I started noticing weird crampy feelings Monday evening, around 5pm. They seemed to have a pattern so I started writing down when they were coming. I told Pigpen we needed to go eat dinner if this really was labor. We went to Outback down the street and used Pigpen's birthday gift card. Maybe the blooming onion wasn't so great an idea. :) They pains were still coming about 20 min apart of so but weren't too uncomfortable--just noticable. We called Pigpen's mom, and my mom just to give them a heads up. At home, I got everything ready and attempted to go to sleep. I had Pigpen sleep with me in the guest room because the pains were starting to get more uncomfortable. Unfortunately, as they got closer together and more painful, I was moaning to get through them (when they were about 5 min apart) and I was keeping Pigpen awake. They started getting really annoying around midnight, and then pretty painful around 1am. Finally, at 2am, after I'd had them about an hour at 5 min apart and they were lasting about 30 seconds or so, I called the doctor. Dr. Pickford called me back around 2:20am and I told her how I was feeling and she said to come down to the hospital so we did. We got there around 3am, went into triage to sign in and get checked. I was about 80% effaced and 1cm dialated so Dr. Pickford admitted me. Once in the L&D room, I was given an epidural pretty quickly which surprised me but made me happy. The doctor had me lay on my side instead of sit up which was interesting. Dr. P also broke my water. I called Mom to give her an update but told her to go back to sleep and I'd be in touch. I called Mrs. S too to say the same thing but she was knocked out on pain killers b/c of her back to I talked to Office J. A little while later, I was given Petocin to try and make the contractions more regular. Mrs. S showed up around 5:30am and we played the waiting game. At one point, after the nursing shift change and Dr. P had gone home to shower, the baby's heartrate began to go a little weird with the contractions. The nurse had me flip on both my sides to see if that helped and she called Dr. P to have her come in to figure out what to do. She was massaging the baby to get her to perk up and they continued to flip me. Pigpen had gone down to the cafeteria to get food and Mrs. S couldn't reach him on his cell (service wasn't great) and since we were nervous about the possibility of a c-section (although no one said the word), she ran down to get him. Once he was back, everything was ok again for the time being but he didn't leave the room again. They kept adjusting my petocin (turning it off and on) to see if that was effecting the baby. Her heartrate fluctuated a few more times and Dr. P massaging her usually helped get things back on track. But near the end, I had to stay on my left side the entire time b/c any movement meant a drop in her heartrate. It was really pretty nervewracking. It was also very painful to be on my left that long, my hip really started to hurt. GramPam came around 9:30am or so if I recall correctly I tried to sleep, as did Pigpen, but it was hard. I had wires everywhere. Because of the drops in heartrate, they ended up doing an internal monitor for her which screwed into her head but doesn't hurt her. They also did an internal monitor to measure my contractions to see how intense they really were. So I had an IV, an epidural, and two internal monitors. As the contractions got stronger, I started to feel them more. It wasn't exactly painful but I could feel them for sure. The epidural medicine ran out so the anethesiologist (sp?) brought more and said she would come back with a shot of a higher dose med. She did that but after I got the shot, I started to not feel well--nauseous, headache, really really numb, so much so that I found it hard to turn from side to side when they wanted me to. I ended up throwing up not long before I started pushing which made me feel better but the headache remained. I started to think I was going to throw up again right before I started pushing but they gave me a shot to help with that. Pushing started around 1:50pm or so and she was born at 2:16pm! It really wasn't as bad as I thought. Pigpen held my right leg, the nurse my left, Mrs. S and Mom took pictures. It didn't really hurt to push but I could feel the contractions a little so I knew when it was getting to be time. The most hurt was when her head was close to coming out and I was being stretched. And then, when her shoulders came out, it hurt a little. I did end up tearing a little so I got some stitches. The doctor put her right on my tummy when she was born and I definitely started crying and looking at James. No one would confirm that she was a girl! Finally, I think Cheryl confirmed for me which was good. She had a little cone head but that actually went away pretty quickly after delivery. They took her to the warmer where the neonatologist looked her over and gave her her vitamin K shot. Pigpen was with her and I could watch them since they kept her in the room with me. After delivery I ordered something to eat and then got moved to the Family Care Center room where I stayed for another two days. Grandma and Pop Pop came right as we were being transfered.
More details and pictures to come soon! I'll post one cute picture of her from when we brought her home:
No comments:
Post a Comment