And Baby Makes Three…
For those of you who are curious I thought that I would let everyone know how labor and delivery went. We went into the hospital Friday morning at 7:20 a.m. and was dialated to a 4 and 80-85% effaced when they checked me in. The nurses started the pitocin drip at 8:39 and were feeling optimistic that I would deliver late afternoon/early evening. When the doctor came in he was equally as optimistic and this gave me a bit of optimism as well. My doctor then went to clinicals from 9-12 and came back at 12:30 to break the amniotic sac. Just prior to that I had the anesthesiologist come and give me the epidural. (I had been given the advice to have the epidural before having my water broken because the contractions tend to really kick in after that.) It took the doctor a few minutes to break the sac because the membranes were really thick.
By 2:30 or so I was dialated to 6 cm, 95% effaced and the baby was at a zero station. I had been told earlier in the day that it should take about an hour per centimeter of dialation so I thought I would possibly deliver between 6:30 and 8:00 p.m. Well, around 5:00 the nurses noticed that my contractions were starting to do strange things (I had been given an internal monitor by this point) and decided to turn the pitocin off to see if they would regulate themselves and also to reset the receptors in my body. I had also not dialated or effaced anymore and they started tossing around the words “cesarean section delivery.” This for me was metaphorically the “crap hitting the fan” and I had Brandon give me a blessing, I also started to pray and I am sure that many others did as well. There were no changes during the 5:00 hour and they restarted the pitocin around 6. By 7 there will still no changes and the doctor was coming back in to deliver some twins by c-section. He came in about 7:30 and checked me. I was dialated to 8 cm and 95% effaced! Hooray! It was a relief after 4 intense hours of worrying that I might need to go have a c-section. The doctor also mentioned that Aiden was turned and looking to the left instead of at the floor
At that point the doctor left to go deliver the twins and my new nurse suggested that I try laying on one side and then the other to encourage Aiden to roll and face the direction he needed to. At 8:20 or so they decided to check me again and much to my astonishment and disbelief they said that I was completely dialated and 100% effaced! They even got a 2nd and 3rd opinion just to be sure. Aiden was also at a +1 station and I was starting to have intestinal pressure that they assured me was the baby descending the birth canal. So, they called the doctor to see if I could start pushing and since Aiden had been having variable heartbeats during my contractions (causing me to be put on oxygen) he said that I should wait to push. Luckily the oxygen regulated Aiden’s heart beat. Well, when they told me I had to wait to push I was like, “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” The catheter had been bugging me ALL DAY, and needless to say the epidural did not help one bit. It was not helping the pressure that I was feeling either. The two things it needed to ease it didn’t. I had also been watching my contractions all day and they were very shallow contractions, contractions that had I been willing I probably could have braved my way through.
Anyway at 9:05 the nurses received the go ahead to start having me push and the doctor came in about 10 mins. later. Fifty minutes after that I had a handsome baby boy layed on my tummy for a brief moment before they took him to clean him up and clean amniotic fluid out of his mouth and belly. So there you are. (Oh and when he was stitching me up I could feel most of it, meaning the epidural wasn’t effectively blocking that either. Geez!)
Needless to say I think that next time I will try really hard to be patient enough for my little one to start labor on it’s own. I also think that I will try going without an epidural, but will request a local anesthetic in the event that I need stitches again.
The status report is that we are at home now. I am still very low on sleep and will be on pain meds for a few days. Aiden passed all of his tests at the hospital but has been spitting up his food a bit and it took 3 attempts for the nursery nurses to finally get all of the amniotic fluid out of his tummy (he was gagging on it because it was unusually thick). Brandon couldn’t be a more proud papa (and I love the gentle way he interacts with Aiden). So there you are. You will never know the love that you will feel when you become a parent. I can not believe the love that fills my heart for my little boy.
Lastly, a word of advice to all you future moms. The nurses (any and all of them) make or break your labor and delivery or hospital stay. If you do not like a nurse, it is your right to send them away and request a new one. Don’t by shy or hesitant to do so. I was lucky enough to have wonderful nurses until just before we left. Had we been there much longer I would have requested a new nurse for Aiden. She was just a bit gruff. Anyway I better go snuggle my sleeping little boy. 🙂