Xander's Birth Story
-----------Birth Story--------------
So on Monday, June 18th, I rushed over to L&D because all of a sudden my blood pressure readings were getting higher than normal and I started getting headaches. I was put under observation and admitted to the hospital for observation to see if perhaps it was beginning to be pre-eclampsia and finally released on wednesday with the notion that if my blood pressure rises any higher to come back and to go see my OB as per usual.
So we leave and go home and things seem okay with just a raised blood pressure as it had been in the hospital averaging around 148/86.
Then on friday I went to my normal OB appt and my doctor comes and talks to me and tells me that she wants me to be admitted back to the hospital so they can monitor me until I turn 37 weeks and we would be induced because my urine dip test had protein in it.
so again we are admitted back to the hospital on friday, june 22, and spent the next days being rused back and forth between the labor and delivery side and the observance side to rule out pre-eclampsia.
Safe to say i was not pre-eclamptic. However, my blood pressure was rising and my headaches were getting bad on tuesday. so around 5pm I was moved back to the labor and delivery side and they began the induction.
They started with cervidil to open my cervix. Immediately my body started having big contractions but at the end of the 12 hours with the cervidil in the checked me and I was still CLOSED and HIGH. OMG. Really? painful contractions without any kind of drugs for 12 hours and nothing?
So they decided to try it again. So I spend the next 12 hours doing the same thing. again to no avail. I was closed and my body was only responding to the cervidil by contracting. they had to give me demerol because i was in such pain from laying on my back and contracting really badly for over 12 hours without meds.
All the while because of the way my baby was positioned the only way to hear him on the fetal monitors was to lay on my back so for days i've been on my back and it's KILLING ME.
After the 12 hours on the second cervidil they decided to use a foley bulb to dilate me enough that we could start the pitocin and give me an epidural. so after about 6 hours the first foley bulb falls out and I am dilated to 3cm.
now is when they give me the epidural set me up in my own L&D room. but they left the second foley bulb in overnight to dilate me to 4cm... which is did around 7am.
at 10:45am I was sleeping when my water burst all over the place. It was such a weird feeling and the doctors were hoping that i was dilated more but I was still 4cm at that time. the next 7 hours didn't go so well.
I wasn't dilating much at all. I had been in labor for 40+ hours, only slept about 3 hours, and my whole body was in pain. I realized at one point that only half of my body was now being affected by the epidural. so my right half was numb while my left half was feeling everything. Not to mention that my contractions were happening one after another and never calming down. So while at the beginning they went up to about 100 and down to 10 or 20... then 2-4 minutes later back to 100... they were now going up to 100+ down to 70 and back up to 100+ every minute. It never stopped.
So writhing in pain for 2 hours while the anesthesiologist was in a c-section, my body started convulsing. Another doctor came in and told me that they could try to start a new epidural but that I was moving so much that it was dangerous that she ended up giving me something in my IV. I don't even remember what it was because I was such in pain it didn't matter.
About 10 minutes later my body finally relaxed and I passed out. While i was sleeping the nurses continued taking my vitals and temperature and I guess i had gotten a fever during labor. So they started me on an IV of antibiotics. Only problem was they gave the hospital all new iv pumps about 3 hours earlier and NONE of the nurses knew how to use it so while they were figuring it out all of the machines were blaring alarms and it woke me up.
I turned over to them and asked what was going on. They told me that i had a fever and they were starting antibiotics but at the moment i rolled over I felt pressure to push or poop and i told the nurses. they got the doctor and she came and checked me. I was only dilated to 7cm. But she said, on your next contraction why don't you try pushing so I did and within 20 minutes Xander was born on June 28th @ 10:20pm. He weighed 5 lbs 15oz and was 19 inches.
He didn't want to cry much, he had poor response to holding his limbs up, and they were afraid something might be wrong. so they cleaned him up, took all the tests and brought him to the NICU.
As i was getting cleaned up and finishing my ivs one of the nurses came in and told me that he was doing much better and the NICU sent him up to the level II nursery for observation and testing because he was not sick enough to be there. YAY.
However, they are afraid because my placenta was deteriorating and becoming infected during the labor that he contracted something. so He is in the hospital getting lots of tests done and getting antibiotics as well and being given IV fluids with glucose and learning how to feed as he isn't understanding the urge to eat/suck. The morning after he was born he has a respiratory arrest and stopped breathing. He as a slight heart murmur as well. So he is being observed they don't think the last 2 are going to be a future issue though.
I got discharged today though and had to leave my baby behind and it was the saddest thing ever. I just want to hold him and love him and seeing him with all tubes and cords attached to him and having to see him in the incubator is so hard.
Hopefully he gets to come home on monday and will be deemed healthy and his labs come back good.
I just love him so much and it all makes me so sad to see him like that. We are going back to visit him tonight. We have access to him 24 hours.
That's the story. Updates to come.
p.s. excuse my face in this picture, after 50 hours of labor, and a basic 2 weeks in the hospital I look terrible.
