Before Emma was born, our time was spent moving into our new home, and trying to fix it up as much as possible before she got here. That has involved a lot of painting, some gardening (we're still trying to figure that one out) and acquiring some new furniture (thanks to my mom!). We were luck to get most of the big stuff done before Emma made her appearance (it helped that she was soooo late) and now we're just trying to figure out what we want to do next.
As for Emma, she made her appearance on May 2, 2011 somewhat reluctantly. I was 10 days past my due date, and we finally went into the hospital to be induced. This isn't the way I wanted to do it, but I was very fearful of her being a large baby already, and I was trying for the best chance at a vaginal birth, so we went with that idea.
We showed up at the hospital on a Saturday night around 8. They weren't planning to start the pitocin until the next morning, but they had me come in to start me on another drug (don't remember the name) to help me get ready for the pitocin in the morning. Once the meds were in, I had to lay on my side for 2 hours straight, which I didn't like. I decided to finally give in to having lunch meat, and Danny ordered me a Jimmy John's Turkey Tom, which I was forced to eat laying down on my side. It was hard, but I pushed through because I had be REALLY looking forward to that sandwich.
Not much happened throughout the night, except for my lack of sleep due to their constant monitoring, so at 6am the next morning, I got up and showered and they started the pitocin. I really thought things would start going then. By 11am I was having regular contractions, but no real movement. I was at 5 cm, so they decided to break my water. The next contraction after that was like night and day compared to the rest. I was then in full blown labor. I tried for hours to use all of the relaxation techniques they taught me in my birthing classes, but not much helped. My contractions were coming every 20-30 seconds most of the time, and some lasted upwards of 2 minutes. The bath helped some, because I was able to push on one side of the tub with my feet and press my back against the other side during my contractions. I was having strong back labor, so that helped those contractions some. Once out of the tub, I tried moving around, but when a contraction would hit I would almost hit the floor, because I was having so much trouble standing. So, we decided that an epidural was the way to go. I had them check me one more time, deciding that if I'd made a lot of progress, I could forgo it, but I was still only at a 5. Once the epidural was in, I was great!
I labored like that for hours, and by 10pm, I was still only at an 8, and seemed to be slowing down. My doctor didn't think Emma was turned properly, but she was still high enough that she couldn't really tell. At this point, I was having so much pressure put on my bladder, that my urine was straight blood. The doc gave me one more hour, and said that after that if I hadn't went up any more we'd need to discuss a C-section. After the next hour I was still only at an 8, and I was less effaced than before. Therefore, they decided a c-section was the way to go. I was quickly prepared and we were taken to the OR.
Everything I was told about a CS was true! Once I was in there, I was shaking so bad, and I couldn't control it. My anesthesiologist sat by my head and tried to calm me down before Danny was allowed in the room. I was almost asleep before Danny came in due to my complete exhaustion. Danny came in and was so concerned with my shaking that it woke me right up again.
It took them about 15 minutes once they started the surgery to get her out. I really thought she was much bigger than she ended up being because they kept making comments about her being a big baby. She ended up only being 8lbs, 7oz and 19 inches long. She does have cute little chubby arms and legs, so that's probably why they thought she was so big. She went straight under the heating lamp to get cleaned off and then was promptly handed to Danny. Prior to him getting her, he took a picture with his cell phone and brought it over for me to see, so my first view of her was only a pic. Finally he brought her over and put her up against my cheek so I could give her a kiss, and then sat down next to me for a bit. It took quite a long time for them to sew me up, but once they were done, it was right back to the room so that I could finally hold her.
I nursed her and then she went right to sleep, and slept the rest of the night. We ended up staying in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon, and we were both very ready to be home. We then spent 2 full weeks doing nothing but sitting on the couch and watching movies. Emma was a great sleeper from the start as long as she was being held, so we lived in our basement until tonight (almost 6 weeks later) so that I could sit up on the reclining sofa and hold her and Danny slept on our guest mattress that we brought downstairs.
At this point, she is finally sleeping all night without being held, in her Froggy bouncy chair next to me. We are hoping she'll move into the pack and play tonight. She has had three nights in a row where she's slept at least 6 hours between feedings, and one of those nights she had another 4 hour stretch after her 6 hour one. I'm hoping we're getting closer to sleeping through the night, but as we've only had 3 nights of this, I won't get too used to it. She could still relapse back into sleeping only 1.5-2 hour stretches very easily.
Overall the birth experience was much better than I thought it would be. I had recently watched "The Business of Being Born" and was very worried about having a hospital birth. I was really worried that I would feel like the doctors didn't care about my hopes for the birth, but would make decisions that benefited them (as the documentary leads you to believe). Overall, I was incredibly happy with my experience. I felt very in control (at least in the sense of making decisions... God was the real and only one in control) and I felt like the doctors and nurses were trying their best to see to my wishes for the birth. I loved all of my nurses and my doctor! And, most importantly, we got our amazing little girl from it!!
The first pic I got to see
After her first bath!
No comments:
Post a Comment