Sunday, April 21, 2013

While Baby Sleeps Continued... labor story

It seems these days that the only time I spend on the computer is with baby in one arm, and typing with one hand just takes forever.  So I am finally getting around to the birth story and some pictures if Evelynn keeps sleeping.
I got to the hospital at 8 in the morning and it seemed like it took forever to get through the admissions process.  When I got up to the labor and delivery area they told me (using my middle name) that I could just go wait in my recovery room since my c-section wasn't scheduled until 10:30.  I firmly told them that I was not having a c-section, but an induction and my name is not Elizabeth.  To which they said, but you are on our list as scheduled for a c-section... and then they finally figured out that my name is not Elizabeth and they got me settled into my room.  By this time I was crying because I just wanted to have the baby and was frustrated with the confusion and the nurse was concerned that I was in pain and didn't like that I was crying.
   So they started the induction around 9am but implanting a little tablet, and some very minor contractions started, but I was walking around and feeling pretty good.  They checked me around noon and I had progressed a little, so they gave me another tablet to "increase my pain" as the nurse said.  Shortly after that the doctor came in and she informed me that the baby's heart rate had been too high since the time of my admission and she did not like it.  If it didn't come down within thirty minutes I would have a c-section.  I thought, "oh great, I waited a week past her due date only to have to have a c-section!"- but we prayed and called my parents to pray.  Unfortunately they started prepping me for a c-section (hooked me up to an iv, shaved me, made me stay in bed with the monitor hooked up), and then we started to see the heart rate slow down.  The doctor came in again and noticed the decrease so she gave me another 30 minutes.  At this point my water broke and the contractions really started to pick up.  I always seem to be stuck in bed when I am in labor so I don't know what it is like to try to manage contractions the normal way.  These contractions were unproductive (still at 3cm) and since it seemed like I would continue to be stuck in bed, I decide to get an epidural to move things along.
    I actually think all I would have needed to do was go through the process of getting an epidural without actually getting one.  Unlike in America, they made me move from my bed onto a another bed so that they could wheel me over to the Operating Theater where they then moved me to the operating table.  There I had to sit up straight with my legs Indian style while they cleaned me and implanted the catheter.  I was having contractions all the while, but they were much less painful in this position than laying down in the bed with the monitor on.  Once the catheter was in place they moved me back to a different room (they had moved us) where I went back to the bed got the monitor hooked back up, and the medicine started flowing. By this time it was 4pm.  The epidural did not numb me as much as the one in America- though I did not feel the contractions, I could still feel my feet tingling and other things that I won't write about here.  The doctor came in to check me at 5pm.  I was fully dilated (probably had been for a while since I had been feeling an urge to push almost the entire time I had been back in the room).  So they doctor just said to lay there and push if I felt like it while she went and got changed.  I thought, "this is strange/different".  So I laid there and pushed while only slightly propped up and my legs flat.  About 10 minutes later the doctor came back and said, "we have to act fast, the heart rate is falling".  So they finally propped my legs up a little (i couldn't do it myself) but they didn't prop my back up at all, and then I had two or three nurses pushing down on my belly while I tried to push, though I couldn't really feel they contraction and they weren't really telling me.  The doctor gave me a rather large episiotomy because she wanted that baby out fast, and in 10 minutes she was.
  They whisked her away so fast that they doctor didn't even look to see if it was a girl or a boy.  I told JP to run after them with the camera while sat in bed get stitched up thinking, that wasn't a very satisfying labor, but  praise God I have a healthy baby!  I still wonder if the rush wasn't just so that the doctor could go home at a normal hour.
Walking around drinking OJ after my first induction

what was going on behind the curtain while I got stitched up, I called to JP to double check that we actually had a girl.

3720 grams

I finally got to see my baby girl before they took her away again.


They finally brought me my baby so that I could hold and nurse her, but only after I demanded it.
Back in our recovery room.

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