babymakes3
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Maeve's Birth Story - 12/20/06
I wrote my birth story when DD was a newborn but never posted it. Here it is... enjoy!
Maeve was born at 10:51am and weighed 7lbs 7oz, 19" long.
My due date was 12/23/06.
Dec. 19th: My doc sent me in to be induced after my 40 week appointment (which was actually at 39.5 weeks because of the weekend and Christmas coming up). I was already dilated, effaced, having contractions (that I couldn’t feel) and I felt that the baby’s movement had slowed down. At this point, I was 70% effaced (80% during contractions) and 3cm dilated.
We started the labor induction at 1pm with Pitocin. On the monitor, I was having contractions every 2-4 minutes but I still couldn't feel them. The nurse thought I was crazy, the peaks showed fairly strong contractions.
The next 8 hours were uneventful. The contractions got to the point where I could feel them, but they weren't painful. At 9pm, that all changed... I was in bed and "pop!" and gush... my water broke on its own!
I called for the nurse right away because I knew (from reading other birth stories) that contractions can get much stronger after the water breaks.
At 9:45pm, the nurse still wasn't there yet and I was begging DH for pain relief. My contractions were lasting a minute long and coming every 2-3 minutes. I was crying at the peak of every contraction and in between, I was bracing for the next.
The nurse finally came, gave me dry pads to lay on, and called for the OB.
OB checked me and I was still at 3cm!! All that pain for no progress!
I resigned to the fact that it was probably going to be a long night and I requested the epidural. They drew blood to check my platelet level. Apparently, my last blood draw showed that my platelet levels were decreasing but they never warned me about them potentially being too low for an epi. Since this draw was 7 hours later, it was almost inevitable that the levels were going to be too low.
The next 2.5 hours were miserable. They had turned down the Pitocin but the contractions didn't lose speed. I wanted to get out of bed so badly but they wouldn't let me because of the IV. The nurse even made me use a bedpan.  All I could do was just stare ahead, breathe, and get through them.
Dec. 20th: At about 12:15am, they told me platelets were too low. Then, the OB checked me and I was still at 3cm!!! I cried. I was exhausted. I had tried every coping technique that I could do sitting in bed and nothing helped. I requested an alternative and received Stadol at almost 1:30am.
I do not like how Stadol made me feel. I felt like I was drunk and powerless. The med made me so drowsy but didn't prevent me from feeling the contractions. I could still feel my body but I couldn't even udder a word to my DH no matter how hard I tried.
For the next 7 something hours, I woke up every 2-3 minutes for the contraction and passed out between them. At 8:00am, they gave me a new dose and checked me afterward. I was 10 cm dilated! I tried a couple pushes which were ineffective because I was so out of it. I wanted to see my baby so bad. My excitement fought the drowsiness and the drowsiness won.
I slept it off for an hour (still waking up for contractions) and at 9am, I started to push with each contraction. I gained more strength towards the end as the med wore completely off. I gained my ability to talk (somewhat coherently with my parched mouth) too and as DD was crowning, I said "I'm going to touch her head" and I just did it. Shortly after that (and after almost 2 hours) of pushing, Maeve Rose was born at 10:51am.
They didn't deliver her to my tummy like I wanted. They whisked her to the warming table after DH cut the cord. I was upset by this and kept asking if anything was wrong. All I heard was that they want her to cry louder, which was probably because of the Stadol. She never did cry very loud and her Apgars were 8 and 9. She was perfect and healthy - 7lbs 7oz and 19” long.
We finally got to hold her about 20 minutes after she was born. DH held her first and he cried. I felt bad because I didn’t cry during the birth or when I held her like I thought I would. I think I was too traumatized by everything happening at that time. A different OB (than the one who delivered Maeve) had started stitching my two second degree tears as I was holding her. I think she forgot that I didn’t have an epidural. I felt every needle prick and thread going in. I had to tell her to stop and then I got local anesthetic, which helped, a little bit. 
DH got lunch from the cafe (my first meal in over 24 hours) and we ate while DD was getting cleaned up in the nursery. They brought me to recovery and DD was brought in shortly after. We just sat there peacefully for about a half hour staring at her, then started calling our OOS families. Lots and lots of happy and sad tears....
A little bit later, I got up to go to the bathroom and passed out. The nurse called for another nurse and they checked my blood pressure sitting and standing. When I stood up for the standing part, I passed out again. That was so scary. They put another IV in me and checked my blood pressure, standing and sitting, every few hours from then on. I never found out the official diagnosis why I passed out but I'll take a guess that it was related to my platelet levels and not clotting and losing a lot of blood.
We tried to BF a little later and it wasn't working. She wasn't latching on. They had fed her formula already and she wasn't hungry. I think the Stadol also had some part in this too.
Later that evening after DH left for home to get some rest, I was holding her alone in my bed and the tears flowed. I promised her that I'll be the best mommy I can be. I am so blessed with this amazing, beautiful person as my daughter and my wonderful husband. 
We tried to BF the next day and I got help from the LC. The LC told me that she probably still had fluid in her. She burped her and got her to spit up quite a bit of mucous. After that, DD made an earnest attempt at BFing. It wasn't a perfect system before we left, but we were headed in the right direction.
I found out before I was discharged that if I had taken the epi at 1pm or 6pm, it wouldn’t have been taken out until my platelets were at a certain level again. My platelets weren’t at that level when I was discharged so I could’ve been bedridden at the hospital for several days. My OB (who did not deliver my baby) thinks I had gestational thrombocytopenia.
What I learned is that, if I'm blessed with another baby in the future, I want to labor at home as long as possible and go natural in the hospital. I think some coping techniques like a bath or just walking around would've done wonders for me.
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