Birth story - the SHORT version.
We went in for an induction on Tuesday evening October 28th. We checked into the hospital at 6 PM. To start with, my Cervix was so far posterior that my dr could not reach it to check me. So, based on my check up last week, we started with Cytotec.
At 10 PM when it would have been time for the 2nd dose, they put me on the monitors. The baby's heart rate was running between 180 and 190 and I was having some contractions. So they decided not to give me a 2nd dose at that time and told us to try to get some sleep.
At 5 AM, my nurse came in to put me on the monitor. I was having contractions every 3 min that were lasting 1 min long each and they were at a pain level where I was having to focus through them. The nurse checked and said she thought I was 2 ½ cm and 60% effaced! We went back to trying to sleep for a couple more hours.
By 7:00, when they put me on the monitor again, ctx had spaced out to about 5 min apart and by 8 AM they had pretty much stopped. At 9:00, my dr came back to check on me. He said I was barely 2 cm and 50% effaced. I guess the other nurse had been optimistic when she said I was 2 ½. He decided to give me a 2nd dose of Cytotec. This time they only made me stay laying down for 45 min, then Thad and I started walking the halls.
4 hours later, (1 PM) we started pitocin. Once they started the pitocin, I had to stay in my hospital bed on the monitors except for trips to the bathroom. After several hours, Ctx were strong enough I was having to focus through them again and they were 3 min apart, but still no cervical change, so they brought me a dinner tray.
I told Thad after dinner I was going to get an epi so I could sleep since I had now been awake for about 36 hours straight. I finished dinner, called and chatted with my mom for a few min...then right when I hung up the phone, ctx changed to 1 right on top of another and went way up in the pain level. The next one would start before the previous one would end. After about 6 of them in a row, I paged the nurse and said I was ready for an epi. She came in to check me...still the same. A “tight 2”. Once the epi was in, I was finally ready to rest. I rested until about 6:30 when my dr came in to check on me. He checked and said I was 2 ½ and he could stretch it to a 3! I had finally made some progress! Yeah! He had said earlier that he wouldn't break my water until I was a 4. I took this opportunity to remind him that with my sons birth, I was 3 cm the entire day until they broke my water and then he was born 3 hours later. So, he decided to go ahead and break my water and see if that would get things going. Then he left me to try to rest and said he would be back in 2 hours.
2 hours later (9:00 PM), he came back and checked and I was still just short of 3 cm. At this point, he decided he wanted to use the internal monitors. So they put a wire on dd's head to monitor her heart, and then he put an internal ctx moniter inside my uterus! Let me just say, I was very glad to be on an epidural at this point! The ctx monitor had to go through my cervix and around the babys head up into my actual uterus.
The nurse stayed in the room to watch the monitors and we turned all the lights off to try to get some rest. After about an hour, the nurse got the C N A and suddenly they were trying to turn me onto my left side. I guess there was some cord compression and the baby's heart beat was dropping. They said they were just going to give me a few min and if it didn't get better then they were going to put me on oxygen. As soon as I was on my left side, instantly my epidural stopped working and suddenly I could feel everything again. I was panting and breathing through contractions and begging to be allowed to change positions. Then I thought that maybe if I went to the bathroom it would take some pressure off since I hadn't gone since dinner time when I got the epi. They brought me a bed pan to use and when I was done and scooted off of it, I instantly got that intense urge to push. I told the nurse “I NEET TO PUSH NOW!” She checked, and sure enough I was a 10. They let me sit back up and told me to not push because I had to wait for the dr. So I had to pant or blow or whatever I could to try to keep my body from pushing this baby out when there was no one there to catch her.
The dr arrived pretty quickly (thank God!) but told me to not push until everything was set up because my last baby was pushed out so fast. He got everything ready and I was finally ready to push. The first contraction I moved her down quite a bit. The 2nd contraction she crowned. The 3rd contraction he didn't want me to push to try to minimize tearing. The 4th contraction I had her out. Her cord was really short and had already stopped pulsing, so he had to hold her just barely out of me while Thad cut the cord before they could hand her to me. She started screaming and didn't stop for the next 3 hours! Thad and I both thought she was the most beautiful baby ever when she came out and she is even more beautiful now that she is all cleaned up!
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