So on Monday, June 18th, I rushed over to L&D because all of a sudden my blood pressure readings were getting higher than normal and I started getting headaches. I was put under observation and admitted to the hospital for observation to see if perhaps it was beginning to be pre-eclampsia and finally released on wednesday with the notion that if my blood pressure rises any higher to come back and to go see my OB as per usual.
So we leave and go home and things seem okay with just a raised blood pressure as it had been in the hospital averaging around 148/86.
Then on friday I went to my normal OB appt and my doctor comes and talks to me and tells me that she wants me to be admitted back to the hospital so they can monitor me until I turn 37 weeks and we would be induced because my urine dip test had protein in it.
so again we are admitted back to the hospital on friday, june 22, and spent the next days being rused back and forth between the labor and delivery side and the observance side to rule out pre-eclampsia.
Safe to say i was not pre-eclamptic. However, my blood pressure was rising and my headaches were getting bad on tuesday. so around 5pm I was moved back to the labor and delivery side and they began the induction.
They started with cervidil to open my cervix. Immediately my body started having big contractions but at the end of the 12 hours with the cervidil in the checked me and I was still CLOSED and HIGH. OMG. Really? painful contractions without any kind of drugs for 12 hours and nothing?
So they decided to try it again. So I spend the next 12 hours doing the same thing. again to no avail. I was closed and my body was only responding to the cervidil by contracting. they had to give me demerol because i was in such pain from laying on my back and contracting really badly for over 12 hours without meds.
All the while because of the way my baby was positioned the only way to hear him on the fetal monitors was to lay on my back so for days i've been on my back and it's KILLING ME.
After the 12 hours on the second cervidil they decided to use a foley bulb to dilate me enough that we could start the pitocin and give me an epidural. so after about 6 hours the first foley bulb falls out and I am dilated to 3cm.
now is when they give me the epidural set me up in my own L&D room. but they left the second foley bulb in overnight to dilate me to 4cm... which is did around 7am.
at 10:45am I was sleeping when my water burst all over the place. It was such a weird feeling and the doctors were hoping that i was dilated more but I was still 4cm at that time. the next 7 hours didn't go so well.
I wasn't dilating much at all. I had been in labor for 40+ hours, only slept about 3 hours, and my whole body was in pain. I realized at one point that only half of my body was now being affected by the epidural. so my right half was numb while my left half was feeling everything. Not to mention that my contractions were happening one after another and never calming down. So while at the beginning they went up to about 100 and down to 10 or 20... then 2-4 minutes later back to 100... they were now going up to 100+ down to 70 and back up to 100+ every minute. It never stopped.
So writhing in pain for 2 hours while the anesthesiologist was in a c-section, my body started convulsing. Another doctor came in and told me that they could try to start a new epidural but that I was moving so much that it was dangerous that she ended up giving me something in my IV. I don't even remember what it was because I was such in pain it didn't matter.
About 10 minutes later my body finally relaxed and I passed out. While i was sleeping the nurses continued taking my vitals and temperature and I guess i had gotten a fever during labor. So they started me on an IV of antibiotics. Only problem was they gave the hospital all new iv pumps about 3 hours earlier and NONE of the nurses knew how to use it so while they were figuring it out all of the machines were blaring alarms and it woke me up.
I turned over to them and asked what was going on. They told me that i had a fever and they were starting antibiotics but at the moment i rolled over I felt pressure to push or poop and i told the nurses. they got the doctor and she came and checked me. I was only dilated to 7cm. But she said, on your next contraction why don't you try pushing so I did and within 20 minutes Xander was born on June 28th @ 10:20pm. He weighed 5 lbs 15oz and was 19 inches.
He didn't want to cry much, he had poor response to holding his limbs up, and they were afraid something might be wrong. so they cleaned him up, took all the tests and brought him to the NICU.
As i was getting cleaned up and finishing my ivs one of the nurses came in and told me that he was doing much better and the NICU sent him up to the level II nursery for observation and testing because he was not sick enough to be there. YAY.
However, they are afraid because my placenta was deteriorating and becoming infected during the labor that he contracted something. so He is in the hospital getting lots of tests done and getting antibiotics as well and being given IV fluids with glucose and learning how to feed as he isn't understanding the urge to eat/suck. The morning after he was born he has a respiratory arrest and stopped breathing. He as a slight heart murmur as well. So he is being observed they don't think the last 2 are going to be a future issue though.
I got discharged today though and had to leave my baby behind and it was the saddest thing ever. I just want to hold him and love him and seeing him with all tubes and cords attached to him and having to see him in the incubator is so hard.
Hopefully he gets to come home on monday and will be deemed healthy and his labs come back good.
I just love him so much and it all makes me so sad to see him like that. We are going back to visit him tonight. We have access to him 24 hours.
That's the story. Updates to come.
p.s. excuse my face in this picture, after 50 hours of labor, and a basic 2 weeks in the hospital I look terrible.