Family Forum / Pregnancy / Pregnancy / March 2005

As you probably assumed, I'm not really 4 weeks past due so take me off
the due date calendar... we've had a baby!

Emma Christina was born exactly on her due date, February 25th, at
7:29pm.  She weighed 7lbs 12oz and was 21 inches long.  My husband has
a head shot picture of her when she was just a day old on his website
http://www.gmada.net/baby.htm .

Thanks so much for the answers and support from this group!

Lydia

The long, detailed story is as follows:

I had my weekly OB appt. and at that appt. it didn't look like baby
time was going to be too soon yet.  We were 2 cm dilated and -3 station
engaged.  But around 8 or 830 that night I was having cramp-like pains
that I *wondered* if they were contractions or just gas and was
thinking "Oh, I probably just have it in my head that a woman was
accidentally induced during her weekly internal exam last week and it's
freaking me out - this is probably just gas".  So I went to bed and was
woken up around 2am with much worse pain.  I thought maybe these ARE
contractions and started timing their frequency.

They were pretty intense pain-wise and they were anywhere between 11
and 20 minutes apart for a good hour.  I woke my husband up and said
"You aren't going to work today".  Sure enough, I laid there for a
little while in pain hoping that if it was gas I would have a massive
fart soon, but I didn't.

Around 5 my husband decided to get up and shower to be ready to go if
needed.  The way I was feeling I decided that was a good idea so I got
up shortly after and showered and dressed.  We went downstairs and
while I laid on the couch in even more intense pain, my husband was
recording the time between contractions.

At 10am I decided to call the hospital's birth center and asked them if
it was too early to come in.  My contractions were getting steadily
worse and were still kind of all over the place as far as how much time
in between, but definitely had progressed to between 4 and 9 minutes
apart.

The birth center nurse said they ask that contractions are 3-5 min.
apart for an hour or more, but that if the pain got too bad that I
couldn't stand it to call back.  I waited and we continued to time the
contractions until 1130 when they felt like they were getting worse,
but still 4-9 min. apart.  I called the birth center again and told
them what the situation was *now* and that it really hurt and she said,
"Ok, why don't you come on in and we'll check to make sure the baby's
ok and see where you are internally".  Most of the pain was all in my
lower back which we later learned was because the baby was facing out -
posterior -instead of in like she should have been so it puts all the
labor pressure on the back.

We already had the car packed for the last week so all we had to do was
head out.  Got to the hospital at about noon.  They hooked up two belly
monitors, one for my contractions and one for the baby's heartbeat.
They did an internal exam and thought I was dilated to 3 cm and fully
effaced, but baby was still way up there and hadn't dropped.  So the
nurse went to call my dr. and said she'd probably have me stay rather
than go home.  Dr. said to keep me for an hour and recheck dilation.
In a [painful] hour (at about 130pm) I was up to 4 cm dilated so the
dr. said ok, she stays, we'll have a baby!

Fortunately, you can get an epidural at 4 cm dilated so I got my candy
and everything felt fiiiiiiiiiiiiine.  I was monitored for another hour
and they decided to put an internal scalp monitor on the baby.  My
contractions started decreasing in intensity and frequency so they gave
me pitocin.

They let me go for another hour or so which let me dilate to 7cm, but
after that the pitocin didn't seem to help much.  They put an internal
contraction monitor in me to make sure they were being measured
accurately.  Another internal exam by my dr. at about 630 'ish, I
think, showed still at 7 cm and the baby had only dropped by one
"station" to -2.  The dr. had me try pushing a couple times to see if
we could get the baby to descend.  She did get down to -1, and the dr.
tried to manipulate her head to see if she could be in a better
position to descend.  Every time we tried this stuff, the baby's heart
rate dipped down below the blue "safety" zone that it's supposed to
stay within so she was in distress and since we didn't have enough
progress to show we were going to be delivering soon, my dr. made the
call to do a c-section.

So mu husband was dressed in scrubs quickly, I got more drugs via my
epidural and was wheeled into the operating room.  My husband was
allowed to come in shortly after and sat behind the curtain next to my
head.  I was cryyyyyyyying 'cause I didn't want a c-section.  They put
oxygen tubes at my nostrils, but the crying totally stuffed them up and
I couldn't breathe through them at all :).

Anyway, I couldn't feel a thing and all of a sudden we hear this
"WAAAaa, waaaa, waaaaaa" and my crying totally changed to an "Oh my
God, she's here" crying.  They cut the cord and checked her out quickly
then gave her to my husband who brought her up to my head for me to
see.  I actually don't remember it because of the morphin but he took a
pic of her next to my head.  They closed me up and took me back to the
delivery room to recover for a bit while Emma got her first bath and
check up.  All the fam. came in and was holding her.  I was kinda
knocked out and could barely keep my eyes open.  I was also having
uncontrollable shaking which they gave me something for and that
finally went away after about an hour.

We learned that the umbilical cord was wrapped around her right arm and
twice around her right leg so that's why (along with the fact that she
was facing posterior) she was stressed in the womb and we'd have had a
really hard time delivering vaginally so... it was good in the long run
that my dr. did the c-section.

They took us up to our recovery room where we stayed until Sunday
afternoon.  It was nice to be in a hospital where there are health
professionals to help with any problems, but it was also annoying
because every hour there was always someone coming in to do something
or check something so we didn't get much sleep there at all.

I had to pass a bunch of gas that was really distending my belly before
I was allowed to have any solid food and I had trouble doing that so I
had only had a danish on Friday morning at home, then chicken and beef
broth and jello on Saturday, and FINALLY on Sunday morning the gas damn
burst and I was able to have a small breakfast sandwich and chicken
lunch.  I was soooooo hungry that that hospital food was pretty good!
They took my staples out Sunday and we got home at about 330pm.

It felt SO good to be home.  My 3 kitties came to greet us and just did
SO well.  They weren't scared at all, just curious and sniffed the baby
until they were satisfied that she was cute enough to stay.  One cat
often sits on my lap when I'm breastfeeding.

So here we are... she was at 7lbs 15 oz a few days after her 2 weeks
marker (with the help of a couple visits to a lactation consultant) so
her weight is good and she has NO problem meeting her quota of poopy
and wet diapers.   She had a hearing test in the hospital which she
passed.  She's a really good baby so far... only cries when she needs
something.  Her umbilical cord stump fell off on her 2 week birthday.

My husband was taking great care of me... and the baby.  He didn't go
further than the mailbox w/o calling my dad to come over to stay with
me.  I got prescriptions for vicodin and a more powerful than OTC
ibuprofen and a stool softener to keep me from getting constipated and
having to push with my sore abs.  But he's gone back to work this week
so we're learning to do stuff on our own during baby naps and such.

I don't have to go back to work until August and when I do I get to
work mostly from home, go into the office one day/week, and my husband
will work from home on that day so we don't have to worry about day
care.

So everything's great and we're so happy to have our little girl here
with us.  She's a month old on Friday already!