Last Friday, the day before my due date, I went in for a scheduled NST. Baby was sleeping and even after drinking some juice and trying to wake her up they weren't getting the readings they needed, so I "failed" and had to go back for a timed ultrasound.
Baby continued to sleep and the tech tried all her tricks to wake her up, since she needed to see her move 8 times in 30 mins. Even if I felt her move, if the tech didn't see it it didn't count! Finally, with literally 30 seconds left, the little stinker got her 8th move caught on camera and we were good to go.
I also had my cervix checked, which was very uncomfortable, and just like the previous week I was half a cm dilated with a thick cervix. I put an induction on the schedule for 42 weeks since they only do 3 scheduled a day and I knew I didn't want to go any later. But I reaaaaally wanted to avoid being induced!
MH and I left and I had to go with him to a quick work appt since my dr appt had taken so long and he didn't have time to drop me off. I felt a small gush in my undies in the car and wondered if it was my water breaking. We had pulled over in a grocery store parking lot and I jumped out and had a really big gush and I knew. The water looked to be kind of yellowish and and MH was super startled by this chain of events and ran into the store to get me some pads after asking like 20 questions about what kind to buy, lol.
Soo, I called the dr and they had me come back in. The same dr who had examined me before examined me again and took a sample of fluid from my cervix and then looked at it under a microscope to confirm it was amniotic fluid. At first she was all, "yeah it might be gel from the exam earlier" but I knew it wasn't. I was worried because the fluid had a bit of green in it on my pad and I was thinking meconium, but the dr said she didn't see any under the scope.
Dr told us to head to the hospital sooner rather than later, since most women will go into labor within 4 hours of their water breaking. I was kinda bummed to hear this since I had reallllly wanted to labor at home for as long as possible and then try a natural childbirth. So, we went home and finished packing and got something to eat and headed in to the hospital about 3 hours later with no sign of any contractions...
Once admitted I got checked and my (other) dr said my cervix was completely closed and thick. AWESOME. She said nearly all women are in labor 12 hours after their water breaks, so we were back to waiting it out. I started to get a little nervous since the dr started to talk about how the longer my water was broken, the more risk of infection. She was also mildly concerned about possible meconium in my fluid. But, she knew I didn't want to be induced so they kept monitoring the baby every hour or so.
When she came back at 1am, no freakin sign of any contractions and my cervix was still locked up tight and hadn't changed at all. SO frustrating. She recommended pitocin and I had a minor freak out/cry fest because I felt like this medical intervention that I so badly wanted to avoid, was going to snowball to even more interventions and could lead to a c section. My cervix was considered "unfavorable" for an induction, but I couldn't take any of the usual drugs to soften it up because my water had broken. I also didn't feel confident that I could do pitocin without pain meds, which I was really disapointed about. Doc tried to reassure me, but also kind of scared me into agreeing, telling me all the possible things that could go wrong if I sat around waiting to go into labor. She said it could be days. So I got hooked up to the IV and got the drugs rolling.
I was offered Ambien to sleep, but have read too many weird stories on here about it, so took some Benadryl instead. Went to bed and slept like a rock until around 5ish where the contractions were waking me up, but still manageable. Contractions were about every 2 minutes, lasting around a minute. Doc checked me again and I was 1-2 CM dilated and 50% effaced. Baby not engaged. She was happy with the progress, though. Contractions got really painful and I was bouncing on the ball, walking, swaying, all that jazz. Once you're hooked up to the pitocin IV you also have to be hooked up to continuous monitoring of the baby, so you're really limited on how you can move around. Cross another thing off my birth plan!
I was supposed to dilate a CM an hour, but when she came back around 4 hours later there was no change. At that point the contractions were excruciating and I couldn't deal with possibly going another 8 hours or more feeling such pain. Reluctantly I got an epidural, which was no big deal, and felt better immediately. Chilled out for a few hours and finally fell asleep when the nurse and dr woke me up because the baby was not responding well to the pitocin anymore and was showing signs of distress. They turned the pitocin off, hoping my body would do its own thing, but nope. Turned the pitocin back on and baby was still responding badly. They put some oxygen on me and had me lay on my sides. Nurse came back in a few mins later wearing OR gear and said the dr would be in to chat with me in a minute, but the surgical clothes pretty much clued me in to what was going to happen. Thanks, Nurse Obvious, lol.
So yeah, dr said the baby kept going into distress and my placenta sucked and things were going to get really bad if I waited much longer to get the baby out. At this point I had only dilated to 3 CM. Of course I agreed to the c section and they wheeled me into the OR and gave me a spinal. My arms started to go tingly which was scary, but they just tilted me a bit and they never went fully numb. I was breathing fine, but couldn't feel the sensation of my lungs or chest expanding and it was a weird feeling. I also felt like I needed to puke, but felt like I was dry heaving inwards instead of outward. MH had been wheeled in next to me (they make all the partners sit in a wheelchair the entire time) and did a great job reassuring me. My blood pressure got super low and I felt like I could barely keep my eyes open. I also had a reaction to the pain killer in the spinal and my face itched like a mofo!! The anesthesiologist had to keep reminding me to breathe, which was freaking out my husband, but I was fine.
Finally they pulled the baby out and boy did she scream! It was awesome to hear. They held her up for me and... I couldn't see a thing! MH could see and they asked him if it was a boy or girl (we were team green), but poor guy, her labia were swollen and he couldn't tell if he was looking at balls or not. LOL. Anyway, it was a girl!! I was SO happy!! They had to check her out before she was brought over to me because of the meconium, but she checked out great. MH got to hold her and I got to kiss her and stare for a few mins.
They wheeled out MH and baby to go get a bath and they finished putting me back together and wheeled me to a recovery area where I met up with my family. I was puking up a storm and felt totally out of it and itchy, but I was in a great mood. My healthy baby was so pretty and had so much hair!
Got transferred to my room where we stayed for 4 days. God bless labor and delivery nurses because I was a hot mess that first night and morning. My incision is super small and faint. I thought there would be stitches or staples or something, but it's all internal so you can't see. Recovery has been very smooth with little pain.
We've been home for 4 days and I'm loving every second. Breast feeding is hard and painful, but becoming less so. Baby is such a joy and I'm so thankful that everything worked out. I don't even care that literally nothing on my birth plan happened and that I had a c section. I won't skip the c section chapter again in my birthing book the next time around!!
She is beautiful!! Thanks for sharing your story. I'm having a c-section in two weeks, so it's nice to read other women's experiences. Congrats! And, lol at the swollen labia vs balls.
Post by narockshard on Jul 20, 2014 20:16:04 GMT -5
Congrats, she's so beautiful! I ended up with an unplanned c-section too and was super bummed about it, but it IS worth it for a healthy baby and healthy momma!
Congratulations! She's gorgeous. I'm sorry your delivery did not go as planned but that you and baby are healthy. And yay for another team green birth. So super exciting.
I'm also happy to hear your experience with your c-section since I'm scheduled for mine next Thursday.