Post by mirage86 on Jun 11, 2015 18:37:25 GMT -5
TL;DR included at the end with pics since this is a little long.
On Monday, 6/1 I had some bloody show. My first sign of any type of labor other than BH. I told DH that it could mean going into labor anywhere from a few weeks to a few hours from then. I felt like we should be ready for the real thing that night, just in case. We were going to run a couple of errands after dinner, so I used the bathroom, brushed my hair, and went to grab my shoes. As I walked, I felt small gushes of liquid. I froze where I stood and told DH, "Umm... I'm pretty sure my water just broke. There's no way that's pee, I just went less than a minute ago." He got really serious and I told him he'd better have his bag ready because we were going to have this baby now.
I wasn't having any contractions that I could feel yet. By the time we got to the hospital, it had been an hour since my water broke. They did the amino sure test and hooked me up to some monitors while they got the delivery room ready. I was dilated to 6 cm but still not feeling the contractions shown on the monitor. By 10pm or so we went up to my delivery room. The nurse said I could have a few hours to try progressing on my own before they would start me on pitocin. I paced and swayed whenever I wasn't connected to the monitoring machine. It was around 2:30am when I reached 7.5 cm and feeling some of the contractions. I tried using a birthing ball, but by that time baby's head was so low that the pressure really didn't let me move well. I asked if I could use the tub, and as the nurse was getting everything ready she said that it might do the trick.
I loved the tub! It felt great to sit back in the warm water and relax my muscles. I was telling DH how amazing it was when I felt my next contraction. It was horrible and it made me want to push. I couldn't find a position that worked to get through it, except to grab the side of the tub and hold on for dear life until it passed. DH told me for about the 5th time that night that he wanted me to go ahead and get the epidural. I wasn't aiming for a med free birth so much as I wanted to see what my body could handle, and I wanted to be free to move around as much as possible. After another two or three similar contractions in the tub, I also thought about the likelihood of tearing or having an episiotomy and realized it was probably best if I went ahead with the epidural.
I was 8 cm prior to getting it, which hurt going in as much as the contractions did and had to be done between my increasingly strong contractions. That was probably the most consistently painful part of the entire labor and I was 9.5 cm after the 10 min it took to get it in. Afterward my body felt relaxed enough that I wanted to sleep. I was facing away from the machines when suddenly there were a lot of people running into the room and asking me if I could get onto my hands and knees. My legs felt too heavy so a few of the people who ran in helped me. Apparently Ethan's HR had dropped, but it went back up once they turned me over. They reassured me that he had just gotten a little crabby but everything was still ok. The wonderful nurse that had been getting us through the night so far said she would call the Dr. and I would be able to start pushing.
The Dr. was actually my OB's on call backup, so I only met her for the first time that night. She and the delivery nurses kept the atmosphere relaxed and cheerful the entire time. In between pushes, she chatted with DH and I about her own children and some traveling she had done in Europe. The ladies all kept saying how well things were going, that I was a good pusher and they would invite me back to have more babies. Thanks to the epidural, I could hardly feel the contractions, if at all. I just waited for them to tell me to push and then I focused everything on that. They asked if I wanted to see the baby's head, and brought a mirror in. I could see the Dr. stretching everything to prepare for baby's head, and she also explained that by giving his head more room it was helping to keep his heart rate from dropping.
DH had said all throughout my pregnancy that he didn't want to see what would happen to me down there, but he said afterward that he couldn't look away and he really wanted to see his son being born. I had pushed for 54 min and suddenly my baby was up on my chest, slimy and crying and perfect. I could feel the umbilical cord but didn't know what it was at the time. I just comforted him and he settled down almost immediately. They took him over to be weighed and called DH to come take pictures. Ethan was so alert and wide eyed, taking in his surroundings without crying. From the time my water broke to him being born was almost exactly 9.5 hours. The entire experience felt surreal to both DH and myself. It definitely went better than I had been preparing myself for, and I think in the long run imagining the worst helped me stay calm and unafraid as the labor progressed. Since then, Baby Ethan has been doing great and at times I feel like my physical recovery has been the hardest part of the experience.
TL;DR: Labor went much better than I had been preparing myself to expect. Baby is happy and doing well.
The rabbit outfit is actually the same one that my mom had made for me to wear in the hospital when I was born. I was so happy that we still had it after all this time and my son could come home in it!
