In light of Mother's Day, I'm following suit of a blogger friend, and posting the stories (as abbreviated as possible without losing the beauty of it all) of the births of my two babies.
With Theren, we had a scheduled induction on a Monday, so Sunday night we had a large dinner (knowing that once I got to the hospital they wouldn't let me eat much) and headed in. I got hooked up to the IV and monitors right away, and the nurse checked my cervix to see if we needed meds to ripen it. Nope. Soft, dilated to 2 (had been for about a month). The nurse left to get the Pitocin, and while she was gone, I felt a contraction.
Convenient.
I told her when she came back, and sure enough, I was contracting every ten minutes. They administered the "Squeezey Drug" (my affectionate name for Pitocin) anyways, just to boost things along, and for nearly six hours I didn't dilate any further, and my contractions weren't any stronger than Braxton Hicks.
Finally, at some point in the morning, my doctor came in to see how I was doing and ordered that the Pitocin be upped a bit. He also wanted to break my water. He grabbed the tool and as he leaned in to do his duty, my water broke. Convenient again, eh?
The Fun begins.
I remember asking for a mild pain killer to start with. Stadol. All I can tell you is that I was high. Seriously. Supposedly I closed my eyes for a second, opened them again and said "that was the best nap I've had in months!"
All of a sudden though, the pain got intense. Really intense. The nurse came in and asked how I was doing. I was having a contraction. I remember some sort of profanities streaming from my mouth and my husband saying something to apologize. I begged for an epidural, but the anesthesiologist was late coming to work.
Great.
Finally he got there and I remember asking him to stick me with the needle again because it felt so good compared to the pain of my contractions. Weird.
So they gave me the Epi., then checked me again a few minutes later and I was at 5. Things went really fast from here. 40 minutes later they came to check me again and baby was in the birth canal, ready to crown. The pressure was amazing, but not painful. We did a couple of practice pushes, and apparently she was coming down so fast, the nurse suddenly said "stop pushing!!" She told me not to push again the doctor arrived.....
.....
if you have ever been in labor, you know that it's impossible to simply ignore the instinct your entire body has to push with a contraction. I pushed. The doctor came in and sat down at the very moment her head came out.
The cord was wrapped around her neck twice so Dom didn't get to cut it, but he didn't seem to mind. She was here, she was healthy.
My mom was so excited she grabbed that baby up and kissed her before even I or Dominick could!! My poor sister was nearly passed out on the bench next to the window. (she accidentally witnessed the birth of the placenta....she doesn't do so well with such things)
The whole labor only lasted for 2 hours. Including the pushing and the delivery of the placenta.
The next couple of days were a blur for me, I had some post-pardum bleeding that was an issue, and I was on some crazy meds for that, but I do remember a couple of the people that came to visit us, and how proud I was of the little baby girl that we now had. I was scared to death to bring her home, and in all honesty was grateful for needing to stay in the hospital for an extra two days, but I loved staying awake and just watching her sleep.
Now for Vin.
Quite a different ordeal. We
were scheduled for an induction at 37 weeks because he was tracking to be around 10 pounds. (>gasp< to say the least mommy was not enthusiastic about pushing 10 pounds out her va-jayjay)
At 34 weeks I developed a rather nasty lung infection. Without being able to take my normal medications, it quickly turned into full-fledged pneumonia. At 34 weeks and 6 days, I woke up at midnite struggling for breath. I didn't want to wake Dominick yet, I wanted to sit up and see if that helped at all. (I've done this once to twice a year for nearly 8 years, so I know little tricks) After about an hour the breathing wasn't any easier, and I also didn't feel Vin move.
Panic.
I woke Dom, told him what was going on, and he popped me into a hot steamy shower while he got the hospital bag and called my sister. I don't really know what his reaction was while I was in the shower, I imagine he was running around like a chicken with it's head cut off, but as soon as I was out, he was clam and collected. A Marine to the core.
Theren was on our bed rubbing her eyes and clothes were laying out for me. He said my sister was meeting us at the hospital to take Tay. If I recall correctly he had to help me dress because I was so weak.
I remember getting to the hospital and saying goodnite to my daughter, then going straight up to L&D. They had me on oxygen right away and IV fluids. I think they gave me something for my cough as well. Naturally, as soon as the monitors were hooked up, Vin started moving around just fine. Booger.
But....I was having contractions every 5 minutes. They tried a whole slew of things to stop them. First it was "Maybe she's dehydrated." So they had me drink this massive thing of water....all of which I threw back up.
Then it was "maybe she's just stressed." So they had me lay on my left side with the lights off and some quiet music. Still no good.
By this time my doctor came to see me. I felt horrible. He was supposed to be leaving for his vacation with his wife and four daughters, who were all home from college. He checked me out, I wasn't dilating but I was still contracting every 5 minutes, and my breathing was not getting any easier.
He suggested that we induce with Pitocin and get this baby out so that I could get an aggressive dose of medicine. We agreed, somewhat hesitantly. Barely 35 weeks...will he be okay?
They gave me an epidural before they broke my water or gave the Pitocin. They wanted me to have as much energy as possible for pushing when the time came. I remember throwing up a couple of more times. The epidural wore off after about half an hour, and they gave me a direct injection into the catheter. After that I was completely paralyzed from the tummy down. I could barely feel my contractions, but what's more is that I could not move my legs.....at all. I nearly fell off the bed at one point because my leg was too far over and fell off, and I couldn't pull it back up. Luckily my best friend Carrie was right there and caught me.
After a couple of hours I started noticing that when I had a contraction, Vin's heart rate would drop a little bit. Then a little bit more. And a little bit more. The nurses came in and tried to (get this) refill me with fluid.....literally stuck a hose up there and pumped fluid back in, hoping that he was simply compressing the cord, but that didn't work. They switched to internal monitoring to get better readings. Things were going down hill. Fast. When ever I had a contraction his heart would drop to a mere 12 beats per minute. A nurse came in and checked me, and asked everyone to wait in the hall. I didn't know it at the time, but she was telling them that the OR was ready for an emergency Cesarean., and that things might get scary. Baby might come out blue or purple and not breathing, nurses and doctors will be rushing, but not to let on to ME that anything is seriously wrong because I was too weak and could not afford to be stressed out.
The doc came in and said I needed to try and push. I'm not dumb. I can see the monitors, I have enough medical experience to understand that the situation was very serious. I pushed three times. Three. 3. Tres.
He was out.
What can I say, I knew he needed to get out fast and I put every single ounce of energy (and then some) into getting him out. He was a knot. Literally. The cord was wrapped around him in so many ways and directions, the placenta nearly came with him.
They rushed him to his incubator and started working on him....I waited for that bleating cry. I prayed for it. It was the longest few minutes of my life. Then, there it was. He was big for being so early, nearly 6 and 1/2 pounds, and he was strong. He was able to breathe on his own with no problems, he had no issues with eating. I was given some hard core medicine and more oxygen, and we were released the next day.
Over all it was five hours of labor for this one, because we had to coax my body a little bit, but still not bad.
We are hoping desperately that THIS labor goes smoothly and without any complications, but after the first two, I think we can pretty much handle anything!!
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