Raising Bean
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Sunday, May 20, 2012

Bean's One Year Old!!

Yesterday was our little beans first birthday! It was also my stepdads 60th! Lots of celebrating was going on throughout my family. The hours leading up to her birthday, I kept reliving my labor (as I'm sure many moms do) and thought I should rewrite her birth story. See, I wrote it out days after she was born but I left things out. All the bad things, not that I had a bad labor. So here it is, a day after her first birthday, our bean's full, no details left out, Birth Story!


Now that I think back about it, I think the whole birth story really starts on Tuesday.. I thought I was leaking amniotic fluid so I went to the hospital around 5pm, to be monitored and checked by one of my OBs. The nurse did the amniotic leak test, where they basically find some discharge and put a test strip of paper in it to see if it changes to the right color for positive, mine was negative. After sitting there for an hour, hooked up to all the wires in the oh so glamorous open butt gown, the OB on call came in and did the test again to see if I was leaking. Thankfully the second test was negative also. While the doc was performing her test the nurse asked if I was feeling the contractions, i responded "what contractions?".  After a very personal check from the dr she said everything was good and we were sent on our way. I was so relived that aminotic fluid wasnt leaking! So my husband and I left the hospital and went to the grocery store. Hey, I was 38 weeks pregnant and it was dinner time! 

While walking into the grocery store I had cramping, like period cramps, I figured it was because of the more thorough than usual internal exam I had just received at the hospital. So after picking up whatever it was I craved for dinner that night we went home, I propped my feet up, and fell asleep snuggled up with my humongous body pillow.

Wednesday morning I woke up, ready to work that afternoon. I was still crampy but chalked it up to remnants of the hospital visit the day before.  As the morning progressed I realized the cramps were getting more annoying, and stating to come into a semi reliable rhythm. So I did what any pregnant woman does, when rhythmic cramps are making her make odd pain filled expressions.. I took a walk. 

The walk made the cramping worse so I called my boss and told her why was going on. She told me it sounded like labor, I told her I don't think so, but just in case to find someone to cover for me. This was around 11am. Those damn cramps continued until about 3pm, when they lessened enough that I could take a nap. I remember debating watching Ellen. The nap won, hands down.

After a nice hour and a half of lesser cramping, those painful things decided to come back, with a vengeance. My husband was working that night, due to be home at 2am. Around 10pm the cramps were uncomfortable enough that I couldn't sit through them. I had to pace back and forth the length of the room saying. "ow ow, wtf, this s**t hurts so bad." and "ow ow this f**king sucks so bad." notice the lack of exclamations, that's because they were so painful I couldn't exclaim anything, I could just grumble and be miserable. Then that contraction would end and I'd sit back down on the couch and complain to friends who were online. My husband came home at 2am with burger king, bless his heart. My crampy pregnant butt stuffed my face full of original chicken sandwich, it was the last thing I ate for 12 hours. By 3am the contractions still sucked and were finally coming in 5 minute increments, so I called the OB and made my hubby take my anxious waddling self to the hospital. Our baby girl was on her way!

Once I was back in the gorgeous hospital gown, and poked back up to all the bells and whistles, I waddled through breathless contractions around my room. Waddling while saying "ow, f**k this s**t sucks!" is not an easy, or fun, thing to do. Around 5 am my contractions were slowing, and I was progressing at all so my doctor decided to start pumping pitocin into me to keep things moving. Now, pitocin increased the pain of my contractions almost immediately. The pain easily quadrupled. They intensity of them at this point was nearly unbearable. I kept waddling around and cursing, determined to go as long as I could before getting my epidural. 

Around 730am I told my nurse it was time to get numb. The pain from the pitocin induced contractions was borderline unbearable. I couldn't get comfortable, and had been up for 24 hours with an on and off nap that lasted the length of The Ellen Show. I was tired and needed relief so I could nap. Gotta have energy to push later on! Every other laboring momma wanted her epidural at the same time, it felt like forever before it was my turn to get it. Getting the epidural wasn't too bad, there was a pinch and a lot of burning from the numbing agent going into my back, then I just felt a lot of pressure when the actual huge needle was inserted. Within minutes my feet were felt warm to me, which meant it was working! Whoo hoo! Bye bye pain! My OB came in and checked on me after getting the epidural to see how everything was going, and how I was doing. 

Having the epidural meant I couldn't walk around anymore, so my nurse put me on my left side and I took a much needed nap. A few hours later she came back in, I was already awake.. Too much excitement! She had come in to flip me onto my other side, when I got to my left side our baby's heart rate immediately dropped. So we rolled me back to my left and her heart rate went back to normal. I was having a minor freak out! Why did her heart rate drop? Is she okay? If it keeps happening will I get a c section? The nurse told me that the cord was probably wrapped around her neck and when I went to my right it tightened it somehow, and was not a good idea. Baby girls heart rate was fine when I was on my butt, or my left side, so we just avoided my right side. So I hung out, comfortably, for a few more hours until noonish. Then I felt nauseous.  My nurse happened to come in to check on me, right as i vomited for the first time, and I was about 8cm dilated, she said nausea is common as you get further along, and closer to the end. That just made me nervously nauseous. 

Around 130pm my OB came in to check on me and I was finally fully dilated, but she wasn't fully descended yet. So she sat me upright and let me labor down for half an hour, instead of just going ahead and starting to push.. She didn't want me pushing  for forever, which I greatly appreciated and still greatly appreciate! While we were waiting for her to get closer to the exit, so to speak, I got nauseous again and leaned forward to vomit, while leaning forward our baby's heart rate dropped so the pushed me back and semi rolled me on my side. Have you ever puked while being hugely pregnant, in a reclined position and half way on your side? It is no easy thing to do. They gave me oxygen afterwards, and put a cold compress on my face. I felt much better after that, the oxygen air was cool so that really helped me feel better.

At 2pm she was low enough that I could start pushing. I kept my cool compress on my face, took off the oxygen, and started pushing while the nurse counted 1.. 2.. 3.. Between each push cycle I'd put the oxygen back on, it really helped me feel better. 20 minutes later they nurse said "stop! This baby can't come out without the doctor here!" she paged the doctor and within a minute my OB was in the room ready to catch! I remember thinking enthusiastically "omg she's almost here! We're going to meet our daughter soon!!" then I immediately thought, "oh crap.". Push, push, push! At 2:29 our beautiful 7lb 14oz, 19.75" bright eyed baby girl was born on a Thursday, and she was perfect. No complications from the cord being around her neck, no complications with mom. Everything was perfect. We finally had our baby girl in our arms! 

3 comments:

  1. aw... I love hearing about your birth story! new follower via the Sunday social!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Amazing birth story and Bean is too cute.
    #new follower

    ReplyDelete