On Monday, 6/1 I had some bloody show. My first sign of any type of labor other than BH. I told DH that it could mean going into labor anywhere from a few weeks to a few hours from then. I felt like we should be ready for the real thing that night, just in case. We were going to run a couple of errands after dinner, so I used the bathroom, brushed my hair, and went to grab my shoes. As I walked, I felt small gushes of liquid. I froze where I stood and told DH, "Umm... I'm pretty sure my water just broke. There's no way that's pee, I just went less than a minute ago." He got really serious and I told him he'd better have his bag ready because we were going to have this baby now.
I wasn't having any contractions that I could feel yet. By the time we got to the hospital, it had been an hour since my water broke. They did the amino sure test and hooked me up to some monitors while they got the delivery room ready. I was dilated to 6 cm but still not feeling the contractions shown on the monitor. By 10pm or so we went up to my delivery room. The nurse said I could have a few hours to try progressing on my own before they would start me on pitocin. I paced and swayed whenever I wasn't connected to the monitoring machine. It was around 2:30am when I reached 7.5 cm and feeling some of the contractions. I tried using a birthing ball, but by that time baby's head was so low that the pressure really didn't let me move well. I asked if I could use the tub, and as the nurse was getting everything ready she said that it might do the trick.
I loved the tub! It felt great to sit back in the warm water and relax my muscles. I was telling DH how amazing it was when I felt my next contraction. It was horrible and it made me want to push. I couldn't find a position that worked to get through it, except to grab the side of the tub and hold on for dear life until it passed. DH told me for about the 5th time that night that he wanted me to go ahead and get the epidural. I wasn't aiming for a med free birth so much as I wanted to see what my body could handle, and I wanted to be free to move around as much as possible. After another two or three similar contractions in the tub, I also thought about the likelihood of tearing or having an episiotomy and realized it was probably best if I went ahead with the epidural.
I was 8 cm prior to getting it, which hurt going in as much as the contractions did and had to be done between my increasingly strong contractions. That was probably the most consistently painful part of the entire labor and I was 9.5 cm after the 10 min it took to get it in. Afterward my body felt relaxed enough that I wanted to sleep. I was facing away from the machines when suddenly there were a lot of people running into the room and asking me if I could get onto my hands and knees. My legs felt too heavy so a few of the people who ran in helped me. Apparently Ethan's HR had dropped, but it went back up once they turned me over. They reassured me that he had just gotten a little crabby but everything was still ok. The wonderful nurse that had been getting us through the night so far said she would call the Dr. and I would be able to start pushing.
The Dr. was actually my OB's on call backup, so I only met her for the first time that night. She and the delivery nurses kept the atmosphere relaxed and cheerful the entire time. In between pushes, she chatted with DH and I about her own children and some traveling she had done in Europe. The ladies all kept saying how well things were going, that I was a good pusher and they would invite me back to have more babies. Thanks to the epidural, I could hardly feel the contractions, if at all. I just waited for them to tell me to push and then I focused everything on that. They asked if I wanted to see the baby's head, and brought a mirror in. I could see the Dr. stretching everything to prepare for baby's head, and she also explained that by giving his head more room it was helping to keep his heart rate from dropping.
DH had said all throughout my pregnancy that he didn't want to see what would happen to me down there, but he said afterward that he couldn't look away and he really wanted to see his son being born. I had pushed for 54 min and suddenly my baby was up on my chest, slimy and crying and perfect. I could feel the umbilical cord but didn't know what it was at the time. I just comforted him and he settled down almost immediately. They took him over to be weighed and called DH to come take pictures. Ethan was so alert and wide eyed, taking in his surroundings without crying. From the time my water broke to him being born was almost exactly 9.5 hours. The entire experience felt surreal to both DH and myself. It definitely went better than I had been preparing myself for, and I think in the long run imagining the worst helped me stay calm and unafraid as the labor progressed. Since then, Baby Ethan has been doing great and at times I feel like my physical recovery has been the hardest part of the experience.
TL;DR: Labor went much better than I had been preparing myself to expect. Baby is happy and doing well.
The rabbit outfit is actually the same one that my mom had made for me to wear in the hospital when I was born. I was so happy that we still had it after all this time and my son could come home in it!
