At 5:30am on Saturday, March 17th, St. Patrick's day, I awoke to a weird feeling in my stomach, like a whoosh or pop. I thought ok....maybe my water broke. Now just the day before I was reading about reasons to go to the hospital and one was if you were leaking greenish fluid. This likely indicated that you were leaking meconium fluid, meaning the baby had had his/her first bowel movement inside of you.
I go to the washroom and without doing anything I feel liquid flowing out of me like a trickle. I look down and it's green. I wipe and it continues. Confused and scared I go to our living room where my mom and sister are sleeping and am suddenly feeling intense contractions that knock me to the ground. I keel over and breathe through it. My mom was awake so I tell her I was leaking green stuff and I don't know what's happening. I am hit by another contraction. My back had hurt with all my previous contractions so Tom had been rubbing my back hard during them and I would ice in between. I knew I needed him to get trough the contractions so I went into our room to wake him.
He says he knew from the moment he heard my voice that it was the day. Stubborn as I am though, I continue to labour through contractions for 1.5 hours convinced in my head it was still nothing even though I knew I needed to go in. I had read about the meconium fluid and didn't want to endanger our baby.
We went to triage again just after 7am and I told the nurse i wasn't leaving without a baby - whether it was mine r someone else's I was leaving with one. They hooked me up to machines to monitor contractions and heart rate and I was checked out. I think I was at 5cm. While I was sitting in the bed between contractions I felt a warm sensation gush around me and knew I had leaked. My water gushed out f me and I was now sitting in it plus baby's poop! Yummy. With that contractions got crazy and I was hooked up to an iv officially being admitted!
We had the nicest nurse in labour and deliver for the day. She was a sweet lady, Caroline, who was retired but picked up shifts when she could. Through our talking and her assessment she decided I would have the baby before her shift was done at 7pm. Sadly we got our hopes set on that and it wasn't the case.
Because I had been in labour in a sense for 3 days, I opted immediately for the epidural. With little sleep in days, I knew I needed it. I got that fairly soon after being admitted and was comfortable. I spent the day rolling from side to side and getting checked out. I seemed to be progressing well for most of the day and Caroline was hopeful. Around 4 pm I was at 7cm and stayed there for the next check. Caroline wanted them to give me oxytocin to help dilate but the dr said there was no need yet. The dr came back in another hour and I was still at 7cm so she finally ordered the oxytocin. Caroline was leaving and we had no baby but were blessed with another great nurse, Julie.
Throughout the evening I continued to slowly dilate but my contractions also became very irregular. They had been steady all day and suddenly I would go from fast and heavy to 10 minutes part and weaker. This was not letting me progress at all. Julie was on a crazy shift that was done at 3am and there was no way I was going through another change in nurses.
At 9pm I was dilated to 9 and things seemed to have slowed again. I took some time to rest knowing things would start getting good soon! I hce ve no idea how it then took me 4 hours to finally be 10cm and ready to push but it did.
Around midnight I was feeling more pain and my Epi was turned up. I started to feel the need to push but was told I wasn't a full 10 yet. The last I was checked by the dr she said I had a 'lip' left. The need to push came so fast and furious you can't stop it. The nurse checked me and said we were good to go. Just after 1am I started pushing and at 1:55am we welcome our beautiful baby boy into the world! I only pushed for 40 minutes! My goal had been to beat my sister who pushed for 30 minutes but our baby ha a pound on hers so pound for pound I beat her!
My next blog will contain details after the birth of our son. Off to bed for me, so hopefully I remember to post again soon.
Monday, August 13, 2012
Labour and Delivery - Early Labour...the never ending experience!
This past week we had some friends over and I found us telling our birth story. Tom and I put together the details fine but I thought I should write them out so I can remember better in the future. Now as this is a labour and delivery story I will be possibly talking about things that you may consider TMI so consider yourself warned. I have made it my policy during pregnancy, labour and delivery and post-partum to be open and honest with everything because so much isn't talked about.
I was due on the 14th March and at 6:30am that Wednesday morning I woke up to pee. This was no surprise as my nights were mostly sleepless at this point from being uncomfortable and needing to pee. As I went about my business I saw that I was bleeding, similar to the start of my period. It seemed like a lot to me so I called the triage of l&d and the nurse said better safe than sorry and to come in. I had already texted my mom freaking out and her, and my sister decided they would head down despite me having no contractions or anything. My dad also made a last minute decision to skip work and come down with them.
When we got to the hospital the nurse was great. I was hooked up to monitors and then checked out by a resident dr who said i was about 2-3 cm dilated. The bleeding was likely part of my bloody show - gross! They had me walk the halls to see if I dilated more or if contractions picked up(they were very sporadic at this point). After 4 hours I hasn't progressed anything further but had a regular ob appointment to go to so we left triage for the ob. While waiting 2 hours for the appointment (they were always late) I had contractions continuing and was very uncomfortable. I couldn't sit in the waiting room because of it so I paced. I never wanted to be the one to go to the hospital with false alarms so I was very disappointed even though I knew going in that morning it was not likely to be our day. My dr said I was indeed at 2 and she could stretch me to 3 so she performed a stretch and sweep of my membranes in hopes of getting things moving along.
