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So.....this how it all went down!
Tuesday morning I woke up and went to the bathroom....there was a bit of blood and what looked like it could be mucus....so I kind of figured that was the plug. It was only 5am, so I went back to bed and started to feel some wetness. I thought it was probably nothing, so I tried to go back to sleep, but in the back of my mind, I had a feeling something might be happening. I got up at around 5:45 finally, ate some cereal, checked email...and noticed more wetness.
Eventually, at around 9:30 I called the doctor and told them I was having some strange sympotms. They told me to go to the hospital in case my water broke. I was shocked! And terrified! I started crying, and called my husband to come home from work to bring me to the hospital. We called our parent on the way to the hospital to let them know something *might* be happening, but it could be a false alarm, so they shouldn't get too excited just yet.
We got to the hospital....they checked me out and told me my water had broken and I was going to be staying and I'd have my baby by midnight. I was also about 2 centimeters dilated!
The problem was that I wasn't having really significant contractions....if I was having any at all....which was not good since my water had broken already. So they gave me some Pitocin to bring on contractions. In an ideal situation, I would have loved for labor to come naturally....but I wasn't going to risk my baby's health for it.
I went into the Labor and Delivery room around 11:30 and they started the Pitocin around 12:00. I started having minor contractions....but my mom came to visit and I was able to hold a conversation with her, so nothing too terrible. I guess around 1:30 or so, they upped the dosage of the Pitocin and the contractions got a little harder to handle. I remembered reading that Pitocin causes contractions to be much more frequent and painful than they would be naturally...so I was preparing for the worst.
Around 2:30, they started getting really bad. I was having contractions every other minute, lasting for about a minute. My husband was helping me breathe through them, but after an hour, I was exhausted. I was only 4-5 centimeters dilated at that point and didn't know how I would last through another 4-5 hours of contractions like that. They were coming so fast that I barely had time to catch my breath before another one would come.
So, even though I was hoping not to have to do it, I asked for the epidural. I wanted to make sure I was rested up for the pushing and knew it wasn't possible for me to do that without the epi.
20 minutes later, they came in, gave me the epi and within minutes, I was painfree. It was pretty remarkable! Getting the epi wasn't the most fun thing in the world....especially since it took about 10 minutes to get it in, and I was contracting all during it....but it was worth it.
The next few hours went by pretty quickly. I felt nothing. The doctor checked me regularly and I was progressing nicely, the baby's heartbeat was perfect, my blood pressure was perfect....all good.
Probably around 6:30, the doctor checked and said I was 10 centimeters, so I should get ready to push. A little while later, I was pushing....although I couldn't feel a thing!
And...at 7:10, after a mere 20 minutes of pushing, Lily was born! The doctor was very impressed that I was able to push her out so quickly without any feeling. I was impressed I was able to push her out and not feel anything also!
I did wind up getting an episiotomy also, which I had hoped against....oh well.
So all in all, it was an amazing experience! Totally not the delivery I had imagined...but it was perfect. And Lily is perfect and I am already totally in love with her!
So, here are some pictures!!
(hope they're big enough....I used the resizer)
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Message edited 2/21/2008 10:04:45 PM.
Posted 6/2/07 11:33 AM
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