Friday, June 29, 2012

Rachel's birth

I know some of you are likely curious what happened with Rachel's birth.  Rachel was at least 10 days past her due date by the time I went to the hospital on Sunday.  I was not in labor, showed no signs of going into labor anytime in the near future, but it seemed like it was past time to get her out.  I really thought she would come out before the agreed upon induction date, but what do I know, apparently.  If you don't what to hear about Rachel's birth in detail, I would stop reading now. I have not included any pictures, so you don't have to feel obligated to continue on this post.  
Our induction time was 11am Sunday, so we went to Church, went to the hospital and checked in.  They started me on the IV antibiotic and told me I would need 2 doses before I started anything and those doses needed to be 4ish hours apart.  Can I make an aside here, penicillin IV BURNS!  Just an FYI!  So they started the first IV at 12ish, when it was done we started walking the hospital, had some lunch and did some birthing exercises (squats, lunges, stomping) until dose 2 at 3:30.  At 4 they tried to break my water, that did not work, they could not get a place to break.  Rachel was still high and I wasn't much dilated.  My only option was pitocin.  Those that know me know that I wrestled with this for some time.  I wanted nothing to do with pit, but it was truly my only option, so we had some dinner and I got some pit, probably around 6.  The cool thing about the teaching hospital was they have all the latest things (well, I don't know that for sure), but they had wireless waterproof monitors, so I could walk around the floor while they monitored the baby remotely.  COOL!  They continued to monitor and increase the pit until I was at a good contraction level.  The thing I noticed is while I was doing the aforementioned exercises I could feel no pain, but as soon as I finished I would get another one.  The Dr checked me around 8 and broke my water.  Rachel had moved down a smidge and they started to decrease the pit to see if I would continue laboring without the pit. The pit was turned off completely around 10 and the midwife checked me at around 11, still no more progress, so we had no choice but to go back on the pit again.  I laid down in bed to rest and they started the pit at 12ish, I was at 4cm.  By 12:30 I was in real labor, at about 1:30 Eric suggested the shower.  The nurse came in, informed me I finally looked like I was in labor and started to get the room ready.  At 2ish the nurse checked me, I was at 7.  About 10 minutes later I declared it was time to push.  They moved me to the bed and said I was at 9, but NOT TO PUSH.  At this point I was over their suggestions and told them I was pushing.  They kindly informed me that my cervix wasn't all out of the way yet, I didn't really care.  Finally my cervix was clear, but the midwife still told me I couldn't push because I would tear, I told her I couldn't help it I had to push.  She told me to breathe and look at her, I made it through most of the way through the contraction without pushing, but the last 10 sec or so.  And EVERYONE was yelling at me not to push.  I maybe was a little cranky!  Finally, she said I could push and I did, but apparently not good enough because they were fussing at me again.  But, I finally got the head out and the shoulders (which BTW when you have a baby with a 14.25 head circumference, you really don't notice the shoulders!) and they laid Rachel on me.  It was 2:21am.  Apparently now they do a delayed placenta cutting if possible, so they didn't cut the cord until 2:26!  This apparently allows the stem cells to flow into the baby after birth, seemed like a good idea, before birth, during birth, I realized I was still having contractions and although Rachel was on me, it felt like an eternity.  

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

holy smokes! glad you guys all made it through :)

Heather H