Little One's Birth Story

I'm a firm believer that if you've suffered from infertility you should automatically get an easy labor and delivery. Nature proved to me that I am delusional!

Turns out Thursday night was my early labor. I didn't get much sleep at all that night and was up the next morning for a memorial service for a family member. It was just a very small service and I had agreed earlier in the week to have everyone over to our home afterwards for dinner. After five hours of contractions Thursday night, they tapered off considerably. During the day on Friday I had the occasional strong contraction, but was able to hide it from family - I may have just taken extra trips to the bathroom, but when you're hugely pregnant no one seems to notice! Our plan all along has been to not tell family when I went into labor. We wanted to have those first several hours with baby all to ourselves.

The last family member left our house about 7:30pm. I was exhausted so after picking up around the house I headed for bed at 8:30. At 9:00pm strong and painful contractions hit full force. There was no easing into things! I was moaning and sometimes screeching through the contractions. Most of them were in the 5-7 minutes long range with only about a 2-3 minute break in between. My husband called our doula and she could hear me moaning in the background. She told him I sounded like I was in active labor and to call labor and delivery to give them a heads up. By midnight I couldn't take it at home anymore. I had tried drinking lots of fluids and a warm bath. My coping skills were running out as the contractions had only increased in intensity. When my husband called labor and delivery they said I could come in and be monitored, but with contractions lasting for so long they didn't think it was active labor. Once we made the decision to head in to the hospital my husband seemed to panic a bit. He was rather frustrated when I decided I needed to put makeup on before heading to the hospital. This ended up taking a lot longer than normal since I had only 2 minute breaks from contractions to try and put my make up on. The trip to the hospital is only 10 minutes from our house, but seemed so much longer. I had some very painful contractions in the car and it was so uncomfortable not being able to move around.

We had to go through the emergency room since it was after hours. I was wheeled up to labor and delivery where our doula met us. My nurse came in the room and said she would do a cervix check and put me on the monitors for a bit to see how things were progressing. She checked my cervix and it basically hadn't changed from my OB appt earlier in the week. I was dilated to one and about 70% effaced. She said she would monitor me for a couple of hours and if I didn't progress they would send me home. I flat out told her I wasn't leaving. Contractions continued to get more miserable and intense. My doula told me I was getting to the point where I looked like I was in transitional labor. And still, my darn cervix refused to budge. I finally thought to mention I had cervical stenosis. I had been meaning to tell my OB about, but kept forgetting at each appointment. The nurse kind of freaked out on me and said she didn't find that anywhere in my chart. The decision was made to try a shot of morphine to see if it would relax my body enough  to let my cervix dilate more. I burned through the morphine with my next contraction. My doula then suggested maybe we needed to do an epidural and then do manual dilation. The doctor on call agreed this was a good idea. I had planned on not having an epidural but after 7 1/2 hours of painful labor and no progress I welcomed the sweet relief. I get it now why people go with epidurals. At 4:30 am the epidural was placed and 20 minutes later the nurse started doing a manual dilation. She said she had to break through some scar tissue and was then able to get my cervix to open to about 4 1/2cm. I was then allowed to rest for awhile to see what my body would do on its own.

The epidural of course slowed my labor. The doctor came in around 8:00 and broke my water. Then pitocin was started to get my contractions going in a more steady pattern. The doctor's guess was that I would be ready to start pushing around noon. Well, my body had other ideas of course. It took longer than expected to get my contractions strong enough and for my cervix to finish dilating. A little after 2:00pm the nurse told me it was time to get ready to meet my daughter and to start pushing. This was the moment when it truly hit me I was finally having a baby after all our years of infertility. I just started bawling. I started pushing at 2:25pm. Two hours into pushing and the epidural was no longer doing anything for me. I have never been in so much pain. The last hour of pushing I remember screaming several times that I didn't want to do this anymore. Baby got hung up on my pubic bone for awhile. At one point they brought in a mirror so I could see my progress, but who were we kidding, I could see I wasn't making any progress and eventually told them to get rid of the mirror. Eventually the doctor came in with the delivery team and said it was time for me to have this baby. My husband is a physician and so he was allowed to help deliver our daughter. Near the end of pushing baby's head got stuck in the opening. The doctor asked me probably four or five times if she could do a small episiotomy since baby seemed to be stuck. I finally gave in and after a few more pushes baby finally came out at 5:56pm after 3 hours and 31 minutes of pushing. I ended up with a second degree tear in addition to the episiotomy.

