3cm at 6 am, starting pitocin. Said once i get to 4 cm it should go fast.
Got some jello and gelato to eat. Contax kicking in. Have to pee every 5mins, quite a pain to drag the pump everywhere and dislodge the monitors. Owewww.
Ok, so here's the birth story.
At 9.35pm I was crawling out of Wiley and Archer's bed; I had fallen asleep with them after reading Where the Red Fern Grows, and I felt my water break. Two small gushes and I paused to try not to make a huge leaking mess but quickly got out of their room and woke York up to tell him what had happened. I called mum and Sarah to figure out who was going to come over to watch the boys. My water kept flowing and I had a few easy contractions here and there, nothing regular. I took a shower, tidied up the house, wrote a letter to the boys to let them know where I had gone, and got ready to go. Called the doctor, Dr. Andrews, at the hospital at 11pm. He said to come on in and so we left slowly and got to the hospital a little after midnight. We were greeted at the very quiet ER entrance by two unhelpful security guards and one friendly, but likely drunk or mentally ill man who wished us luck. The check in process was much slower this time than with the other two. I guess because I was much calmer and wasn't leaking water everywhere--even that had slowed down or had emptied. I got checked into my room and was given the option to walk around after I was monitored for 20 mins. I chose to try to sleep. I was having contractions about 7 mins apart and was still 1 cm. I must have slept a little as I had a dream about a woman I had met at a Christmas party who was pregnant crawling into my bed and asking for comfort and advice on giving birth. I don't know how long it takes to have a dream, so for all I know I could have only slept for 5 mins, but I felt ok enough and wasn't trying to sleep anymore by 5.30am. No one had come in to check on me all night. A lot of the hospital practices seemed to have changed since the last time I was there. Last time they came in every few minutes to take my blood pressure or something lame like that. Around 6am the nurse came in again and I asked her if walking around was really going to help my contractions pick up and she said that in her experience she hadn't really noticed that walking worked. I asked about pitocin, since I'd had that with Wiley I wasn't scared of it, and decided to have pitocin. I really, really wanted to avoid a c-section any way I could. She started the pitocin within a few mins. I was at 3cm. The contractions started coming and they were bearable. I really relied on mind over matter stuff, keeping my body relaxed and trying to appreciate the wonder of what I was doing. Plus, I talked a lot to Cora Bell, encouraging her to focus with me and come on out, keep things moving, and reminding her that we could do this. I kept having to pee. This was so weird, I think Cora Bell may have been on my bladder or it was the pitocin or it was the fluids they give you in addition to the pitocin, something was making me feel like I had to pee, but mostly I didn't. But seriously, every 5 mins I dragged my pitocin pump into the bathroom to sit on the toilet to no avail. Around 10am the nurse backed off on the pitocin to see what would happen, and things regulated and I felt like I could continue to manage the contractions. They were painful, and I think I might have done too good of a job of managing the pain because right around 10.30am my nurse came back in and upped the pitocin again. Things very quickly became awful. Wow. As much as I didn't think I'd ever forget that pain I can't figure out how to describe it now. Like being squeezed and crushed from the inside. I couldn't get comfortable at all. And then I felt the need to push!!! Thank goodness because there was no way I was going to be able to endure that pain for long. So the nurse and Dr. Andrews were called in and they got the bed and their equipment together. I thought I was going to have to push for a while, so I looked at the clock to try to remember how long I pushed for, I remember thinking, it's almost 11am. They had me push once, I thought it was a practice push, but then the doctor said push one or two more times and she'll be out. What?! So I pushed another time and she must have crowned because it was burning pain, and took a breath and her head came out. Then I waited for the next contraction. York said her umbilical cord was around her neck, I didn't see that. The nurse had me look down and see her head. I barely remember that, though. I just wanted her out. I pushed again, shoulders out, took a breath and the rest was out. I screamed during that last push, just like you see in stupid tv shows and stuff, the ones that I always say, labor isn't like that... Pushing this time was much harder than I remembered; I think before the nurse and York did more of the pushing my legs back to my ears and this time they relied more on me to push my legs back and I just didn't have the strength to do that. They put her on me, but I just kind of froze, I felt a little in shock from the pushing and the pain and I was trying to catch my breath. They left her on me for a long time. York said when I pushed at the end I pushed so hard he said all the veins in my face were exploding. They took her off me to wrap her up and dry her off. Then I had to deliver the placenta. That seemed harder than I remembered, but it also looked a lot bigger than I remember the boys' placentas being. They bucketed the placenta and cord blood for donation. Her apgars were 9 and 9 (highest scores of the kiddos!). 8lbs14oz. And she was born at 10.56am! same time I was born and pushing over within a few minutes! She was 8lbs 9 oz when we left the hospital on Saturday around 2pm. Oh and I had a 2nd degree tear and a few (3 I think) pinchy stitches.
