Today marks David's 1 month birthday! I can't believe it has already been a month. I am still tired although some days are better than others. I have spent most of my days on the couch watching TLC all day long. On the good days where I actually get a little sleep we will go out for a drive or a walk. Some days I envy the Doc when he leaves for work because he is able to be with adults and have adult conversations. David is cute and all but our conversations are pretty much one sided!!
On Monday we will go back to the pediatrician to see how much he has grown over the last four weeks. The way he has been eating lately I would guess that he is upto 9lbs - but who knows! To mark this milestone - I have finally finished his birth story and even included some video clips from our birth video. Enjoy!
David Charles Birth Story
We arrived at the Hospital at 9:15am - we were scheduled for 7:30am but they had a full house at the time so they asked us to come in later. We sat in the waiting room until 10:30, at which point the charge nurse came and told us that they still had no rooms available - instead, she put us in a recovery room just so she could get us set up. I changed into the gown and she proceeded to put in my IV and take my blood pressure etc. We finally got to our room around noon time. The nurse hooked me up to all the monitors and then we waited for the doctor to come and check me so that they could come up with a game plan for the induction process. I was 3-4cm dilated and 2cm effaced so they opted to only use Pitocin - I wouldn't need Cervidil.
At 1:15pm they started the Pitocin - the labor has now begun. I would say that I started to feel the contractions soon after. Nothing that was painful, but I could tell when they happened and it was confirmed by the monitors. They would check the progress every two hours. It was slow going and by 5pm as the nurse increased the amount of Pitocin in my IV to the point at which it was no longer very comfortable. I had declared early on that I wanted an epidural, and at this point we reminded the nurse. She told me she wouldn't increase the pitocin any more until the epidural was in, and that she would get the anesthesiologist to put it in. It turns out, however, that we had to wait for the doctors OK to have the anesthesiologist set up the epidural. It ended up being almost a four hour wait. My anesthesiologist was really cool, though. He got it in and I was so happy. I felt like I could fly! I got my second wind and so with that I tried to nap because we both knew that we were not going to have this baby on Tuesday. With the epidural in place they began to increase the Pitocin every 15 minutes but since I couldn't feel the contractions anymore I was happy!
At 1am after another check from the resident I was still stalled at 5cm. I was very discouraged because I was tired and I couldn't seem to get comfortable and just wanted it to be over. The decision was made to break my water. As soon as she did it I felt a surge of pain - it sucked. I was not happy anymore. Apparently, when the epidural was placed it came out a bit when the anesthesiologist pull the guide needle out, so the positioning was less than ideal, a situation that was coming back to bite me. My two awesome nurses (one was in training) paged the anesthesiologist and he came and gave me a boost in my epidural. In about 2o minutes I felt some relief.
At 3am I was still at 5cm - I couldn't believe what I was hearing but the resident told me that since I was fully effaced that she would expect more change in the next two hours. Well, she wasn't kidding; after about an hour of feeling this intense pressure the resident come back to check me and told me that I had gone from 5cm to 8-9cm. I was so happy I started to cry. By about a half hour later the pressure was so intense that I told the nurse that it felt like I may have to push soon. She paged the resident again and sure enough I was ready to go - fully dilated and fully effaced! She had to go get permission from the doctor (I was considered a "private" patient) but that she bet I could start pushing soon.
The chief resident came in at 4:30 and said that he had a message for me from our doctor (he was a really funny guy) - he said the message was "wow, and go ahead and start pushing!" I thought that this would be over in no time. I couldn't have been more wrong. Two and a half hours later the Doctor came in to check on me and said that everything was fine and I was pushing well. I was having some decelerations in the fetal heart rate, but that was likely from the baby getting his head squished on the way out. They put a nasty O2 mask on my face (Charlie was a bit annoyed that they didn't have any nasal cannula on the floor) and had me not push every contraction to keep my baby's heart rate up. The doctor also told me that if anything went wrong he was far enough out that they could have him out in about a minute. That sounded nice because I was exhausted. I think I may have even zoned out in between contractions.