The doctor delivered baby's head and shoulders and my husband took over and helped deliver the rest of baby. We had planned on doing delayed cord clamping, but baby came out blue and not moving. She was placed on my stomach and the doctor said, I'm sorry, we can't wait to cut her cord. My husband then cut her cord and she immediately started screaming. The nurses were poised to take her over to the warmer and the doctor said absolutely not, leave her on mom. I pulled baby up on my chest and we stayed like that for the next hour. Despite her initial appearance her apgars were 9 and 9. Throughout my entire labor and delivery baby always looked perfect on the monitor. It was only during the last five minutes of pushing that her heart rate started to dip a little bit during contractions. That's the only reason they allowed me to push for so long. Most of the doctors will lean towards doing a c-section if mom has been pushing for two hours. My doula works in the labor and delivery department where we delivered and she said she personally has never seen a patient push as long as me.

While I was snuggling baby the doctor was delivering my placenta and then sewing me up. I happened to notice there seemed to be a rather large amount of bloody rags piling up and I could tell my doctor was looking concerned. I knew my history of endometriosis and IVF pregnancy are at a little bit of increased risk for post-partum hemorrhaging. I asked if everything was okay and the doctor told me she needed to reach into my uterus to remove some blood clots. Then she was mashing down on my uterus. I asked if I was going to end up in the OR and she said I shouldn't need to. By that point baby was starting to nurse and my uterus decided to start cooperating and the doctor then focused on stitching me up. I didn't ask how many stitches and I don't really want to know. When she was nearing the end of the stitches she hit an area where the lidocaine didn't take. She kept injecting more lidocaine, but every time she tried stitching again I could feel everything. So the past several stitches were very painful. We hung out in labor and delivery for a couple of hours and used that time to snuggle our daughter and to start notifying family.

My next post will be about post delivery and baby's first several days.

She's Here and She's Perfect!

Baby Girl arrived four days ago at 39 weeks 1 day. She's perfect! We're so in love. Birth story coming soon since I do want to remember the details. A very quick recap. I labored for 21 hours and pushed for 3 1/2. Baby was a rockstar throughout, but mommy kept hitting roadblocks and we only did 5/16 things on our pretty basic birth plan. But she's here and she's healthy and that's all that matters.

39 Weeks and Early Labor???

Last night I started having very painful contractions every 5-10 minutes.  I was moaning, huffing and puffing and even screeching at times. Finally after two hours I gave up sleeping and started cleaning instead. The contractions continued but I just kept working through them. Around 3am I started losing my mucus plug. Then about 5am the contractions  tapered off and I slept for a couple of hours. Throughout the day I've continued to have bouts of painful contractions but nothing regular. I'm going to try and get some sleep now. Hopefully baby makes an appearance this weekend because these random bouts of painful contractions are getting brutal. 

Any Day Would Be Good...

I just realized I never updated from my last post. The results came back and I do not have cholestasis, thank goodness! I still have the itchiness at night, but now I just ignore it the best I can.

I've had a few episodes of stronger contractions but after 4-5 of them they fizzle out to nothing. My last OB appt I was finally dilated to one and more effaced than the previous appt, but my doctor didn't say by how much. I'm starting acupuncture soon so hopefully that will get things moving.

My husband is off for five weeks starting Monday so it would be awesome if she would make her debut next week, but I just have this feeling she's quite comfy in there.

I haven't had any stretch marks pop up yet, which I'm grateful for. Although, if I do get any, they'd be worth it! I am all belly. Everyone says I look like I have a giant basketball under my shirt. This better mean I lose all the baby weight quickly, right?!

Baby's room is finished and the rest of the house is good enough. We have a freezer stocked full of meals. Now we just need baby!

When a 15 Minute Appointment Turns into 2 1/2 Hours...

I was supposed to have a routine checkup today. I mentioned during my appointment in the past week or so I've had some intense itching on my legs, feet, arms, and hands when I go to bed at night. Apparently it's a possible sign of cholestasis, a liver problem that can occur in pregnancy. I've stayed away from pregnancy books and google for most of my pregnancy - instead relying on my doctor, doula, and close friends when I had questions. So when my doctor told me to stay off of google, I knew this could potentially be bad. I ended up having blood work drawn and an ultrasound.

