Saturday, June 7, 2008

labor story

Obviously a lot has been going on this past month! YES! I can't believe a month has gone by since our sweet Isabella was born. I have some blog-catching up to do.

First of all, I won't give the nitty-gritty details of the labor/birth since it seems like ages ago and it's true what people say - you forget about all the blood, sweat and tears when you see that beautiful baby in the Dr's hands. Within a few days, I was even thinking that I WOULD go though it again for #2! :o)

In summary, the labor seemed long since I had to be induced. We went in on Monday night (5/5) and I was given Cervidil to try to stimulate things. Not much happened overnight except some cramping, nurses checking on me every hour, and my blood pressure being taken every 15 min (they had me hooked up to a machine). So even though everyone was telling us to 'rest up', it was impossible.

The next morning, Tues 5/6 I was given Pictocin after breakfast. This was via an IV so I couldn't really get up and walk around, but they let me use the restroom when needed. About 2 hours after this I started feeling the contractions and it was downhill from there. I lasted until about 1:30 and asked for an epidural (because yes, I was in pain and it was BAD - I can't imagine how strong our moms were to do this without the option of an epi). It made my right leg completely numb and the contractions 'go away'. I couldn't feel them at all anymore. Now it was the waiting game.

I didn't progress much and since I couldn't really feel the contractions, I couldn't tell anyone how strong they were. So I got hooked up to another monitoring system that let the nurses see how strong they were. By this time I had 5 different tubes/wires/machines hooked up to me. Unfortunately, due to the lack of progress there was talk of a C-section...but baby must have heard and the next time they checked I had progressed enough to keep going naturally.

The grandparents came up to the hosptial in the late afternoon/early evening... I think we were all convinced baby would come soon....well, baby had other plans. So after hours of waiting they all went home - sorry guys!

Sometime in the evening the Dr thought maybe baby was 'sunny side up' (facing the wrong way) which caused the slow progress...so we tried to move around to trigger HER to move...but with a numb right leg that didn't work too well.

FINALLY around 11:00 that night (and after a 'refresh' of the epidural since I was feeling pain again...) I was almost ready to go. I say 'almost' because there was a bit of my cervix hanging out which I couldn't push though it - I had to wait until it was gone. This was the worst part... feeling the need to push but being told you can't. Torture. So this went on for about an hour until they finally gave me the go ahead.

This is when the action started. JT was wonderful. He ran between the bathroom to get cool washcloths for my forehead and back to the bed to help hold my numb leg up when I pushed. He also did the counting for me. I couldn't have done it without him! In fact, I almost didn't do it.

After 2 1/2 hours of pushing there was another mention of C-section since the Dr usually doesn’t let people go more than 3 hours of pushing (which I totally understand...I don't think i could have pushed more than that!!). Thankfully, again, baby must have been waiting for this news because 15 min later there she was.




After holding her, taking pictures, calling grandma and grandpa JT and I tried to get some sleep while Isabella went to the nursery. Unfortunately, by the time we woke up they determined that she needed antibiotics for a possible infection. This meant that she had to be kept in the 'level 2' nursery - only Mom and Dad could hold her when feeding and only 1 visitor at a time. This was really tough to hear - but we (and Grandma and Grandpa H) got a little bit of cuddle time with her before they brought her to the L2 nursery.

Overall, everything worked out and was fine. But she was in the hospital a little longer than we planned.
That's the first update - I'll update more on her first month home later!

1 comment:

Jessie said...

Awesome=story! Thanks for sharing! Check mine out as well!