Caymen Leigh Mercer
I'm a mommy!!
Caymen Leigh Mercer was born on March 2, 2009 at 11:27 pm weighing 7lbs 13oz and is 21 inches long.
Here is her birth story:
I was feeling off all day on Sunday, but just went along with it. Around 2:15am Monday morning I started timing contractions. At 4:15am I woke Josh up and we started to get ready to go to the hospital. I was admitted into the hospital around 5am and we started getting ready for a long day. I was about 3-4cm dialated so we knew it was going to be awhile. I was having bad back labor (pain in the back during contractions due to baby's head positioning) so at 8am I got my epidural and they broke my water. I was slowing dialating with the help of pitocin so that at 6pm I was 9 cm and about ready to go. Unfortunately that's when my epidural developed a "hot spot" essentially a spot where the drugs don't work. For me, this was my whole left side from my hip up, so now I felt every contraction in half of my body. I decided to have my epi topped off and get a few more drugs instead of re-doing it since we were so close to being done. What I didn't plan on was the fact that my hips would cramp up so badly that my body took 2 hrs to dialate that last centimeter. Finally at 8pm it was time to push. After pushing for 2 and a half hours they decided that the head wasn't coming out. Those were seriously the hardest 2 1/2 hrs of my life. At 10:30 they ended up calling the surgical team to have a c-section, which involved getting re-drugged with a spinal (way heavier drugs) and getting into the O.R. When I was finally re-drugged and feeling a whole lot better they started the c-section. Honestly, I was so exhausted I slept through the whole thing and had to be shown my baby girl and one of the dr's moved my finger so I could touch her. She left the room to go to the nursery with the pediatrician and Josh went with her. They started to stich me up, but my body went into shock. I started shaking really badly (so badly they couldn't put my parts back in and together right) and my heart rate went crazy. They put warm blankets all over my upper body so that I could stop shaking and they could finish getting me back together again. Finally I was admitted into recovery and put on morphine so that the pain could subside.
In the meantime, Caymen was having issues. Apparently, her heart rate went crazy before the c-section and the pediatrian made my obgyn put a rush on it since he was worried that Cay would have issues. Unfortunately, when she was born she did have some issues. She "grunted" when she breathed, which thankfully made the pediatrian took her for x-rays right away. Her lungs showed she wasn't getting enough oxygen and that she had a hole in her lungs that had a pocket of trapped air. She was really struggling to breathe so they put her into a NICU incubator and put her on oxygen. We couldn't hold her until she was out of her "box" so Tuesday was a bit of a sad day for Josh and I. Luckily she got better quickly and was able to go off of the monitors and oxygen in enough time for all of us to go home together today. :)
She is doing wonderfully at home and Josh is such a big help as I recover and work on being up all night with Caymen. I have uploaded pics from the various days at the hospital on facebook.
Caymen Leigh Mercer was born on March 2, 2009 at 11:27 pm weighing 7lbs 13oz and is 21 inches long.
Here is her birth story:
I was feeling off all day on Sunday, but just went along with it. Around 2:15am Monday morning I started timing contractions. At 4:15am I woke Josh up and we started to get ready to go to the hospital. I was admitted into the hospital around 5am and we started getting ready for a long day. I was about 3-4cm dialated so we knew it was going to be awhile. I was having bad back labor (pain in the back during contractions due to baby's head positioning) so at 8am I got my epidural and they broke my water. I was slowing dialating with the help of pitocin so that at 6pm I was 9 cm and about ready to go. Unfortunately that's when my epidural developed a "hot spot" essentially a spot where the drugs don't work. For me, this was my whole left side from my hip up, so now I felt every contraction in half of my body. I decided to have my epi topped off and get a few more drugs instead of re-doing it since we were so close to being done. What I didn't plan on was the fact that my hips would cramp up so badly that my body took 2 hrs to dialate that last centimeter. Finally at 8pm it was time to push. After pushing for 2 and a half hours they decided that the head wasn't coming out. Those were seriously the hardest 2 1/2 hrs of my life. At 10:30 they ended up calling the surgical team to have a c-section, which involved getting re-drugged with a spinal (way heavier drugs) and getting into the O.R. When I was finally re-drugged and feeling a whole lot better they started the c-section. Honestly, I was so exhausted I slept through the whole thing and had to be shown my baby girl and one of the dr's moved my finger so I could touch her. She left the room to go to the nursery with the pediatrician and Josh went with her. They started to stich me up, but my body went into shock. I started shaking really badly (so badly they couldn't put my parts back in and together right) and my heart rate went crazy. They put warm blankets all over my upper body so that I could stop shaking and they could finish getting me back together again. Finally I was admitted into recovery and put on morphine so that the pain could subside.
In the meantime, Caymen was having issues. Apparently, her heart rate went crazy before the c-section and the pediatrian made my obgyn put a rush on it since he was worried that Cay would have issues. Unfortunately, when she was born she did have some issues. She "grunted" when she breathed, which thankfully made the pediatrian took her for x-rays right away. Her lungs showed she wasn't getting enough oxygen and that she had a hole in her lungs that had a pocket of trapped air. She was really struggling to breathe so they put her into a NICU incubator and put her on oxygen. We couldn't hold her until she was out of her "box" so Tuesday was a bit of a sad day for Josh and I. Luckily she got better quickly and was able to go off of the monitors and oxygen in enough time for all of us to go home together today. :)
She is doing wonderfully at home and Josh is such a big help as I recover and work on being up all night with Caymen. I have uploaded pics from the various days at the hospital on facebook.