I don't have the results on the main blood test yet. Apparently it's a send-out lab and it will be a few to several days before we get the result. The other labs tested at my clinic today all came back good. My doctor told me when she is suspicious of this and tests for it, usually the patient tests positive for it about 50% of the time. If I do test positive I'll have to be induced at 37 weeks - so next Friday. Apparently the biggest issue with cholestasis is baby being stillborn so as soon as you hit 37 weeks it's best to get baby out. I also had a bio physical ultrasound done today and of course baby measured perfectly on everything! She was being her cute little self. One hand was curled up by her cheek and the other was holding on to her foot! And she's getting some adorable chubby cheeks. The ultrasound tech even checked to see if she had a head of hair - looks like just some fuzz! My cervix was checked today as well and it's closed, but starting to soften up.

For now baby is doing awesome and I just need to patiently wait for results and go from there.

60 Days to Go...But Who's Counting?!

I can't believe we're in the final stretch! We finally started on her nursery a couple weeks ago. My husband painted it all and I've been shopping for the finishing touches. We have a crib set up. In our house. For our baby. I'm guessing this will all sink in sometime around her first birthday! Baby Girl continues to do well. She's getting so strong in there! Even when she nails me in the ribs or hip I'll congratulate her on how hard she kicked me. I'll definitely miss her moving around in there!

We were out of town over the weekend for my husband's work. I strongly recommend against traveling long distances this late in pregnancy. I was so uncomfortable and sleeping in a hotel bed just isn't the same as being at home. I also noticed airplanes and airports are not designed for pregnant women. I felt I took it pretty easy over the weekend, but I had some really icky stretches of braxton hicks. One day I was having 10+ in an hour. Another day they got really intense over a few hours and were lasting several minutes. I actually started to get stressed out that night. There was no way I wanted to end up in a hospital several states away from home. Luckily our hotel room had a giant bath tub that was deep enough to completely cover my belly - it was awesome! I think in the three nights were were there I took about five baths! I feel like my belly popped out a bit and dropped a little over the past week.

Two more months before this little one is in my arms!

Third Trimester Fun

Second trimester I felt so darn good I figured I'd breeze through the third trimester as well. Not so much. Last week I had the glucose screening test. I failed the one hour by 2 points. Two freaking points. The next day I went back to do the fasting three hour test. My body was not happy about that. I started feeling very nauseous soon after drinking the twice as sweet juice. I had to stand and pace back and forth a little to keep from throwing up. The second blood draw did not go well. There are way too many bad phlebotomists at my clinic and it doesn't help when my veins are already beat up from years of infertility treatments. A good 15-20 minutes after the second blood draw I felt like I was getting light headed. I told my husband I wanted to go out to the car so I could at least lay back. Halfway down the hallway I had to sit down or I would have passed out. That got me a room to finally lie down in for the rest of the test. I also called my doctor's nurse and ask if I failed the first two blood draws if I could skip the last two or if I passed the first three if I could skip the last one. I passed the first three with flying colors and left as soon as the result came back. The kicker is I found out my doctor uses the lowest cutoff for the one hour test so if I had one of the other doctors I would have passed the one hour according to them. I spent the rest of the day napping and taking it easy. I really don't want to ever go through that again. I felt worse than when I had morning sickness.

Reflux is another battle I'm losing against. It's been going on for a good month or more now and it's really ramped up the past couple of weeks. I have vomit come up the back of my throat at least 3-4 times a day. Now that baby is getting bigger and stronger her kicks are really adding to the fun. The past couple of days I've also been feeling very queasy - to the point it's interfering with my day. I really don't like taking medication, but I may give in to my doctor's recommendation and try some prilosec.

Baby decided to mess with me on Saturday. She has a fairly consistent pattern of activity throughout the day and has maintained the same schedule for a good month. Her most active time has always been in the range of 5am-7am. Saturday morning she didn't move at all during that time. Once I noticed she hadn't been moving I started doing what I could to make her. I ate breakfast, drank some ice water and moved around, let the cat sit on my belly, and all I got from her were a few random and very soft bumps. Nothing like her normal activity. I finally called labor and delivery and they suggested I drink something with sugar and try laying down. Since we don't have juice or soda in the house my husband had to make a quick run. Sure enough, little stinker went to town after I downed some sprite. Guess we just have a little sugar addict growing in there!

The nursery is finally coming together. I feel rushed being only 10 weeks from baby's due date. I put off ordering furniture until about a month ago. My husband is almost finished painting her room and after we let it air out for a few days we'll start moving all her stuff in there.

It doesn't matter how big my belly gets, how much she moves around, or how many baby items take over our house, this still doesn't seem real to me!