Maybe I will save me the trouble of writing up the birth story and refer you to my February 4th, 2008ish blog about Liam's birth. They were practically the same! The difference is that this one is written through clear eyes, whereas Liam's was written through the haze of new parenthood blues and chaos.
Just like with Liam's birth, we checked into Northside late evening on Sunday. We got comfy (as comfy as you can get with an IV stuck into the side of your hand) and prepared to start the festivities. A few blogs prior I had mentioned that, if we were to induce again, I would spend the entire day hydrating to avoid having to get IV fluid pumped into me because of non-stop contractions. We can add that to the list of lessons I failed to learn. I tried - I really did. I drank water all day long, but alas, once again, we had to do the IV drip and didn't get the Cervidil in until 11ish.
This time I did not refuse the Ambien, especially considering I got only 4 hours of sleep the night before. Staying up through the night was not an option. They gave me 2 Ambien, and within minutes I was out for 4 hours (I was glad for this, as with Liam I was awake the whole time and fully aware of how badly I had to pee. You have to leave the Cervidil in at least 2 hours, and if you get up, it can fall out. That is what happened with him, so I had it in for 2 extra hours this time).
I was sleeping so soundly and all of a sudden I am surrounded by 4 nurses in a frantic state. Apparently Macy's heart rate had plunged, so they had to do who-knows-what to me to get it stabilized again. Then I had to hang out on my side for the rest of the night to keep her in a good position (they suspected my positioning might have had me on her cord).
I am glad that I showered in the evening before going in because, unlike our last L&D suite, we did not have a shower. For some crazy reason I took a shower at the hospital at 4am before we started inducing Liam. It was tough to do with my IV thing wrapped in Saran Wrap.
We didn't begin the Pitocin drip until my midwife arrived at 7 (we started Liam's at 5am). She decided that, given the heart rate issue (it happened one more time since), we would take our time on the induction and hold off on breaking the water. I was 2cm dilated at this point, and she told me to get the epidural whenever. I opted for one round of Fentanyl (just for fun) and then got the epidural maybe around 9:30 or 10ish when the Fentanyl wore off.
It was uneventful until about 1:30 or 2 when my midwife arrived again. I hadn't been checked for dilation since 7am, and for some reason my midwife was just so much more optimistic than I was. Sure enough - 3 cm! I mean, 1 whole cm over the course of 7 hours! I just kept thinking, at this rate, we'll have the baby next year, or C-section, here I come!
At that point, my water was broken, the Pitocin was upped just a little bit, and my right leg was elevated for some reason that I'm not sure. They also put a catheter into the womb to keep the fluids coming back in there to prevent a prolapsed cord (same thing happened with Liam, but it was actually suspected that the cord was around his neck, not done to prevent it).
Not much later, I began feeling weird pressure. I was like, surely we haven't progressed a whole lot, so how can I already be feeling all this pressure? I called for my midwife, and she checked me. 7-8 cm! I remember putting up a FB status and instead of saying "slowly...but surely," I said "slowly...but slowly." Then I had to print a retraction a short time later!
Literally about 15 minutes after that, the pressure intensified. I was pretty sure I was feeling like there was a head in the birth canal, so I called in my midwife again. She said I was about 9. She asked me about that pressure, and I said it was pretty intense. I suppose at that point they started getting everything ready, and by the time we were all situated, she decided to let me start trying some pushes.
I decided that, even though I wasn't totally keen on the idea of watching the whole thing in the mirror, I might regret 5 years down the road never having watched one of my children come into the world. It was quite a scene...I am glad I did it, but I think that as far as pushing her out was concerned, it made it a little more difficult given that my attention was diverted. It did, however, make the recovery easier from a mental standpoint having known what went on. I realized it wasn't quite as scary down there as it seems when you're blind to it.
I think it also made it a little more difficult pushing her out in that I could kind of see the path she had to take. I guess I thought it was a straighter shot. I could see where she had to come around the pelvic bone...pretty interesting. She never ended up turning from the sunny-side-up position...until the very last contraction and the very last set of pushes, where she turned into perfect position after 10 weeks of hoping and praying and wiggling and sitting with my butt in the air. I'm not sure if that is the point at which they normally turn or if she should have turned prior to that.
The mirror also made it a little difficult in that I think I was concentrating on making it look like what I thought it should look like rather than on making it feel like what I thought it should feel like, if that makes any sense. Kind of like how you take one sense away and it heightens all the others? Adding a sense in was a bit distracting.
At any rate, after about 30 minutes of pushing, Macy came into the world at 5:29pm! She weighed 7 pounds, 8 ounces (exactly average), and she was 20 3/4 inches long (they told us 21 inches at the hospital, but at the pediatrician's appt., they got 20 3/4 3 times).
Just to compare/contrast, Liam was 8 pounds, 2 ounces and 22 inches, born at 5:55 pm. For some reason, I remember Liam's birth being a little less painful. Maybe I just repressed those memories. Maybe, too, it was the sunny-side-up thing, but I am very thankful that Macy was no bigger than she was. I don't know if I could have handled that! Hopefully my little girl will be more normal sized...My awkward self could be found in the last row, all the way to the left in all my class pictures growing up (I was 9lbs., 5 oz. at birth and never really became what they call "petite").
I'll update one of these days about how the first couple weeks have been going. I know this post was a long time coming! We are so thankful for our precious new healthy baby girl...our family is truly complete, and we are loving it!
And now my womb has erected its "Closed for Business" sign!
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