Thursday, October 27, 2011

Maddie Mei- The birth experience

Oh hello!  Yes, we are still alive.  It's been a challenge to get online at all, let alone write a blog post (or 2 or 3).  I have barely gotten bills paid!


But Maddie hits 3 weeks old tomorrow, and we are slowly falling into some sort of routine.  How do you actually get a routine going, by the way?  Someone give me some tips, please.


Oh, right.  Birth.


So my birthing experience was interesting, to say the least.  I started having contractions Sunday evening.  Finally at about 2 am we went to the hospital.  They kept me for 2 hours and released me.  I had progressed between the doc appointment on Thursday (1 cm) to 3 cm, but in those 2 hours nothing changed.  Boo.  Mike stayed home Monday, but went back to work on Tuesday.  The contractions never really stopped, and finally got intense enough to go back on Tuesday.  I called everyone in around 2:15 (my mom and Mike) and we were at the hospital by 4.  At 4 pm I hadn't progressed since Sunday (still at 3 cm).  They kept me an hour before making any decisions.  Miraculously in that hour I went from 3 cm to 5.  YAY!  Baby is coming!  I was admitted.


And then from 5 pm to 12:30 am, nothing changed.  My contractions weren't intensifying or coming any faster, I wasn't dialating.  So the doc came in and asked me to make a choice- go home, break my water, or start pitocin.  I was trying to go without meds, and I certainly wasn't going home, so I opted for breaking my water.  THAT was interesting.  And let me tell you- contractions BEFORE the water breaking- nothing compared to after.  HOLY WOW.  It didn't take long and I opted for the Nubane.


Nubane is a trip.  I rested through the pain for a few hours.  4 am came and I was checked again- STILL no change!!!  At this point I have been laboring for 12 hours at the hospital and I was still just at the beginning of active labor???  WTH?!?!?  


So despite any plans of mine, pitocin it was!  However, the nubane was wearing off, and I was afraid of pitocin intensifying that pain, so... epidural it was.  I got the epidural around 4:45 am.  The pitocin was started around 5:15 am.


Everyone had gone home around 11 pm except Mike.  He was napping on the loveseat.  My mom stayed at my house and came back around 5:30 am.  Which is good, because when the nurse checked me at 5:45 am I was at 9 cm!!!!  Apparently SOMETHING worked.


So we woke Mike and he made the calls to everyone.  Time became a blur at this point, but a little while later they came in to change out the internal monitor on the baby's head- it was all over the board for readings.  So the nurse goes to change it out, and sees that the old monitor had fallen off because oh wow, baby's head is RIGHT THERE!  And it's full of hair, which is why the readings were so bad.


So all of a sudden things are set up and the doctor was called in and I'm pushing before I knew what was happening.  Didn't take long at all- she arrived at 7:19 am.






7 pounds 1 ounce






20 inches long






full beautiful ROUND head of hair






Absolutely perfect.






I must say that delivery was the easiest part of the whole pregnancy.  And I'm recovering just as nicely.  The epidural was definitely the right choice for me.  The nurse said that the epi is probably what jump started my labor- they barely got any pitocin in my system at all.


And Mike?  He was such a champ.  Such a good labor coach- very supportive.  He made it all the way to the end, heard it's a girl, and THEN nearly fainted.  My poor family- they were all out there waiting to hear girl or boy.  The hospital plays Braum's lullaby over the hallways when a baby is born, so they knew she was here.  And then they had to wait 45 minutes before the doctor would let Mike get up and go tell them!

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