Wishing everyone a most awesome 2010! Emily at 8 days old, birth story follows.
Don't feel like you have to read it if you're squeamish!
We arrived at the hospital at 5am and went straight into L&D 3. After signing my life away and getting my medical history straight, they started the Pitocin at 5:45am. Sherry, an L&D nurse of 28 years was an expert at starting my IV and explaining the pit. She started it at 2mg and she said we wouldn’t go over 30! As for my dilation at that time, she said that Dr Orth was probably being generous with 3cm and felt that I was 2cm and “tight”. When breaking my water shortly after she said it was a very thick membrane and mentioned that she didn’t think it would have ever broken on its own. I could feel her tugging like a latex balloon that just won’t pop. I felt the warm fluid gush out and prepared for the worst. I didn’t feel anything different. Needless to say, I wasn’t very hopeful at this point for a quick "natural" labor!
They kept cranking up the pit 2mg at a time until we got to 6 or 8mg. I finally started to feel the contractions around 8:10 and needed to focus on them just a little. I still would say they were only 5-6/10 and definitely no worse than a migraine. Dr Orth examined me at 8:15 and said I was 4cm, 80% effaced. My friend Mar was there until 8:30 snapping pictures while I joked about making a birth slide show to something totally inappropriate like “Welcome to the Jungle”. She had to leave to take her daughter to an important Dr appt. We thought she'd be back in plenty of time to act as my birthing coach of sorts like I did for her. We were wrong.
By 9am, I was pretty sure I was getting into transition. Each contraction took every piece of my being not to ask for an epidural. I thought of every birthing “method” known to womankind. I opted for the deep breathing alternated with gripping the siderails and moaning method. I demanded Mark distract me between contractions by talking but immediately shut the eff up when a contraction started. “How will I know?” he asked. I glared as my smile melted off my face, I closed my eyes, gripped the rails and said gasped out “I don’t think I want an epidural, but this is just how I felt before I wanted to push with Abby”. Sherry’s exam revealed I was 6cm, 90% effaced which is awesome progress in 45 minutes for an induced labor even with a 2nd baby. She reminded me to let her know when I felt like I needed to push. Then she called Dr Orth and told her to make sure she had her scrubs on. I’d call the pain 7/10 at that time.
It felt like seconds but it was actually 20 minutes and about 10 rockin’ contractions later per the nurses charting that I felt and said with some urgency at 9:20am “I HAVE TO PUSH”. Sherry hit the nurse light on my bed that calls the main station and said “I need Lauren* and Dr Orth” *the baby nurse. She lifted up my sheet and realized she didn’t need to check me as she could see the baby’s head crowning. I opened my clenched eyes long enough to see the shocked but not the least bit panicked look on her face as she smacked the call light and repeated “I need Lauren in here NOW”. I have no idea what DH was doing during this time but I know he was there because there are pictures. I found myself saying “I’m sorry Sherry!” as I knew it was just going to be the 3 of us when this baby came into the world. With the next pain, not even pushing, her head came fully out and Sherry calmly asked me not to push if possible while she suctioned and then advised me to give a gentle push. I had no problem with that! I felt her gently slip out and I looked down at the howling creature now on the bed between my legs. Keep in mind, I was still “laboring” when this started so there were no stirrups set up and the bed wasn’t broken down to include the plastic bag that normally catches everything.
The nurse put a towel on my chest and lifted Emily just as Lauren whipped in the door followed immediately by Dr Orth. The placenta was delivered and some minor repairs were needed down there. They would have let me go home after 36 hours but I went ahead and opted for the extra night – I don’t regret it! I sent Mark home to be with Abby both nights. He has a bad back anyway and the daddy bed is a joke. I kind of liked it just being Emily and I most of the time. I felt like I could talk to her and not worry about DH thinking I was being silly or just plain getting annoyed that I was deliriously saying the same cute things over and over. I'm a huge fan of room service too.
Abby is adjusting well to being a big sister. I would say she's mostly ambivelent. She'll pat Emily on the head and say "Aww, it's cuuuute". Otherwise the most interactive thing she's done was at the first pediatrician visit. The tech/nurse asked me to get Emily out of the carseat and fully undress her. Abby leaned over the carseat and said rather loudly "Get up baby. NOW!"
