springsandra
Baby girl has a baby brother!
Member since 11/09 7155 total posts
Name:
Sandra
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Megan Rose born 1/6/11 - our completely meds-free birth story!
The story of Megan Rose – born January 6, 2011, 12:49 am, 7 lbs 2 oz, 18 ½ inches.
I’m so happy right now, it’s almost surreal to be typing out my daughter’s birth story. I’m certain I’m going to break down crying several times during this simply because every time I get super happy now, I cry!
Here we are at home on Tuesday, January 11, and it’s day 5 of life for our beautiful little girl. Let’s back up to Wednesday, January 5th.
I had a friend from our labor and delivery class who had been due the same day as me, January 7, only she had her baby on December 21. She was completely unprepared when her water broke, but that’s her son’s birth story, not mine. I, on the other hand, always expected to go early (my mom had both me and my brother very early). When my doctor started talking induction with me at my 39 week appointment, I was in shock.
Tuesday night, January 4, I was home with DH discussing our options. I had heard online that sometimes sitting on a yoga ball can help bring on the labor process, and since all the spicy food, pineapple, and everything else everyone suggested hadn’t seemed to be working, I thought I’d give it a try. I found a youtube video about what was recommended to help open up the pelvis, and it involved rotating back and forth, first to the left in a circle for 10 rotations, then to the right. After that, you bounce lightly for as long as you want (about 10 minutes), then repeat. On Tuesday night, I did this for about 2 hours while watching tv.
So, Wednesday, I went over to my friend’s home to meet her new little baby around 1 pm. I brought Thai food, including very spicy Tom Yum soup (I’d tried it before, but I like it, so I figured I’d have more). She was so happy for the company, and I loved seeing her with her newborn. I held her son on my lap at one point and said “Jackson, can’t you tell your friend Megan to come out to join you?” During the day while I was there, my back was hurting way more than usual. I was telling my friend about it and she said “maybe this will be it??” and was so excited. I kept thinking that maybe it was from the ab work I’d done the day before on the yoga ball since I hadn’t done that much recently since I stopped going to the gym at 38 weeks. I even took two extra strength Tylenol because my back was hurting so much!
Around 5 pm, I asked DH if he wanted to come by our friends’ home and meet the baby after work, so he came there to meet up with me and we waited for the daddy to come home from work. About 5:45, DH got there, and at 6:15 or so, our friend Chris came home. Around that time, I started to notice my back hurting more, and I started feeling contractions. But they were different than the BH contractions I’d had before, and were deep in my back. Every time I felt it, I had to go pee really, really badly!! At 6:30 pm, I started to count how many times it happened and we began to realize that the contractions were coming about every 10 minutes, sometimes closer to 8 minutes. At 7 pm, we thought it would be best to drive home. First Chris offered to drive my car since I wasn’t really in any condition to drive, but we noted the 10 minutes and thought we could make it home caravan style with me following DH. I had another contraction at 7:04 pm WHILE DRIVING HOME, but it wasn’t too bad. I breathed through it and made it the 4 miles to our house.
Once we got home, DH fixed me a light supper – turkey and American cheese on a thin bagel with mayo. (Heated, of course!) We watched some Wheel of Fortune while I kept track of the contractions on DH’s old iphone with the contraction timer app. At 8 pm, I realized I’d had 15 contractions since 6:30, way more than the 6 an hour my doctor said to call by. So I gave a call and my doctor answered. I told him what was going on and he suggested we give it another hour and give him a call back and see where the contractions are then. I think he knew it was “real” since at my appointment on Monday, he was the one who said he couldn’t believe I wasn’t in labor yet! (I was already 3 cm and 75% effaced on Monday at the appointment.)
Between 8 and 9 pm, I actually had the chance to shower and blow out my hair. (I kept reaching out of the shower to start and stop the contraction timer on the iphone!) At 9 pm, I called my doctor back and told him I’d had 14 more contractions between 8 and 9 pm. He asked if I’d like to labor at home or if I’d like to go to the hospital. I didn’t really know, so DH and I decided to labor at home and my doctor said to call him back when we were ready to go to the hospital and he’d let them know we were on our way.
At around 9:15, I went to the bathroom during a contraction and saw blood. That was it for me, and we called my doctor back and went to the hospital. We had preregistered so check-in was a breeze, and by 9:30 pm, we were in a labor & delivery room. My nurse’s name was Anne Roberts and she was absolutely wonderful. My contractions were about 6 minutes apart when we got to the hospital, and she checked my progress. I was at 5 cm and 100% dilated! Anne told me that usually women dilate at about 1 cm an hour, and that the baby would be here before she got off her shift at 7 am! DH and I were elated, excited, and I was a little scared of what was going to happen now!
Anne asked us for our birth plan, and I told her that I would not like to be offered meds, as we wanted to have as natural a birth as possible. I also told her that I like to count, so if she can count me through what I need to do with numbers, either up or down, when it was time, that would be helpful. She helped me change into the disposable panties and the hospital gown, but I kept my socks on (they were a Christmas present from DH) the whole time, which made me feel calmer for some reason. I even remember showing nurse Anne the discharge I was having when I got there, and it was my bloody show – no worries!
