Tiny Dancer Birth Story
Jan 24, 2017 10:49:34 GMT -5
Post by dancerspose on Jan 24, 2017 10:49:34 GMT -5
Hey Ladies. I'm home alone with just my little nugget for the first time so I figured I'd take a few minutes to type out my birth story for you all. Overall, I think I was incredibly blessed for a first time birth. It was an interesting mix of a little drama and just total ease. Anyway, from the beginning.
So I woke up at 3:30 Friday morning (36w 1d - and the day my coworkers were throwing me a luncheon) thinking I just had to go to the bathroom. When I went to the bathroom I realized my underwear was soaked through with clear liquid onto my pants. No liquid had gone through my pants though, it wasn't that much. Of course, DH was over an hour away with the military for the weekend. I went back into bed figuring I'd do a kick count to make sure she was ok before getting too worried about whatever was going on, and texted DH just to let him know. I was torn between waiting until 8:30 when my OB office opens and calling the on call doctor. DH happened to wake and check his phone and convinced me to call the on call doctor around 5am. I was having intermittent lower back pain, that I did not really attribute to contractions, but other than that I was totally fine. The doctor was sort of weird about it though with a "well if you want to get checked head on in to the hospital" type of attitude. By this point I figured might as well thinking I'd just get peace of mind. So I got up, let the dog out, threw on some clothes, and drove myself to the hospital. (I did notice that when I got back out of bed I could feel more fluid leaking, but still no big gushes or huge amounts).
I got to the hospital a bit before 6 and went through the whole check-in with the nurse. Meanwhile, I had kept telling DH not to rush back until we knew what was up (he didn't have a car where he was having gone in the caravan so it would be some effort to get him home). While waiting for the doctor all hooked up to the monitors even I could see that the back pain I was having correlated with evenly timed contractions. The doctor came in to check me at about 6:45, and barely started to check my cervix before pronouncing "yup, water broke, 3cm dilated." Needless to say, I was shocked.
Luckily DH hadn't listened to me and had secured a ride home. They admitted me to labor and delivery and because I had only had my GBS swab two days before, and the results weren't back yet they started my penicillin and gave me the lovely bum steroid shot since I was under 37 weeks. DH finally made it to the hospital around 9:30, and for the first few hours things seemed to be going pretty slowly. I was laboring only in my back, which sucked. They told me I could get the epidural whenever, but I didn't want to be stuck in bed for hours if labor was going to progress slowly. I got them to check my cervix again around noon and I was only at 4cm. I wanted to stick it out longer without the epidural because it seemed like it would be a while, but by 1pm I had it put in. It was a good thing too, because when the doctor checked me at 2, I was suddenly 8cm, by 3pm I was fully dilated. The had be start pushing a little after 4, and at 4:32pm we a baby! The nurse and midwife were both shocked that I pushed for so short a period of time, especially for a first baby. I ended up with two first degree tears, stitches in one, but overall I'm doing really well.
Z.emirah (ze-meer-ah) K.erry arrived at 6lbs 2oz and 19 inches. A peds team had to be in the room since she wasn't full terms, but we still got to do skin to skin for a few minutes before they took her to check. Everything was fine, luckily.
Our time in the hospital wasn't bad. She had to spend some time the first night in the late pre term nursery instead of with us for extra monitoring. There was concern about her blood sugar so the poor thing had to keep getting stuck for repeated tests. We finally passed by the skin of our teeth with enough results in the clear by Saturday night. We had trouble with breastfeeding and getting her to latch so I was hand expressing and we were syringe feeding while in the hospital. We were discharged Sunday late afternoon (after a full 48 hours of observation on her because of the early status).
As an aside, both a doctor and the midwife from my practice were on duty Friday, and there was some interesting back and forth. The midwife kept wanting to start me on pitocin, starting around 11am, but the doctor kept holding off since I was having contractions and progressing. The midwife ended up being the one to deliver me, and she ended up pushing it when I was fully dilated just to make sure things didn't stall, but it was interesting to me.
Now that we're home we're just trying to get into a routine. Little miss still won't latch directly onto the breast, will only feed with a nipple shield. I know it's a little harder for her because she was early and is little, but I'm a little worried about her never taking the boob directly. Anyone have any experience with this? My plan is if we reach one week old and are still unable to latch to the breast I'll call a lactation consultant. I'm feeling pretty well overall. The tear they didn't stitch is up by my urethra, which is making urinating uncomfortable, but I don't think I can complain. Our first pediatrician appointment was yesterday afternoon, and we go back for a weight check tomorrow.
Now on to the mushy stuff - I absolutely cannot wrap my head around the fact that she's here. I'm not sure if I'd be able to believe more if I'd had the 4 more weeks I was planning on or not. After everything we went through to get her, for her arrival to be so sudden and smooth...we spent 2 1/2 years battling IF, only to get a surprise BFP, and I don't think I ever truly allowed myself to believe I'd be bringing home a baby. I couldn't be more thrilled to have my doubts proven wrong. My heart just melts at the sight of DH with her. I think he holds her more than me, and watching my tough guy doing skin to skin with this little nugget it my favorite sight in the world.
