Well, I have finally found a quiet moment to sit down and write out Alex's birth story...this may be long so those of you who would like to read...read on, others BE WARE!
As everyone knows, I have been on baby watch since last Friday when I woke up with some bleeding and decided to go to the doctor's to get it checked out. The doctor thought that it may have been early labor as I was having consistent contractions, but not close enough together to be considered in "active labor". So we were sent home from the hospital. I spent the weekend being watched like a hawk by my entire family and Henry's entire family. On Monday, I went back to the hospital because I thought my water had broken. Well, it hadn't and once again, they sent us home. I spent the rest of the day working and doing stuff around the house.
I went to bed that night, not thinking that anything out of the ordinary would happen. I had a few contractions, but since I was able to fall asleep, figured that it wasn't the "real deal" as everyone told me I would know when I was in labor. Well around 2:00 AM the following morning (Tuesday) I woke up with what felt like the worst menstrual cramps ever!!!! Seriously, I never thought a contraction would feel that way, but it did...it felt like the worst PMS cramps...times 10. When they kept coming pretty consistently, I knew that it was time! I woke Henry up about 3:00 AM and we started to time the contractions. At first they were 8 minutes apart, but within an hour, they were coming every 6 minutes and then every 5 minutes. Around 5:30 AM we called my doctor who said...go to the hospital. So at 6:30 AM we headed out to have our baby!
We arrived at the hospital and were admitted immediatley and settled into a room. A nurse came in and started to monitor the baby's heart rate and my contractions (which at this point were coming every 2-3 minutes). The doctor came in and examined me...said that I was about 4 cm dialated and that we were well on the way to having a baby. He broke my water (which was the most disgusting thing that I had felt) and said that if I wanted an epidural it would be a good time to get one. So, the I got the epidural. THANK YOU to whoever invented the epidural, because seriously, I don't know how I would have gotten through what I got through without it.
Once the epidural was administered I was bed bound for the rest of my labor. It is the weirdest feeling to not be able to feel your legs any more...to see them being moved, but not feeling it... Also, not feeling the contractions was AWESOME! Anyway, the epidural slowed down my contractions, so the doctor and the nurse gave me some pitocin to kick start them back up. After the pitocin was administered, everything pretty much stopped. When the doctor came back (hours later) I wasn't dialated nearly as much as I should be and Alex's head was still super high..meaning that it hadn't entered the birth canal yet...which it should have by that point. So, they took me off the external monitors and put internal monitors in me to measure the baby's heart rate and to measure the strength of my contractions. My doctor had a feeling that my contractions weren't strong enough to dialate me like they should. That and with the fact that Alex's head still hadn't dropped, they started talking c-section. But they said that they would stop the pitocin and see what happened and reevaluate me in an hour or so.
That hour went by and the doctor came back in to reevaluate. He did an exam and lo and behold, I was 9cm dialated!!! So the doctor said to get ready to start pushing in about an hour. (Keep in mind that this was at like 4 in the afternoon and I had been up since 2:00 AM battling the contractions). The doctors decided to have me roll to my other side as I had been laying on my right side for most of the afternoon (I couldn't move on my own). When they did that (and I didn't realize this at the time), the baby's heard rate dropped for 3 to 4 minutes which caused quite a stir. At that point the doctor made the executive decision that it was time for a c-section...immediatley. He said that he knew everything was OK with the baby, but he didn't want to take a chance having Alex's heart rate drop while I was pushing and also that Alex still hadn't dropped into position, which made him believe that he couldn't fit through my pelvis.
It is all a blur quite honestly, but within seconds, there were at least 10 doctors, nurses, anestetists, etc in the room prepping me for surgery. Within 5 minutes I was being rolled out of my room on the way to the OR to have my baby! I remember being rolled into the OR where everything was so white and the lights were so bright. The anestetists gave me some good medication and a drape was hung and next thing I know, Henry is beside me and within about 10 minutes Alex had arrived.
Once they had taken him out they brought him behind the screen where Henry and I were able to see him briefly before they took him away to take his vital signs. Alex weighed in at 7 lbs 8 oz and was 20.5 inches long. I must say that my son has the most developed lungs because he was sooooo mad when the nurses started weighing him and doing the other things they do. Henry was able to cut the cord and went with Alex back to our room while they finished the surgery on me.
As they were finishing, I started to get really cold and shaky. This is something that they don't tell you in any of the classes, but the combination of the drugs and the hormones leads you to shake like you can't believe. I must have shook for over an hour. While they were finishing with my surgery, one of the nurses kept commenting how tiny I was (I am guess in the whole uterus, pelvic area) and the doctor agreed that there was no way that Alex could have fit safely through the birth canal due to his and my size. So needless to say, I am glad that I got the section even though I have a longer recovery ahead of me. After they were done, they took me back to my room where I was able to be with Henry and the baby while they did whatever they needed to do with him.
After about 16 hours of labor (again, thank god for drugs) Alex was finally born at 4:52 pm.
No comments:
Post a Comment