Anne kept track of the baby through an external monitor that she would put on my belly every 20 minutes or so to check the baby’s heartbeat. At 10:30 pm, she went back and checked my progress. She was shocked to see that I was now 9 cm dilated!! The contractions were close and pretty painful, but DH was helping me work through them, rubbing my back just right and giving me all the encouragement in the world. I know I could never have gotten through the next few hours without him.
At 11:30 pm, in appeared my doctor. I was in a good bit of pain, but it was coming and going as far as strength goes. When he came in, he checked me and I was at 10 cm but my water still hadn’t broken. He said “are you ready to do this?” as nurses started rushing in and they wheeled in a giant light. Anne asked me if I wanted to have a mirror, but I declined. I found it a lot easier to deal with the pain by keeping my eyes incredibly tightly closed, and just feeling DH at my side holding me and helping me. DH got me a wet washcloth to put on my head because I was getting so hot! Then my doctor broke my water, and the baby was right there! DH said he saw her head, and there was the black hair I always knew she was going to be born with! It hurt, so so much.
My contractions were very strong, but short, maybe lasting about 30-45 seconds each, with about the same amount of time in between. It was hard for me to tell because the pain was just so bad, time really didn’t mean much to me then so my estimate may be off. Once my water was broken, I could feel intense pressure and pain and my doctor said it wouldn’t be long then. The baby was crowning and it was just up to me to push.
When the contractions came, nurse Anne counted with me and had me push for 10 seconds at a time, then would say “ok, give me another 10 now!” right away and then sometimes “just another 6!” and she’d count. It was great for me because that’s how I think, and I tried so hard. They wanted me to grab my legs and pull them towards me like a frog, but I wanted to hold onto the bed. My doctor said that would waste energy so I tried to do what they said, but it hurt so bad. The two main things I was saying while trying to deliver our baby were “Help me! Please help me!” and “I can’t do this!” But DH assured me so calmly that I really could do this and I was doing it! The doctor told me not to scream but to make low, guttural noises (which we learned in our class too) so as not to waste the energy. The funniest thing that my doctor said to me during the pushing was “just another set!” referring to something the instructors say in body pump, which is a class at the gym he knew I took since he and his wife go to my gym with me. I actually remember laughing through the pain at that point and saying “Just like Kim says!”
As my pushing continued, the pain and the burning got worse, which I knew meant it was getting closer. I asked if they could massage me down there to try to prevent a tear or the need for an episiotomy and both nurse Anne and my doctor were trying to help. But the baby’s head was really crammed in there. After a little over an hour of pushing, my doctor said that he thinks a cut is exactly what we need and was I ok with that. I told him to let DH make the decision because I was in no position to decide. I think he nodded or said “if you have to, do it.” As soon as my doctor cut me (apparently , he made a small cut, then slightly enlarged it), the baby came out. And there was Megan Rose. I couldn’t believe it. I also tore in a v-shape upwards very badly at the same time as she was coming out. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was our healthy little baby girl was here. They immediately put her on my chest while some nurses washed her down with some towels as I was holding her. I saw her black hair for the first time and her cute button nose, and I looked at DH and was in awe of what we made – who we made. They took her from me and measured her and did her APGAR (9.5 – her feet were a little purple, apparently). But she was perfect! She was born at 12:49 am, just over 3 hours from when we checked in at the hospital.
Immediately after birth, I took this picture with my phone while being stitched up. I'm a little crazy.
My doctor was sewing me up for about an hour, I tore so badly. Where he cut was nothing compared to where I tore, and even 5 days later I say the same. The stitching hurt, and he tried to give me some relief through some local anesthetic, but it just hurt. Also, they kept pushing my stomach to get me to deliver the placenta and make sure I pass all the clots. DH said it was pretty gross and that I lost a ton of blood (the doctor said that about the blood too). It hurt so much when they pushed on my stomach, I kept begging them to stop. “Please stop, please stop.” They were nice enough to try to avoid the belly button area when they pushed, which was helpful because that was the worst. Even in the day following when the nurse came in to push on my stomach, I asked her to please stop. But they did what they have to, and of course I let them.
I still am amazed that I did the entire thing without any pain medication. It was far from easy, but my labor was short as far as a first delivery goes from what I understand. And now we have our beautiful daughter who is perfect to me. I love her so much.
Ready to leave the hospital! We came home on Saturday morning.
Addendum - 2/25/11
Megan is 7 weeks old now and doing great! Stitches have healed beautifully, and my doc says I can go back to the gym starting in April (which is when I was thinking so DD will be a little older before I put her in the kids club for an hour or so).  She's eating every 3 or so hours, but goes for 5 overnight, which is wonderful. She's just a complete joy, and so smilie!!!! I wanted to share a new pic:
Message edited 2/25/2011 10:24:26 AM.
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