Little Man C
March 10, 2007
6 pounds 14 Ounces
21 Inches Long
On Friday, March 9, 2007, I stayed home from work to rest for our big meeting that was the following week. I watched several movies and generally just kept my feet up. That night I was getting ready for bed I brushed my teeth and then coughed. When I coughed I felt a gush of fluid, but not a lot just enough to fill the clean pantyliner that I had just put on. I called to Eric thinking that something wasn’t right, but dismissed it for a moment because Little C had been dancing on my bladder for quite sometime. So I change my panty liner, Eric put down some towels on the bed and I laid down. No more gushing I thought I was home free, until I rolled over. The flood gates opened once again and I decided that my water had broken. We noted the time, color, amount, and odor (per the doc) 10:20pm. Then we called the on call doc, Dr. Wells (one of my favorites I might add). I had just seen her on Wed and we had a big conversation about the women who go to the hospital way way way early before they are actually in labor and how I did not want to be that girl. I told her that I thought my water had broken but that I wasn’t having any contractions that were could be timed. She suggested that we come in to the hospital I fought her a bit but then she said “When your water breaks you get a bed”.
So we packed up, as I only had a few things in my “hospital bag”. We packed a bag for Eric, and even remembered to return the movies we had rented that day on the way to the hospital. We called my parents, Eric’s parents, and my Grandma to tell them we were on our way but that it was definitely going to take a while.
The trip to the hospital was surreal because once your water breaks you have 24 hours to deliver before they will help you with c-section, after that point the chance of infection gets pretty high. I carried my own bags and walked to Labor and Delivery on my own smiling all the way. Several nurses in the hallway didn’t believe that I was there to have a baby, but I can’t blame them really most women walk in doubled over in pain, but I wasn’t have any contractions, so I was fine. They took me in at registration and then swabbed me with litmus paper to see if in fact my water had broken (red is urine and bright blue is amniotic fluid) that paper turned bright blue, the nurse called out “give her a room”. So we went to room 224.
Dr. Wells came in for an exam, I was 1cm dilated and 75% effaced, two days earlier I was 1cm dilated and 50% effaced, so I was a little bummed about my lack of progress. At this point it was about 12:20am she suggested pitocin to get things going. We started pitocin and it was increased by 2 every hour. I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited. I was even text messaging with some friends.
The pitocin brought on contractions but they weren’t frequent and strong until probably noon, a whole 12 hours later. In the beginning I was standing, sitting, curled up in a ball, sitting on the birth ball, mostly my back hurt, none of it really helped for a long time, but it was a way to get through the contractions. I made sure and requested that I get my epidural at 5cm, I felt like I at least wanted to get that far. By this point Dr. Penn was on call and Dr. Wells had gone home, of course he’s one of the Doctor’s that I HADN’T met, but seemed like a nice man.
Around 3pm (I think) the pain was getting pretty intense, so I asked what my options were, the anesthesiologist was busy with c-sections (there were 5 emergency ones between Friday and Saturday night) so it was going to be at least an hour until I could get my epidural. So we opted for Stadol, it’s a narcotic that you can have up to 2 mg per hour. I was given 1mg to see how C and I reacted to it. It was heaven, wonderful I could feel the contractions but I didn’t care, some people have described it as being drunk, it was way way better than that. The anesthesiologist didn’t make his appearance for 2 hours so I had 4 shots of Stadol (through my IV for those of you that are needle-phobic). This is where we ran into a bit of a problem. C started to de-cell which means that his heart rate was decelerating, not a good sign. They want the heart rate between 130-150 his was down in the mid 90’s, they pushed me on my side, gave me oxygen and before I knew it there were 5 nurses and Dr. Penn staring at me and the monitor. I heard “Dr. Penn if you need the OR we need to know NOW” he was leaning against the wall with his hands behind his back, give us 3 minutes and I’ll let you know. I was scared but I didn’t know what else to do, so I started to rub my belly and talk to him “C be a good boy, Mommy needs you to get your heart rate up, come on baby” (Lord, that makes me cry now, but at the time I was super calm probably from the drugs). His heart rate came back up, and then it was time for the epidural, a little late I was 8cm dilated and fully effaced, but I couldn’t go on without it.
Once I got the epidural I was able to rest a bit, my lower half was numb and that was amazing!! Little C also began to respond better as the Stadol was processed out of my system, everything was looking up and I had avoided an emergency c-section, thank goodness! They continued to check me regularly for progress. By 5pm I was fully dilated and ready to push. So here went nothing, and I mean nothing I couldn’t feel anything so I was doing my best to push without really feeling what I was doing. They say it’s like having a bowel movement, but at that point you can’t even remember how to poop! Dr. Penn did a lot of perineal massage to make sure that I didn’t tear and hopefully to avoid an episiotomy. There was only one time I can remember yelling at Eric, he was holding my toes and not my heel when I was pushing, I said something like “hold my foot right”.
I pushed for about two and a half hours and around 7:30pm Dr. Penn asked if I needed help, which I immediately thought meant c-section, but he meant the vacuum. In order to use the vacuum you have to have an episiotomy, but by this point whatever they had to do to get him out was fine by me! The first two vacuums didn’t work, that was more painful than I can describe because the vacuum goes inside you before they know if it works. I did some serious pushing for the next 30 minutes and in the end no one was sure if he was going to come out or not. The NICU team came in because of the amount of time that I had been pushing, which really freaked Eric out. Then finally at 8:16 he made his appearance, it was exactly as you would imagine. They took him immediately to the warmer and got him all cleaned up, Daddy went with him as they worked to stitch me up, and finish the delivery.
He got a 9 on his 1 minute and 5 minute APGAR which is great considering I pushed for over 3 hours. Turns out the little bugger was face up (sunny side up) which is why I had such terrible back labor and such a hard time pushing.
Additionally, getting the epidural at 8cm probably didn’t do me any favors either, but I knew I couldn’t do the transition phase without drugs, so in my mind there wasn’t any other option.
During labor I did throw up a couple times during labor and then again after delivery, after delievery they can gave me a drug to stop the nausea. The cheeseburger and chocolate shake I had from Red Robin after delivery was the best burger and shake of my life!!!
