I reached out to a few of my girlfriends, searching for CR's birth story. I sent it out to them when I was working for my former employer, and when I left, I sadly left many meaningful emails behind as well. My friend LTA pulled this up out of her archives (thank you!!), and now I am able to look back at what I can possibly expect for round 2 with Baby C...after seeing this for the first time in three years, I was immediately transported back to those moments...one thing that I [shockingly] failed to mention that B reminded me of when he re-read my account of CR's birth was the fact that I fell in love with the drop-dead gorgeous anesthesiologist who hooked me up with my epidural - I hope he is on call again this time around. This roller-coaster is about to leave the station again very soon, and despite the ups and downs with welcoming CR into the world, I hope this ride is a mulligan of that experience...
So where to begin…I woke up at 5am on Monday morning (April 23rd) with a sharp cramping feeling…I went to the bathroom, and realized my water had broken, and shortly thereafter, another cramping feeling. I had no idea what labor was supposed to feel like, but assumed this was the beginning of it. I got B up, and he immediately wanted to start timing my contractions…not something that is able to be timed right away.
We hung around our place until about 8am – I put in a call to the hospital to give them the heads-up that I was coming in, and that my contractions seemed to be close together – I also told them that my water had broken, assuming that they would turn on the red flashing lights to get me in there…not the case. They said I could come in if I wanted to…so we did.
The drive over was painful, because I couldn’t keep moving when a contraction came. We arrived at Brigham and Women’s, checked in at admission, and were brought up to the labor and delivery floor. They brought me into a monitoring room, where they checked my vitals, and hooked me up to the fetal monitors.
The baby looked fine, and the doctor checked my cervix…only 1 ½ cm dilated, and 70% effaced…she bluntly said that I was not in active labor…this made me hate her. Here I thought that the pain was pretty intense, and that I had to be at least 4 cm dilated…but not the case. She said I had a few options: that I could go home and wait until my contractions became more productive, that I could be admitted and put on Pitosin, or I could walk around the hospital until my labor progressed…all not options I wanted to hear, but we opted to head back home. At this point, I had to stop whatever I was doing to bend over, groan, and deal with the pain, so walking around in public while leaking amniotic fluid was not something that I wanted to do.
So we packed our bags back up in the car, and headed back home. Once home, my contractions worsened…I carved a path from our livingroom, to our bedroom, and back through the baby’s room when each contraction came – by the time I headed back out to the livingroom, the contraction would cease, and I would have a minute or two without pain.
After a couple of hours of this, I prompted B to get the car…another hellish ride over (now traffic had picked up, so it made it that much worse) and back to the Brigham.
The doctor checked me out again, and at this point I was 2cm dilated…frustrating. I asked about Pitosin, and she said that she didn’t think I could handle it at this point based on the pain I was in at 2cm…another knock against her…I wanted my own doctor, but was stuck with this woman…I was not happy. I decided to be admitted, and to see how things progressed. I got the green light to be put in a room by saying that I was thinking about getting an epidural…if that was the case, they needed to get me hooked up to an IV, so I was granted the golden ticket without being in active labor.
We got into the room, and I was in real pain at this point, my lovely husband decided to go to the cafeteria to get himself lunch…mind you, I had not eaten since 9pm the night before, and was slightly nauseous from the whole labor experience, so when he brought in a steaming piece of Shepherd’s pie and plopped down next to me to eat it, I promptly kicked him out of the room…
(This is me, walking toward my husband, about to kick is shepherd's-pie smelling butt out of my room)
It was now about 2:30pm and I raised the white flag…the anesthesiologist came in, I drank a nasty antacid that tasted like salty liquorish, and he put in the epidural…the process was quick, and I didn’t experience any of the symptoms that I had feared…didn’t have any drop in blood pressure, nor did I throw up…I was pleased, and within minutes, I was elated to gradually lose feeling in my lower body. Shortly thereafter, I was put on Pitosin to speed things up, but I didn’t feel the ill effects of the increased intensity of the contractions…I highly recommend getting the epi pre-Pitosin…
The next hours went by reasonably quickly…my vitals were checked automatically every 15-30 minutes…we watched my contractions and the baby’s heart rate on the monitor…I read magazines…chatted with B and the nurses…slurped on Jello…I felt pressure when the contractions came, but no pain, per se.
At around 8pm the doctor checked my cervix, and I was 4cm…she said it would be about an hour per cm from hereon out, followed by 1-2 hours of pushing, so we figured we would be waiting until 2am at the earliest before I was 10cm…at around 10:45 or 11pm, I kept feeling pressure, like I had to go to the bathroom, and told the nurse this…she checked my cervix, and felt CR’s head…I was ready to push. All of a sudden, in came the doctor, another nurse, and they readied the room. B grabbed one leg, and the delivery nurse grabbed my other leg…4 contractions with 3 pushes with each one, CR joined us.
He scored an 8 and 9 on his APGAR, and let out a little scream. We were elated, and I have to say the whole experience was amazing…my little boy gave me a second degree tear, which took 10-15 minutes for the doctor to sew up following delivery, and I am still healing…
The next couple of nights in the hospital were interesting…strange nurses, followed by amazing ones…but overall, I would do it again…I would just opt for the epi a little earlier rather than waiting 9 hours to get it.
Breastfeeding has been going pretty well…he favors my right boob, so as I mentioned before, I end up having to pump the left one to relieve engorgement, but overall he is pretty cooperative. Sometimes he forgets how to nurse, and waves his head frantically over my nipple as though he thinks he can inhale his lunch rather than suck it out of me, but that passes and he latches on. I am not in too much pain when I nurse. In the beginning, my nipples were a little rough for the wear, but I use Comfortgel pads between feedings that healed things up nicely.
CR is sleeping pretty well – we are trying to feed him around 10pm, we nap while he naps until about 12:30am, I feed him again, and he is good until 2:30 to 3:30am, and then gets up again around 5am …each feeding/changing process takes about 45 minutes to an hour, so it’s a long process when you’re half asleep. He has his second doctor’s appointment tomorrow, and I have a feeling he is back at and above his birth weight. He was born at 6lbs 3oz, dropped to 5lbs 13oz, and was already back a little above 6lbs last Friday.
Today I am going to feed him again in a bit, finish the laundry (this kid rips through clothes faster than B), and then head out for a walk along the Charles. I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday to check how I am healing, and he said that I can resume activity as soon as I feel ready. I have been pretty much house-bound for the past week and a half, so I am excited to start going for walks, and work back up to going to the gym for light lifting, etc…
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