Jax430
Hi!
Member since 5/05 18919 total posts
Name:
Jackie
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My water broke at work! The arrival of Alana Gabrielle on 6/14/12
My Alana Gabrielle was born on my due date, 6/14/12, over 24 hours after I was admitted to South Nassau Communities Hospital. Here’s the story…
I was at work on Wednesday, 6/13/12. I was basically planning on working until Friday, if I didn’t give birth before then. At my doctor’s appointment that Monday, I was not at all dilated, and my cervix was really far back. My ob predicted that she would end up inducing me the following week. I really wasn’t expecting anything to happen before then, and I was trying to finish up any paperwork that I could before going out on leave. All of my counseling cases had been transferred two weeks before when I went out on bereavement leave when my father passed away, so all I had to do was wrap up loose ends. I had one last discharge summary to write, and then I was going to spend the next day cleaning and organizing my office....
I stood up from my desk to go downstairs to the office to get another child’s chart, and I felt a small gush of liquid. I dismissed it, assuming that it was some bladder leakage, but as I walked downstairs, I kept feeling a trickle. I went to the ladies room, and saw that my leggings were all wet around my inner thighs! I called the doctor’s office, and they told me to go straight to L&D to find out if it was water or urine. I felt fine, and wasn’t having any contractions, but my coworker still insisted on driving me to the hospital. I tried to make a quiet getaway, but it was dismissal time, so everyone saw us leaving and was asking, “Is it time?!” I kept telling them all, “maybe,” and was thinking how embarrassing it would be if it was really just urine! On the way to the hospital, I called DH, mom and sister, and DH got on the next train at Penn to head to the hospital.
When I got to South Nassau, they examined me and determined that yes, my membranes had ruptured. I was admitted, but I was still completely closed, so I needed to be induced anyhow. They inserted the cervadil that evening, which basically resulted in me starting to dilate, but also having terribly painful contractions every minute during the night. I was given morphine, which maybe took the edge off a tiny bit, but not much. The nurse eventually came in to remove the Cervadil because I was contracting too much. I continued to be in pain after that, but was not far enough along to get the epidural. I think that they finally took pity on me, and had the anesthesiologist come in when I was only about 2 cm to give me my epidural. Getting it really wasn’t all that bad. The only problem was that it stopped working quickly. My legs and feet remained numb, but I started feeling really strong contractions again! They had another anesthesiologist come in, and it turns out the initial epi had gotten dislodged! After this one, I felt SO much better, and was able to relax for a while. Of course, the epi resulted in my contractions slowing down, so I was eventually given Pitocin. At some point in the midst of all this, the doctor checked me out, and had to break the rest of my membranes…I didn’t realize they hadn’t all ruptured the day before! I felt okay until I was about 9 cm, at which point I felt like I had to poop so badly! The nurse told me that this was because the baby’s head was so low, and was pressing on my rectal muscles. I was really, really, really, uncomfortable, and kept insisting that I was going to end up pooping on the bed (which I didn’t).
At about 3:00 pm on Thursday, the nurse determined that there was just a tiny bit of cervix left to go, and that I would be ready to push “in 15 minutes,” then “30 minutes or so,” then, “you should be ready around 4:00.” DH and I are pretty sure that the doctor was doing a c-section and that they were making me wait to push! They ended up giving me some painkiller at around 3:15, and I slept until about 4…and was kept waiting until about 4:30, when the nurse checked me and said that I was ready. I started pushing around 4:50, and pushed for about half an hour before giving birth to my beautiful Alana at 5:21pm. The doctor who delivered her was not my ob, and didn’t know that we hadn’t found out the baby’s gender, so I had to ask him, “what is it?!” He was like, “oh, you don’t know?” and then turned her legs around to me, so I got to announce, “It’s a girl!” I was absolutely overjoyed.   My father had been adamant that it was a girl, and I was happy that he got to be right one last time.
Alana had some fluid in her lungs, so, she was brought to the NICU for observation for 4 hours, but was not admitted, and was brought to my room around 9:30 that night. I was sad that I didn’t get my initial time to bond with her, but was so relieved that she was okay. After wanting a baby for so many years, it was so surreal that she had finally arrived. I absolutely loved being Team Green. It was so exciting to find out in the hospital, and for DH to announce the news to our family, who had been waiting for hours and hours.
Check out DH's birthday hat..he gave them out to the whole family!
Message edited 7/2/2012 7:28:42 PM.
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Jackie I'm so happy to be the first to respond, Alana is so beautiful and I feel so honored to have been one of the first people to see you as a mom 
Unfortunately the next won't arrive till she's a year old 
next time around!
