baby SugarBean17 (very late birth story)
Jun 24, 2015 22:24:09 GMT -5
Post by sugarbean17 on Jun 24, 2015 22:24:09 GMT -5
June 12th we had an appointment scheduled with our perinatologist to see how baby was doing/growing. We pretty much new he wasn't going to let me go any further. I was already 2 days past my due date and he wanted to induce me at 39 weeks because of the 2 vessel cord. I was able to convince him to let me go another week. My midwife ended up being at the appointment which was such a relief to see a very familiar face. (My perinatologist ended up being out of the office that day so we were meeting with one we had never met.) My midwife said that if everything looks good we could go to the birth center and break my water to induce me (I was already 4-5cm 75% effaced -2 station)!
We had the ultrasound and they were estimating baby at 9lbs 12oz. Then saying that it could be off by a pound in either direction. The cut off for having the baby at the birth center is 10lbs, so we were really pushing that limit, plus my last kiddo had some shoulder distocia. So now my midwife was concerned that this baby was going to be too big and possibly have troubles with it's shoulders.The perinatologist was suggesting that I have a C-section just in case. Unfortunately this information made us risk out of the birth center birth that I had been dreaming of. We were sad and now having to rearrange our plans. But at least we knew we would be meeting our little one soon!
At noon we called the hospital to see if they had a bed ready for us. They told us to come in at 2:30pm. So we gathered a few things that we knew we would need now that we were going to be staying over night at the hospital instead of just a few hours at the birth center. We got to the hospital and basically just sat around for a while. My doula arrived at 3pm. Finally at 3:30pm we met the on call Dr. (it was his last weekend on call before he retired) He comes in and strongly suggests that I have a C-section. I politely declined, letting him know that I really don't feel like this baby is over 9lbs. He agreed to just break my water and not start pitocin unless I had gone 4 hours without having contractions or any signs of progress. I didn't have to have an IV which was so nice.
At 4pm the Dr. came in and broke my water. I could tell that I was having some minor contractions but nothing major, they put me on the monitors for 30min. Around 4:30pm my doula asked how I was feeling and if I could feel anything, I told her I had some cramping on the top of my uterus but that was it. Then about 10 min later things changed. Suddenly my contractions were very intense. I couldn't find a comfortable place. I was kneeling on the floor with my legs as wide as they could go and leaning forward on the bed. Then they wanted to monitor the baby again so I had to go to the other side. This made things even more intense so my doula decided to get the bath started. (I have no idea how much time has passed at this point but I think it was getting close to 6pm) Finally I started to really need to be vocal and rocking. This kind of helped. The tub was ready!!! The nurse decided she wanted to check me before letting me get into the tub because of the sounds I was making. So I had to do the impossible task of getting into bed and holding still to get checked. 8cm almost 9cm. Yay! No bath... Boo. 2 more contractions and I feel an urge to push they check me and the resident says 10cm! The nurse checks and says 9cm with a lip... no pushing. So my doula and my husband are doing an awesome job at helping me breath through the contractions. I hit a place where all I can think is (why the hell didn't I get an IV I could be getting drugs right now! and I can't do this) I know now that I need to change my thinking because this is not going to help me. So I start chanting during my contractions, "I can do this, I can do this, etc". It helped so much.
Finally I couldn't hold back on the pushing. So at 6:32 I start pushing. (with my last two kids I pushed for 10min and then 3 times.) It was so much harder to push this time. Finally I realized that my pushing wasn't doing any good. So I started to worry that this baby was in fact too big or that it's shoulders were stuck. I got so worried that if I didn't get this baby out and soon that the c-section I would be having would be an emergency one that I wouldn't be awake for. This gave me the strength I needed to really push I pushed with everything I had. I hear someone say that they see the head! Yay!! The head is coming out, I reach down and realize that I don't feel the back of the head but the face. This baby was sunny side up and came out forehead first. Now I know why it was so hard to get the head out. The shoulders come out easy (thank goodness). Baby was born at 6:48pm. It was like 5min before I realized we still didn't know if our baby was a boy or a girl. So I asked my husband to check and he said in a very shocked voice,
"it's a boy!" (he just knew we were having a girl).
I had some extra bleeding after he was born and everyone was a little freaked out. I had a shot of pitocin and one other drug I can't remember the name of to help my uterus contract and stop the bleeding. They kept massaging my uterus, and doing internal exams this was so flipping painful. They even used a speculum, I was about to jump off the bed because of the pain. It was terrible. Finally the bleeding slowed and they left me alone. We got the baby to latch and nurse! Suddenly all of the pain was gone! It was a whirlwind of an experience. 2 hours and 48 minutes in total with a sunny side up baby. He ended up being 8lbs 10oz 20.5 in long. (I had the closest estimate, I just knew that he was not going to be over 9lbs) The Dr. came in and admitted that it would have been a crying shame to have done a C-section. So I'm glad I trusted my instincts.
TLDR: Broke water at 4pm. Baby was born sunny side up at 6:48pm after a very quick but intense labor. Baby was 8lbs 10oz 20.5in long.
