Ansley's birth story

[vthokie]

I had always planned on a "natural" birth. I have a pretty high pain tolerance, and although everyone told me I was crazy, I was really determined to go med free. Nature had other plans.

After several miscarriages, it was discovered that I had a clotting issue, so I had to be on Lovenox shots all through my pregnancy so I would not throw a tiny clot and cut off her blood supply. The last month, I switched to Heparin, because it has a shorter half life. You can't be on blood thinners and get an epidural. They monitored me a lot and told me that they did not want me to go more than 41 weeks because of risk of placental abruption and all kinds of other scary sounding things. So, I walked and bounced and tried to get a baby out.

At my 40 week appointment they told me that I was not dilated AT ALL and we scheduled a c-section for April 9th, in case I didn't go on my own before that. I was to arrive at midnight and we would get things started.

Of course, she wasn't trying to come on her own, so Easter night, we had a nice dinner, took a nap, and  headed to the hospital. I got checked in and was in a room by 12:30. At 1am, the nurse came in and inserted the Cytotec. Then she told me to sleep. The Dr would be in around 8am, check me, break my water if necessary, and we would start pitocin. She said that some people got some contractions from the Cytotec, but I should sleep as much as possible.
HAHAHA!!
Around 1:30 I started having contractions. They were about 2 minutes long and only 1 minute apart. I figured things would start progressing quickly. Then, around 2am, my water broke. From here, it went not good. My contractions picked up and were basically overlapping. I didn't get any break between them and they were super strong. Also, the baby's heartrate kept dropping, so they made me stay on my side. Not being able to move made it near unbearable. I wasn't able to get any pain meds until the Dr got there at 8, so I would have to tough it out. I honestly don't remember a ton.They kept rolling me from side to side, trying to get her heartrate better. It sucked. I knew something was not good when they calld the Dr at 4am. They came back saying that I could have some Demerol and that we would get an epi as soon as he got there at 8. The Demerol didn't help the pain much, but it at least made me sleepy, so I would drift in an out during my giant multi-hour contraction. They kept coming in and checking on me. One nurse was like "you can do what you need to do to get through the contractions, but as soon as I stood up, her heartrate dropped again and I was back in bed on my side. During this time, they noticed that I had a lot of meconium in my fluid, so that did a saline rinse to try and clean that out. It was basically 6 hours of a giant unending contraction before my Dr finally showed up at 8. He assured me that my epidural guy was on the way and that would help. I was near impossible to stay still for them to place the epi, but I managed, and life was better. I managed to catch a glimpse of the contraction charts, and no wonder I hurt. It was basically spiked to the top, then it would drop a tiny bit for a second and go right back up.

Once the epi was in, they decided to put in the catheter and put a monitor on her head. They had a hell of a time doing all of that. Even after 6+ hours of crazy contractions, I was still barely 1cm dilated, and she was so far up, they had to push on my belly to get her far enough down to get a monitor on her. Ugh. Once we were all hooked up, they decided to start pitocin to move things along. That didn't go well either. It dripped for MAYBE 5 minutes before the nurse came and turned it off. Her heartrate was dropping too much. We went back and forth with it on and off a few times. But every time I had a pitocin contraction, her heartrate got dangerously low. It was about 10am when my Dr came in and said that we needed to get her out. Her heartrate was too unstable and I wasn't progressing at all. NO PRObLEM!! I just wanted to see her, and I was so tired already.

Everything started out well. They asked if I could feel anything, and I said no. I felt pressure. I remember the Dr saying that it was no wonder she wouldn't come out, because the cord was wrapped twice around her head like a headband, so it was keeping her from engaging. Without a c-section, she never would have come out on her own. I remember them showing her to me, and I started crying. Then, it all hit the fan.
I remember telling the anesthesiologist that I could feel stuff down there. He told me that pressure was normal. I said "This is NOT pressure!! This is PAIN, and I'm going to be sick" I did not get sick, but they started pumping me full of everything they could to get me back to happy numbness. Didn't work. I felt everything from the moment she came out. I remember that I basically just screamed the whole time and they kept assuring me that they were almost finished. DH got to trim the cord and I made him go with her. She was born at 10:57, but I wasn't pain free and cognizant enough to hold her until after noon. From there, all was fine. She latched great and has been amazing ever since.

Mine was definitely not a happy induction story, but the mind forgets, and the end result was still an amazing little girl!!

[kkfeb04]

Happy Birthday Ansley!

[Deleted]

That is a crazy scary story! Wow! So glad it turned out so well. Why could you feel it all? That is terrifying

[TrudyCampbell]

Wow, what a scary experience! but you're right- totally worth it!

[bean47]

What a crazy experience! I'm glad everything turned out okay.

[teamhayes]

Holy crazy story! I can't imagine feeling the section!

[vthokie]

No clue why I felt it all, though I've always said that pain meds don't work well on me. Makes me scared to have a RCS, but with my condition, it's a probability.

[helicase]

Ack! Scary stuff. So glad both you and Ansley came out of it healthy.

[kandrze1]

That sounds like it must have been really scary! I'm glad everyone was okay in the end.