Contractions continued for that night and throughout the early morning hours. They would become intense and close together and seem to be progressing and then slow down and disappear. On morning of the 15 I had painful contractions 3-4 minutes apart and lasting for a minute for 2 hours. I did not want to go in. I fought Tom and my mom and eventually gave in out of exhaustion and went in. My contractions continued in the van but as soon as we got into a room in triage they seemed to stop. My experience this day was terrible! The nurses were terrible and told me I was too happy to be in labour. I am not one to show I am in pain so that frustrated me. I was checked again and at about 3 cm and was sent to walk with checkins for monitoring the babies heart rate. After walking again for hours (I say 4 Tom says more) my contractions were pretty much done and I was only at 4cm. The jerk dr said that it was busy on the labour and delivery side and if it wasn't they could admit me so back home we went.
Friday was somehow my day of rest. I had moments of intense contractions and moments of nothing. I was so confused and disheartened by everything and thought I was crazy! Friday I also had the brilliant idea that doing summersaults would get the baby out. I was so sick of walking that I was up for it. So I attempted 4-5 summersaults that my sister K was entertained by. I wish we has videotaped it.
As the afternoon wore on my contractions began to intensify and were again 2-4 minutes apart last for about a minute and for about an hour and then they would space out again. This repeated so many times. Tom has downloaded an ap on his phone to time contractions and everyone was watching me for them. For some reason going to the bathroom brought them on and I had to pee a lot! Friday Tom and I went for a walk around the neighborhood in hopes of getting things to move faster. Contractions continued to come hard and heavy and then slow down for a bit and then hard and heavy again. I hadn't slept well in days!
Around midnight we decided to walk in our basement. I was having painful contractions again and just needed to move. We walked figure 8s for almost 2 hours before my contractions slowed enough for me to want to eat and sleep. I had a piece of toast with peanut butter at 1:30am on the 17th not knowing it would be my pre-game meal.
I was due on the 14th March and at 6:30am that Wednesday morning I woke up to pee. This was no surprise as my nights were mostly sleepless at this point from being uncomfortable and needing to pee. As I went about my business I saw that I was bleeding, similar to the start of my period. It seemed like a lot to me so I called the triage of l&d and the nurse said better safe than sorry and to come in. I had already texted my mom freaking out and her, and my sister decided they would head down despite me having no contractions or anything. My dad also made a last minute decision to skip work and come down with them.
When we got to the hospital the nurse was great. I was hooked up to monitors and then checked out by a resident dr who said i was about 2-3 cm dilated. The bleeding was likely part of my bloody show - gross! They had me walk the halls to see if I dilated more or if contractions picked up(they were very sporadic at this point). After 4 hours I hasn't progressed anything further but had a regular ob appointment to go to so we left triage for the ob. While waiting 2 hours for the appointment (they were always late) I had contractions continuing and was very uncomfortable. I couldn't sit in the waiting room because of it so I paced. I never wanted to be the one to go to the hospital with false alarms so I was very disappointed even though I knew going in that morning it was not likely to be our day. My dr said I was indeed at 2 and she could stretch me to 3 so she performed a stretch and sweep of my membranes in hopes of getting things moving along.
Contractions continued for that night and throughout the early morning hours. They would become intense and close together and seem to be progressing and then slow down and disappear. On morning of the 15 I had painful contractions 3-4 minutes apart and lasting for a minute for 2 hours. I did not want to go in. I fought Tom and my mom and eventually gave in out of exhaustion and went in. My contractions continued in the van but as soon as we got into a room in triage they seemed to stop. My experience this day was terrible! The nurses were terrible and told me I was too happy to be in labour. I am not one to show I am in pain so that frustrated me. I was checked again and at about 3 cm and was sent to walk with checkins for monitoring the babies heart rate. After walking again for hours (I say 4 Tom says more) my contractions were pretty much done and I was only at 4cm. The jerk dr said that it was busy on the labour and delivery side and if it wasn't they could admit me so back home we went.
Friday was somehow my day of rest. I had moments of intense contractions and moments of nothing. I was so confused and disheartened by everything and thought I was crazy! Friday I also had the brilliant idea that doing summersaults would get the baby out. I was so sick of walking that I was up for it. So I attempted 4-5 summersaults that my sister K was entertained by. I wish we has videotaped it.
As the afternoon wore on my contractions began to intensify and were again 2-4 minutes apart last for about a minute and for about an hour and then they would space out again. This repeated so many times. Tom has downloaded an ap on his phone to time contractions and everyone was watching me for them. For some reason going to the bathroom brought them on and I had to pee a lot! Friday Tom and I went for a walk around the neighborhood in hopes of getting things to move faster. Contractions continued to come hard and heavy and then slow down for a bit and then hard and heavy again. I hadn't slept well in days!
Around midnight we decided to walk in our basement. I was having painful contractions again and just needed to move. We walked figure 8s for almost 2 hours before my contractions slowed enough for me to want to eat and sleep. I had a piece of toast with peanut butter at 1:30am on the 17th not knowing it would be my pre-game meal.
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