick vaginal birth.

The pain continues and II finally call the nurse to get the epidural for me. I’m having contractions every 2 minutes and although some girls with IC don’t get contractions sometimes, I DO! They did warn me it would take 45 minutes to get the epidural setup and start getting relief. I had an epidural when I had my loss in 2007, so I was familiar w/the process. I get the epidural and it is a pretty quick procedure. I think he had to redo my catheter because he hit a vein. My nurse was awesome through the experience.

A few times the baby’s heartrate dipped and that freaked me out. I end up just staring at the monitor. They tell me it could be because of the epidural or because the baby is moving into the birth canal more. I still find myself insanely looking at the monitor while I go through contractions and just praying. My contractions start coming back and the epidural doesn’t seem to be helping. I had to push for more medicine a few times. I’m still getting pain but at least it isn’t an 8 or 9 out of 10, but maybe a 6 or 7. (level of pain). I have to say that I did a lot of praying while in labor, it seemed to help me get through my contractions. I’m not super religious, but I do believe in the power of prayer.

They come back to check on me maybe at almost 2pm – only because I call the nurse and tell her that I feel a lot of pressure (remember I said earlier they don’t check you every hr, etc). She checked and I’m 9cm(!!!!!!!!) and that surprises her. She calls dr. Dr comes by and says nurse will be there from now until I’m ready to start pushing and that she will come back when I’m crowning. I think it is 15 min later and I get measured again by nurse and she says I’m 10cm (!!!) and calls dr as I’m just about crowning. Everyone gets setup at this point to handle the baby in my room. I’m told by nurse and dr that I’ll probably push for only 30 minutes. This makes me happy and something to look forward to although I’m in so much pain. The rectal pain is the worse as the epidural doesn’t help on that kind of pain. DH keeps tell me that it is just one day to get through and after that the pain is gone.

At 225 or 230pm, I’m told to get ready to start pushing. I think to encourage me everyone says I’m pushing really good. I start sweating a lot and ask DH to wipe the sweat off my face. Oh, when I was crowning dr. said that baby has a lot of dark hair and asks DH if he wants to look. DH says ‘no thanks’. J They ask him if he will cut the cord and although he was reluctant to do that before (he thinks a medical professional should do that sort of thing-), he decides to do it. I’m so glad he did it although he was nervous.

I pushed for 35 minutes when baby comes out. I was never told not to push, just to push when I was having a contraction (leg was up on one side and nurse had other side until they put my legs in the stirrups). Dr. at the ends says I pushed so well that I could have had a 9lb baby. I told her no thanks. She is great and not my regular dr, but I quickly like her and she is chatty. We talk about a lot of things and I’m always so technical to find out why they do what they do and she is very forthcoming with information. I ask her about pitocin as I hear that it makes contractions worse and you need an epidural if you have that (by the way I didn’t have this as I wasn’t induced). She said that isn’t true and a lot of stuff on the internet is false. We were just having a conversation. 35 minutes was exhausting for me, I can’t imagine people who push for 2-3 hrs. I did have a tear – between 1st and 2nd degree. It is pretty painful even 4 days later and I’m taking pain meds. Ouch, ouch ouch. Dermoplast – given to me at the hospital does HELP! I bought some more and use it A LOT. It really hurts to sit down, but I’m able to walk around a lot after birth and I’m betting a c/s would have made me less mobile.

The cord was wrapped around his neck loosely once and he didn’t cry immediately, but did cry once they started washing him off. I got to hold him even before delivering placenta. I don’t remember pushing the placenta or if it just came out. My regular dr. mentioned the next day about trouble with the placenta, but I told him I didn’t think there was a problem. Maybe he was confused w/some other patient. I know they did a lot of stitching for only a 2nd degree tear.

I got to breastfeed him right after birth. He did drink, but at this point I’m only making colostrum. After I breastfed and spent some time with him, they took him to the nursery with DH. They took his first bath. Oh, our video camera’s battery wasn’t charged, but we did take pictures right after birth and DH took some in the nursery. I’m just so happy here is here.

We spent 2 nights in hospital and decided to have the baby with us at all times (except for nightly weighing when they took him to the nursery – I took him one night – pushed him over to the nursery).We had one night when he was crying and we had no idea why – if he had a fever or something. We called the nurse and she was able to calm him down. We are paranoid new parents! Nurses were so helpful with breastfeeding and everything. I’m glad we also had him in the room although the first night I didn’t sleep at all – after being in labor that day and being exhausted. I just kept staring at him to make sure he was breathing and admiring him. The reason I’m glad that we had him was that he spit up brownish looking blood from his mouth and we freaked out and paged the nurse. They told us it is QUITE common as he probably swallowed some amniotic fluid during birth. I’m sure it would have been ok, but I’m glad we were there when he threw up. He did this another time when being circumsized from what we are told.

Scare #1: Baby would not go number 1 since circumcision. They didn’t think his bladder was full – it was though. They had a NICU nurse come check him out. Our pedi told us either to wait it out or to get a catheter – but she recommended the first. We spent more hours in the hospital and I was actually discharged before my son was. I could have still stayed overnight even if I had been discharged. I love my pedi, we finally met her officially a few hrs before they wanted to discharge us. I had gone to a ‘meet and greet’ at her practice, so I had picked her but hadn’t officially met her. We think this scare was due to the circumsicion and DH and I don’t know if we would get that again. Praying again helped here. The nurses were so estatic when he did finally GO to the bathroom.

Scare #2: We were told the next day after leaving the hospital – our first pedi visit - that our baby had lost a lot of weight – 9.5% and they get really concerned at 10%. So we had to come back the next day to get him weighed. Since the last day at the hospital, we had started to supplement with formula (partially because he wouldn’t pee), but we had to up this to make sure he was getting enough. 2nd pedi visit – baby is 4 days old – he had gained 3 ounces and they were happy with that and how many BM and wet diapers he had in 24 hrs. That was great to find out he had gained since Tuesday. They were looking for him gaining 1 ounce at that point and he gained 3. I hate that his diagnosis was ‘failure to thrive’, but that is what the paperwork says.

Scare #3: I have a lump in my breast tissue – but under my arm. I need to go to either the dr or the lactation consultant today to see what is wrong. I hope all is well and it isn’t something serious. My sister told me to massage it out and she thinks it is related to breastfeeding. I also pumped today to see how much I was getting – breast milk might have come in yesterday or Monday. The breast that I have a lump isn’t giving much milk. Massaging and warm showers aren’t helping. I hope I don’t need antiobiotics.

The worry never ends. We are so happy and blessed to have him! I fell in love at first sight. Right after birth, I told DH I would seriously have to FORGET the pain to have another. I would love another one though, but at my age it might be very difficult. We are happy with our one. :)