03 October 2011

Jack's Birth Story

I went in Friday morning (luckily with hubby driving) for my second appointment that week at the midwife/doctor's office (my practice has both). They wanted two NSTs each week since I was past my due date. They left me on the blasted machine for an hour and I was pissed! The doctor came in and said that the heart rate was good, but non-reactive (he was asleep and I hadn't had my usual Cherry Coke yet!). She said I had to go straight to the hospital and I told her no - I was going to lunch first. She said okay, but insisted I go to the hospital next. She called and told them to expect me.

At the hospital (after Red Robin lunch with two full Cherry Cokes), my NST was great, and then they did a biometric something or other. Baby Jack showed great practice breathing, large motor movements, and small motor movements, but two doctors checked and could only find two pockets of amniotic fluid. They said I wasn't going anywhere.

Because of the low fluid, I was to be induced, and I had to be monitored, which meant I couldn't be admitted to the alternative birth center as I'd planned on all along. The midwife on-call was the same one I'd been seeing for my appointments, so she came over to triage and assured me that they'd bring the birth center to me.

Friday night around 5:30 they started me on pitocin, but were really lazy about upping the dose. They did let me order dinner, but I was then awake most of the night just mildly uncomfortable but not progressing.

Saturday morning the gates of hell opened and let my day nurse into my room. Okay, she was just relentlessly by the book and made me really mad. Suddenly, I was not allowed any food or drink and my pitocin dose was upped by about two points every half hour.

At about 8:45AM I felt my water break. Hubby asked if we wanted to call someone and I initially said no. I didn't want to be put on their clock and I was still mad at everyone. At almost 9:30 I decided to call the birth center and have them send me a midwife to check me (no midwife had checked on me all night, since I later found out the midwife on duty delivered FIVE babies that night...). The midwife, Jan, came over and said I was still at just a 3 (I had been at a 1 or 2 the night before).

Not much happened besides me getting progressively more miserable until 12:30 or 1....at that point I was just begging for it to be done. The pitocin made everything so yucky I just asked for something for the pain (but not an epidural). Jan checked me again to find I was all the way up to a 4 (ugh) and gave me a shot of some opiate in my IV. The last thing I remembered was hearing her tell hubby it was usually about an hour per centimeter of dilation. I said there was no way I could do this for six more hours. They dropped by pitocin from 17 down to 5 so I could rest for a bit, even if it meant I stopped progressing.

Less than an hour later, I started making a racket - moaning and completely unable to stay asleep, much less comfortable. The midwife and nurse went to move me and saw bloody show, so the midwife checked me again (after saying the drug should still be working, and there's no way I sounded like a woman at 4 cm). I remember seeing her and hearing her say, "She's complete!" Yes, I slept through transition.

Everything moved fast, as the nurse helped the midwife get stuff together and get a gown on. The foot of my bed dropped and suddenly hubby was holding one leg, the nurse was holding the other, and they told me to push a couple times. Then the midwife told me to stop pushing, and then to just do tiny pushes. Hubby told me that at this point, Jack was half crowned, but the midwife was seeing how big he was and trying to just ease him out.

At 1:52PM the midwife put Jack on my chest and confirmed that I had not torn! They asked how big we thought he was as they walked to the scale, and I was guessing nine something, because I didn't feel as traumatized as with Maggie (yay for drugs!). Imagine our surprise when they announced he was 10 lbs, 10 oz! Whoa!

3 comments:

canape said...

You totally rock. Seriously. You deserve a giant Mama Medal of some kind . . .

Stacey said...

You did great. I am so Happy for you!!!

siteseer said...

he sure was quick once he decided to come. :) glad everything worked out okay. Healthy baby, healthy mommy!!