Ok, sorry I rambled on, and probably didn't always make sense. If you made it all the way through this I'll reward you with a little Z pic in a few minutes from mobile. I'll continue to follow along with you amazing ladies, and can't to hear all of your stories!
So I woke up at 3:30 Friday morning (36w 1d - and the day my coworkers were throwing me a luncheon) thinking I just had to go to the bathroom. When I went to the bathroom I realized my underwear was soaked through with clear liquid onto my pants. No liquid had gone through my pants though, it wasn't that much. Of course, DH was over an hour away with the military for the weekend. I went back into bed figuring I'd do a kick count to make sure she was ok before getting too worried about whatever was going on, and texted DH just to let him know. I was torn between waiting until 8:30 when my OB office opens and calling the on call doctor. DH happened to wake and check his phone and convinced me to call the on call doctor around 5am. I was having intermittent lower back pain, that I did not really attribute to contractions, but other than that I was totally fine. The doctor was sort of weird about it though with a "well if you want to get checked head on in to the hospital" type of attitude. By this point I figured might as well thinking I'd just get peace of mind. So I got up, let the dog out, threw on some clothes, and drove myself to the hospital. (I did notice that when I got back out of bed I could feel more fluid leaking, but still no big gushes or huge amounts).
I got to the hospital a bit before 6 and went through the whole check-in with the nurse. Meanwhile, I had kept telling DH not to rush back until we knew what was up (he didn't have a car where he was having gone in the caravan so it would be some effort to get him home). While waiting for the doctor all hooked up to the monitors even I could see that the back pain I was having correlated with evenly timed contractions. The doctor came in to check me at about 6:45, and barely started to check my cervix before pronouncing "yup, water broke, 3cm dilated." Needless to say, I was shocked.
Luckily DH hadn't listened to me and had secured a ride home. They admitted me to labor and delivery and because I had only had my GBS swab two days before, and the results weren't back yet they started my penicillin and gave me the lovely bum steroid shot since I was under 37 weeks. DH finally made it to the hospital around 9:30, and for the first few hours things seemed to be going pretty slowly. I was laboring only in my back, which sucked. They told me I could get the epidural whenever, but I didn't want to be stuck in bed for hours if labor was going to progress slowly. I got them to check my cervix again around noon and I was only at 4cm. I wanted to stick it out longer without the epidural because it seemed like it would be a while, but by 1pm I had it put in. It was a good thing too, because when the doctor checked me at 2, I was suddenly 8cm, by 3pm I was fully dilated. The had be start pushing a little after 4, and at 4:32pm we a baby! The nurse and midwife were both shocked that I pushed for so short a period of time, especially for a first baby. I ended up with two first degree tears, stitches in one, but overall I'm doing really well.
Z.emirah (ze-meer-ah) K.erry arrived at 6lbs 2oz and 19 inches. A peds team had to be in the room since she wasn't full terms, but we still got to do skin to skin for a few minutes before they took her to check. Everything was fine, luckily.
Our time in the hospital wasn't bad. She had to spend some time the first night in the late pre term nursery instead of with us for extra monitoring. There was concern about her blood sugar so the poor thing had to keep getting stuck for repeated tests. We finally passed by the skin of our teeth with enough results in the clear by Saturday night. We had trouble with breastfeeding and getting her to latch so I was hand expressing and we were syringe feeding while in the hospital. We were discharged Sunday late afternoon (after a full 48 hours of observation on her because of the early status).
As an aside, both a doctor and the midwife from my practice were on duty Friday, and there was some interesting back and forth. The midwife kept wanting to start me on pitocin, starting around 11am, but the doctor kept holding off since I was having contractions and progressing. The midwife ended up being the one to deliver me, and she ended up pushing it when I was fully dilated just to make sure things didn't stall, but it was interesting to me.
Now that we're home we're just trying to get into a routine. Little miss still won't latch directly onto the breast, will only feed with a nipple shield. I know it's a little harder for her because she was early and is little, but I'm a little worried about her never taking the boob directly. Anyone have any experience with this? My plan is if we reach one week old and are still unable to latch to the breast I'll call a lactation consultant. I'm feeling pretty well overall. The tear they didn't stitch is up by my urethra, which is making urinating uncomfortable, but I don't think I can complain. Our first pediatrician appointment was yesterday afternoon, and we go back for a weight check tomorrow.
Now on to the mushy stuff - I absolutely cannot wrap my head around the fact that she's here. I'm not sure if I'd be able to believe more if I'd had the 4 more weeks I was planning on or not. After everything we went through to get her, for her arrival to be so sudden and smooth...we spent 2 1/2 years battling IF, only to get a surprise BFP, and I don't think I ever truly allowed myself to believe I'd be bringing home a baby. I couldn't be more thrilled to have my doubts proven wrong. My heart just melts at the sight of DH with her. I think he holds her more than me, and watching my tough guy doing skin to skin with this little nugget it my favorite sight in the world.
Ok, sorry I rambled on, and probably didn't always make sense. If you made it all the way through this I'll reward you with a little Z pic in a few minutes from mobile. I'll continue to follow along with you amazing ladies, and can't to hear all of your stories!
Congrats! She's absolutely beautiful, and I love the name. Hope you guys are doing well.