BJ's Birth Story - AKA: OMG SO MUCH PUSHING
Nov 3, 2015 15:56:19 GMT -5
Post by BJ Dealer on Nov 3, 2015 15:56:19 GMT -5
TL;DR: Born at 2:45am on Saturday, October 24th (39w4d) after pushing for 5.5 hours over 6.5 hours of being at 10 cm. Eventually needed an episiotomy (2nd degree tear) and a vacuum extraction.
Full Story: Woke up around 8:30am (on two hours of sleep, ugh) on Friday and realized I’d had a contraction. That Monday I was checked and only at 3cm & 60% effaced with minimal Braxton hicks so I figured it was just false labor or something, so I just stayed in bed for a while. Eventually I had DH run a bath for me to see if it would stop the contractions or not. It didn’t, they got stronger and made me puke so we called our doula.
Our doula got to our house around 2pm and at 2:46pm I was contracting every 4-5 minutes so she made the call that we should head in before I really couldn’t tolerate the car ride. It was a good call, that car ride was AWFUL. When we got to the hospital I was already at 6cm, 90% effaced, and 0 station. I couldn’t stand being touched at all for the monitors or anything, so I went ahead and requested the epidural. It was put in at 4:30pm and my water broke, but more of a slow leak. After the epi I was still able to have complete movement in my legs, but no pain of contractions!
By 6pm I was at 9cm, 100% effaced, and +1 station. Baby’s heart rate dropped to 80-90% so I was given oxygen and put on my hands and knees and he got happy again.
“Practice” pushing started around 8:15pm and we did that for about an hour with very little progress, so we took a break for about 45 minutes. At 11:10pm the doctor came and checked me and said baby was still doing well so I could keep pushing. Around 11:45pm the doctor had me start the lowest level of Pitocin so that I could hopefully feel the contractions and urge to push better. Periodically they would give me the damn oxygen mask, but I felt it made pushing harder since I couldn’t really take any deep breaths with it on.
Because I had full movement in my legs we were able to try many positions for pushing: left side, right side, peanut ball, squatting, hands and knees, and whatever else they could think of to origami me into! Didn’t hurt at the time, but man did my hips feel sore the next day! Many of the positions were to try to help turn him, since he was not quite facing the right direction, but they didn’t work for that aspect. He stayed crooked.
After a total of 5.5 hours of pushing (starting at 8:15, with some breaks) and the threat of a c-section if the vacuum didn’t work, he was born at 2:45am with the help of an episiotomy and a vacuum. The doctor said she let me keep pushing because his heartrate was still doing surprisingly well with no further decelerations and I was making progress every hour, however slowly. By the time he came out, my mom thinks there were close to 15 people in the room! Some for backup in case we needed emergency help because of the vacuum/possible c-section, and some because they wanted to see what was going on that they were letting someone push for so long! I didn’t care at that point, I was just happy to get my baby out.
He was born 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 20” long (but measured 21.5” three days later at the pediatrician?)
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Full Story: Woke up around 8:30am (on two hours of sleep, ugh) on Friday and realized I’d had a contraction. That Monday I was checked and only at 3cm & 60% effaced with minimal Braxton hicks so I figured it was just false labor or something, so I just stayed in bed for a while. Eventually I had DH run a bath for me to see if it would stop the contractions or not. It didn’t, they got stronger and made me puke so we called our doula.
Our doula got to our house around 2pm and at 2:46pm I was contracting every 4-5 minutes so she made the call that we should head in before I really couldn’t tolerate the car ride. It was a good call, that car ride was AWFUL. When we got to the hospital I was already at 6cm, 90% effaced, and 0 station. I couldn’t stand being touched at all for the monitors or anything, so I went ahead and requested the epidural. It was put in at 4:30pm and my water broke, but more of a slow leak. After the epi I was still able to have complete movement in my legs, but no pain of contractions!
By 6pm I was at 9cm, 100% effaced, and +1 station. Baby’s heart rate dropped to 80-90% so I was given oxygen and put on my hands and knees and he got happy again.
“Practice” pushing started around 8:15pm and we did that for about an hour with very little progress, so we took a break for about 45 minutes. At 11:10pm the doctor came and checked me and said baby was still doing well so I could keep pushing. Around 11:45pm the doctor had me start the lowest level of Pitocin so that I could hopefully feel the contractions and urge to push better. Periodically they would give me the damn oxygen mask, but I felt it made pushing harder since I couldn’t really take any deep breaths with it on.
Because I had full movement in my legs we were able to try many positions for pushing: left side, right side, peanut ball, squatting, hands and knees, and whatever else they could think of to origami me into! Didn’t hurt at the time, but man did my hips feel sore the next day! Many of the positions were to try to help turn him, since he was not quite facing the right direction, but they didn’t work for that aspect. He stayed crooked.
After a total of 5.5 hours of pushing (starting at 8:15, with some breaks) and the threat of a c-section if the vacuum didn’t work, he was born at 2:45am with the help of an episiotomy and a vacuum. The doctor said she let me keep pushing because his heartrate was still doing surprisingly well with no further decelerations and I was making progress every hour, however slowly. By the time he came out, my mom thinks there were close to 15 people in the room! Some for backup in case we needed emergency help because of the vacuum/possible c-section, and some because they wanted to see what was going on that they were letting someone push for so long! I didn’t care at that point, I was just happy to get my baby out.
He was born 7 pounds, 14 ounces and 20” long (but measured 21.5” three days later at the pediatrician?)
! Congratulations- he is adorable!