Crabby Mama

After last post the contractions got SO bad, I could not stand it. We called the dr, but didn’t wait for her to call back. Off we went back to the hospital at 9:15am. I was terrified of not having made any progress, but was in so much pain I didn’t care. Of course the same drive that took 20 minutes at 2am now took 35 minutes and I was moaning all the way. Mike was pretty scared that I was so far along, I would deliver in the car (no danger of that, come to find out later). The nurses, seeing my state when I arrived, moved things right along.

My first check revealed that I was now 4 cm (the magic epidural number) and 90% with him at -2. It took until about 11:30 to get the epidural. It helped pretty quickly, but I could still feel the contractions on the left side. So a little while later the anesthesiologist pulled out the epidural catheter and redid it. With one bolus of epidural already in place, I got the full second dose on my left side. Needless to say, I was so numb I had absolutely NO feeling in my legs. They looked and felt completely lifeless, which was SO bizarre.

Once all that business was over with, the dr arrived, checked me (5cm!) and broke my water. She said I did not have a lot of fluid because I was so close to term AND there was meconium in the fluid. This means he had pooped already and had possibly ingested it. So the neonatal nurse had to be present for the birth and do an assessment to make sure he had no ill effects from this.

About an hour later, dr said hey, let’s just check you for fun (I was her only patient at the time and she was hanging out waiting for me to deliver). In one hour, I had progressed to fully dilated and +2 station (means he was RIGHT THERE ready to come out). The same thing had happened when I delivered Erin although not quite as quickly. As soon as I relax, I dilate so fast, but until the pain is gone I cannot let go enough to dilate. Anyway, we debated for a bit on whether or not to push yet since I could not feel anything at all. We decided it was best to finish watching What Not To Wear before trying. The dr sat in my room and watched with me.

She took a quick peek after that and said, “Be careful, don’t sneeze, he may come flying out.” So everything got set up and we watched the monitor for contractions. They would ask me to push and I would try. They would say things like, “Great job” or “Just like that” and I would try to replicate that push but I truly had NO idea what I was doing.It took maybe 4 or 5 sets of 3-4 pushes to get his head out, then the dr kinda wrestled his shoulders out. I could see the meconium on his body, but he did immediately start crying. They took him straight to the warmer to see if he was healthy. He ended up with Apgar scores of 9 and 9, so there were no issues there. Born at 1:45pm, he measured 21 inches and weighed in at a whopping 9lbs 1oz. I had always thought he filled up the space in my belly WAY more than either of the girls, and now I was justified.

I apparently had the teeniest tear so I got one teeny stitch. After 4 hours my epidural had finally worn off enough for me to get up and move around. Adam has nursed well on both sides as of 9:30pm. SOOOO relieved that the minimal trauma is over and everything else went SOOOO smoothly.