Family

    

My Birth Story: 

Be forewarned that my story isn’t one of the natural birth stories, so if you are planning on reading about water baths and laboring on an exercise ball, this isn’t the place to find it. Before I even went into labor, I knew that Iwasnt opposed to having drugs and that I wanted an epidural at some point, just wasn't sure when that would be.

On November 16th (my actual due date), I started having this tightening of my lower back which started at 11 pm. At this point in time I just thought that it was another pregnancy pain and blew it off. The tightening sensations continued about every hour and a half until 3:30 am when they became more frequent, about every half hour. 

By that point in time, I looked over at my husband and said “I think I’m in labor but I’m not sure.” The contractions were getting slightly more uncomfortable, but nothing that I couldn’t handle. I called my doctor around 7:45 am and told him that I thought I was having contractions and at that point in time had timed them anywhere from 20 to 6 to 10 minutes apart. My doctor initially said to hold off until they become more frequent, but that it wouldn’t hurt to go get checked out at the hospital. 

We arrived at the hospital at 9:05 and they checked me into triage and put me on a monitor to measure the strength and frequency of my contractions. As soon as they put me on the monitor, they said that I was definitely in labor and my contractions were 3 minutes apart and that I was 2 cm dilated. Somehow I wasn’t feeling some in between and wasn’t getting an accurate measurement. 

They admitted me into the hospital and around 10:30 am gave me some pitocin to increase the strength of my contractions to help me become more dilated. Around 11 am, the contractions became significantly more painful and I was pretty much in tears for the last 2 before my mom went to get the nurse to let her know that I would now like an epidural. The anaethesiologist came in about 15 minutes later to administer the epidural and once that was in, the rest was really a piece of cake. My ob/gyn came in at noon and wanted to increase my dosage of pitocin because the epidural had lowered the strength of the contractions and I wasn’t becoming more dilated. Once the pitocin was increased, they checked me at 2 pm and I was 4 cm and they decided to stay with the dosage. I was checked again at 4 pm and was at 10 cm and +2, so essentially, ready to start pushing. I started pushing 4:55 and had my daughter at 5:35. I felt a little bit of pressure when I had to push, but nothing significant.

The one scary part was that every time I pushed, my daughter’s heart rate dropped quite a bit, but luckily recovered every time. My ob/gyn mentioned a possible emergency c-section if her heart rate didn’t recover, but she was basically right there, so to speak, so a few more pushes and she was out. My daughter was born at 5:35 pm, weighing 7 lbs, 7 oz and 19 1/2 inches long.