Ok, so here's the birth story.
At 9.35pm I was crawling out of Wiley and Archer's bed; I had fallen asleep with them after reading Where the Red Fern Grows, and I felt my water break. Two small gushes and I paused to try not to make a huge leaking mess but quickly got out of their room and woke York up to tell him what had happened. I called mum and Sarah to figure out who was going to come over to watch the boys. My water kept flowing and I had a few easy contractions here and there, nothing regular. I took a shower, tidied up the house, wrote a letter to the boys to let them know where I had gone, and got ready to go. Called the doctor, Dr. Andrews, at the hospital at 11pm. He said to come on in and so we left slowly and got to the hospital a little after midnight. We were greeted at the very quiet ER entrance by two unhelpful security guards and one friendly, but likely drunk or mentally ill man who wished us luck. The check in process was much slower this time than with the other two. I guess because I was much calmer and wasn't leaking water everywhere--even that had slowed down or had emptied. I got checked into my room and was given the option to walk around after I was monitored for 20 mins. I chose to try to sleep. I was having contractions about 7 mins apart and was still 1 cm. I must have slept a little as I had a dream about a woman I had met at a Christmas party who was pregnant crawling into my bed and asking for comfort and advice on giving birth. I don't know how long it takes to have a dream, so for all I know I could have only slept for 5 mins, but I felt ok enough and wasn't trying to sleep anymore by 5.30am. No one had come in to check on me all night. A lot of the hospital practices seemed to have changed since the last time I was there. Last time they came in every few minutes to take my blood pressure or something lame like that. Around 6am the nurse came in again and I asked her if walking around was really going to help my contractions pick up and she said that in her experience she hadn't really noticed that walking worked. I asked about pitocin, since I'd had that with Wiley I wasn't scared of it, and decided to have pitocin. I really, really wanted to avoid a c-section any way I could. She started the pitocin within a few mins. I was at 3cm. The contractions started coming and they were bearable. I really relied on mind over matter stuff, keeping my body relaxed and trying to appreciate the wonder of what I was doing. Plus, I talked a lot to Cora Bell, encouraging her to focus with me and come on out, keep things moving, and reminding her that we could do this. I kept having to pee. This was so weird, I think Cora Bell may have been on my bladder or it was the pitocin or it was the fluids they give you in addition to the pitocin, something was making me feel like I had to pee, but mostly I didn't. But seriously, every 5 mins I dragged my pitocin pump into the bathroom to sit on the toilet to no avail. Around 10am the nurse backed off on the pitocin to see what would happen, and things regulated and I felt like I could continue to manage the contractions. They were painful, and I think I might have done too good of a job of managing the pain because right around 10.30am my nurse came back in and upped the pitocin again. Things very quickly became awful. Wow. As much as I didn't think I'd ever forget that pain I can't figure out how to describe it now. Like being squeezed and crushed from the inside. I couldn't get comfortable at all. And then I felt the need to push!!! Thank goodness because there was no way I was going to be able to endure that pain for long. So the nurse and Dr. Andrews were called in and they got the bed and their equipment together. I thought I was going to have to push for a while, so I looked at the clock to try to remember how long I pushed for, I remember thinking, it's almost 11am. They had me push once, I thought it was a practice push, but then the doctor said push one or two more times and she'll be out. What?! So I pushed another time and she must have crowned because it was burning pain, and took a breath and her head came out. Then I waited for the next contraction. York said her umbilical cord was around her neck, I didn't see that. The nurse had me look down and see her head. I barely remember that, though. I just wanted her out. I pushed again, shoulders out, took a breath and the rest was out. I screamed during that last push, just like you see in stupid tv shows and stuff, the ones that I always say, labor isn't like that... Pushing this time was much harder than I remembered; I think before the nurse and York did more of the pushing my legs back to my ears and this time they relied more on me to push my legs back and I just didn't have the strength to do that. They put her on me, but I just kind of froze, I felt a little in shock from the pushing and the pain and I was trying to catch my breath. They left her on me for a long time. York said when I pushed at the end I pushed so hard he said all the veins in my face were exploding. They took her off me to wrap her up and dry her off. Then I had to deliver the placenta. That seemed harder than I remembered, but it also looked a lot bigger than I remember the boys' placentas being. They bucketed the placenta and cord blood for donation. Her apgars were 9 and 9 (highest scores of the kiddos!). 8lbs14oz. And she was born at 10.56am! same time I was born and pushing over within a few minutes! She was 8lbs 9 oz when we left the hospital on Saturday around 2pm. Oh and I had a 2nd degree tear and a few (3 I think) pinchy stitches.
3 comments:
Rest when you can. Don't worry about the rest of us...we're all doing great. Hang in there! Xoxo
its a litlte weird to hear you write about her and she!
I know! I keep getting my pronouns wrong.
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