Becoming a mother, part 5, adding a second to the family
I got the call around 530 in the morning that my induction (that was on standby) was a go for 7am.
We got to the hospital and registered, then waited. It was about 9am when we got into a room. There was some debate about my medications (GSB positive, so I needed antibiotics, but my allergies meant that there was some conflict in family of medication allowed) and it wasn’t until 10:25am that I got my first drops of pitocin and penicillin. I began at 3cm, 30% effaced.
I was told I could move around through labor originally, but when they started the pitocin I was told I had to be constantly monitored instead and since my anterior placenta and the position of the baby made it hard to keep track of him standing up, I was told to stay in bed
Contractions started slowly, growing gradually in intensity but not being unmanageable. I tried my best to relax through them, concentrating on the music playing in the background. There were a lot of comments from the nurses and doctor about the very varied choices of songs.
By 315pm I was beginning to really feel a need to push or at least the contractions were getting strong. They checked and I was at 5cm and 90% effaced. The contractions were becoming very hard to bear at this point, so I gave in to the epidural. My husband didn’t say a word, despite my wanting a natural birth, he just went to deflate the birthing ball.
Shortly after asking for the epidural, my hands began to shake with every contraction, which were (my husband tells me coming 1 or 2 per minute. I still tried to relax into the contractions, but they were coming too fast to even breathe with them.
It was about 445 when the anesthesiologist arrived. It was nearly impossible to sit up, or hold still through the contractions. He questioned the nurse about how far dilated I was because of how hard and frequent they were and the trembling. She did not offer to check despite this, since I had “just been checked”
As soon as I was put back into bed after the epidural I began to find it impossible to not push through the contractions. I did my best, but I kept telling the nurse that I was going to poop. That I had to. That I was going to push , etc. She did not seem to believe me. After 20 minutes or so of this, the doctor happened to overhear from the hallway and came in to check me.
She declared me fully dilated (“No wonder the epidural isn’t working! You are ready for this baby to come out!”) and scrambled to get changed. In two pushes, less than a minute, Ash was out (tangled in his cord, it was over his shoulder) and shortly after he was on my chest for skin to skin while his cord finished pulsing. Then my husband cut the cord.
I was rather in shock, my first baby took 3 days of labor and 30 minutes of pushing.
She took the placenta out as my legs began to get heavy from the epidural and declared me tear free and no stitches needed. They had pediatrics check Ash out since he was having a relatively hard time breathing from not having any squeezing to empty his lungs and he had a sacral dimple like his brother does. He got a clean bill of health and was returned to my arms and it was amazing.
So all in all, it was a hard and fast labor. I got a technical epidural but no relief from it so it was pretty much natural labor (my husband says it counts, lol)
3cm at 1025am, 5cm at 315pm, 10cm and birth at 509pm.
We got to the hospital and registered, then waited. It was about 9am when we got into a room. There was some debate about my medications (GSB positive, so I needed antibiotics, but my allergies meant that there was some conflict in family of medication allowed) and it wasn’t until 10:25am that I got my first drops of pitocin and penicillin. I began at 3cm, 30% effaced.
I was told I could move around through labor originally, but when they started the pitocin I was told I had to be constantly monitored instead and since my anterior placenta and the position of the baby made it hard to keep track of him standing up, I was told to stay in bed
Contractions started slowly, growing gradually in intensity but not being unmanageable. I tried my best to relax through them, concentrating on the music playing in the background. There were a lot of comments from the nurses and doctor about the very varied choices of songs.
By 315pm I was beginning to really feel a need to push or at least the contractions were getting strong. They checked and I was at 5cm and 90% effaced. The contractions were becoming very hard to bear at this point, so I gave in to the epidural. My husband didn’t say a word, despite my wanting a natural birth, he just went to deflate the birthing ball.
Shortly after asking for the epidural, my hands began to shake with every contraction, which were (my husband tells me coming 1 or 2 per minute. I still tried to relax into the contractions, but they were coming too fast to even breathe with them.
It was about 445 when the anesthesiologist arrived. It was nearly impossible to sit up, or hold still through the contractions. He questioned the nurse about how far dilated I was because of how hard and frequent they were and the trembling. She did not offer to check despite this, since I had “just been checked”
As soon as I was put back into bed after the epidural I began to find it impossible to not push through the contractions. I did my best, but I kept telling the nurse that I was going to poop. That I had to. That I was going to push , etc. She did not seem to believe me. After 20 minutes or so of this, the doctor happened to overhear from the hallway and came in to check me.
She declared me fully dilated (“No wonder the epidural isn’t working! You are ready for this baby to come out!”) and scrambled to get changed. In two pushes, less than a minute, Ash was out (tangled in his cord, it was over his shoulder) and shortly after he was on my chest for skin to skin while his cord finished pulsing. Then my husband cut the cord.
I was rather in shock, my first baby took 3 days of labor and 30 minutes of pushing.
She took the placenta out as my legs began to get heavy from the epidural and declared me tear free and no stitches needed. They had pediatrics check Ash out since he was having a relatively hard time breathing from not having any squeezing to empty his lungs and he had a sacral dimple like his brother does. He got a clean bill of health and was returned to my arms and it was amazing.
So all in all, it was a hard and fast labor. I got a technical epidural but no relief from it so it was pretty much natural labor (my husband says it counts, lol)
3cm at 1025am, 5cm at 315pm, 10cm and birth at 509pm.