He came back 15 minutes later and told me that they were going to get the baby out "now". He had a vacuum in hand, and they turned the room into a delivery room. All I remember was a lot more people were in the room and I just kept on pushing. The head came out and the baby was delivered about 5 minutes later! It turned out that the real reason for the vacuum was because his heart rate went from 140's to 80-60s and wasn't going back up. Poor guy! The last 20 minutes were awful; it wasn't the pushing or the baby coming down - I got a leg cramp so bad that after each contraction I remember screaming "rub my leg, rub my leg!" and after three hours of intense pushing we had a baby!
At 1:15pm they started the Pitocin - the labor has now begun. I would say that I started to feel the contractions soon after. Nothing that was painful, but I could tell when they happened and it was confirmed by the monitors. They would check the progress every two hours. It was slow going and by 5pm as the nurse increased the amount of Pitocin in my IV to the point at which it was no longer very comfortable. I had declared early on that I wanted an epidural, and at this point we reminded the nurse. She told me she wouldn't increase the pitocin any more until the epidural was in, and that she would get the anesthesiologist to put it in. It turns out, however, that we had to wait for the doctors OK to have the anesthesiologist set up the epidural. It ended up being almost a four hour wait. My anesthesiologist was really cool, though. He got it in and I was so happy. I felt like I could fly! I got my second wind and so with that I tried to nap because we both knew that we were not going to have this baby on Tuesday. With the epidural in place they began to increase the Pitocin every 15 minutes but since I couldn't feel the contractions anymore I was happy!At 1am after another check from the resident I was still stalled at 5cm. I was very discouraged because I was tired and I couldn't seem to get comfortable and just wanted it to be over. The decision was made to break my water. As soon as she did it I felt a surge of pain - it sucked. I was not happy anymore. Apparently, when the epidural was placed it came out a bit when the anesthesiologist pull the guide needle out, so the positioning was less than ideal, a situation that was coming back to bite me. My two awesome nurses (one was in training) paged the anesthesiologist and he came and gave me a boost in my epidural. In about 2o minutes I felt some relief.
At 3am I was still at 5cm - I couldn't believe what I was hearing but the resident told me that since I was fully effaced that she would expect more change in the next two hours. Well, she wasn't kidding; after about an hour of feeling this intense pressure the resident come back to check me and told me that I had gone from 5cm to 8-9cm. I was so happy I started to cry. By about a half hour later the pressure was so intense that I told the nurse that it felt like I may have to push soon. She paged the resident again and sure enough I was ready to go - fully dilated and fully effaced! She had to go get permission from the doctor (I was considered a "private" patient) but that she bet I could start pushing soon.
The chief resident came in at 4:30 and said that he had a message for me from our doctor (he was a really funny guy) - he said the message was "wow, and go ahead and start pushing!" I thought that this would be over in no time. I couldn't have been more wrong. Two and a half hours later the Doctor came in to check on me and said that everything was fine and I was pushing well. I was having some decelerations in the fetal heart rate, but that was likely from the baby getting his head squished on the way out. They put a nasty O2 mask on my face (Charlie was a bit annoyed that they didn't have any nasal cannula on the floor) and had me not push every contraction to keep my baby's heart rate up. The doctor also told me that if anything went wrong he was far enough out that they could have him out in about a minute. That sounded nice because I was exhausted. I think I may have even zoned out in between contractions.
He came back 15 minutes later and told me that they were going to get the baby out "now". He had a vacuum in hand, and they turned the room into a delivery room. All I remember was a lot more people were in the room and I just kept on pushing. The head came out and the baby was delivered about 5 minutes later! It turned out that the real reason for the vacuum was because his heart rate went from 140's to 80-60s and wasn't going back up. Poor guy! The last 20 minutes were awful; it wasn't the pushing or the baby coming down - I got a leg cramp so bad that after each contraction I remember screaming "rub my leg, rub my leg!" and after three hours of intense pushing we had a baby!
3 comments:
Thanks for the summary! Now you know why they call it "labor!" Glad you are having some good days - walks in the cooler fall weather are more fun. Give him a kiss for me!
Mimi
I can't wait to see Baby David next weekend. I am so excited. He looks so adorable.
Happy one month little guy!
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