L&D
when i think of my "labor story" i cringe for the most part. obviously any mother wouldn't want to feel that when thinking of the home stretch leading up to the best day of her life so in hopes to give myself some therapy, i'll write it out because writing is therapeutic for me, obviously (:
I was induced at 39 weeks, 6 days (Tuesday night) and I had him at 40 weeks 1 day (Friday morning), I was in labor for 2 1/2 days. The first night was easy. instead of using Pitocin, they used less harsh methods of starting labor. I'm not sure of all the names since they used gels and strings behind my cervix to ripen it and eventually breaking my water with a sharp stick (medical, not from outside; don't worry). lots of my friends said that when they had their water broken it was so painful opposed to it being painless when breaking on its own. mine didn't hurt at all, i didn't even know she did it aside from sitting in a puddle lol My Doctor was Dr. Shelly Messer with Oasis OBGYN. She was a great doctor but I was very upset that she wasn't going to be my delivering doctor. I found out the night before i had Kamden that she had to leave for a vacation. Instead, my delivering Doctor was Dr. Eric Hazelrigg with Comprehensive Women's Healthcare because he was on call. I didn't get to know him at all and was very uncomfortable with a guy being my delivering Doctor. He seemed very impatient and wanted to get the birth over with...My water was broken two days into laboring by Dr. Messer and Pitocin was started. I was also given penicillin because I tested positive for group B strep (totally common and not an STD ;)). the penicillin was like FIRE going into my vein and I could have fucking screamed!! excuse my french. i asked the nurses to dilute it and get me an ice pack to hold on my IV site until the bag was done. it was AWFUL and I had to have multiple bags of it because the group B strep can be passed to the baby when coming through the birth canal and taking its first breath. Fast forward to late Thursday night to 7cm... I didn't get the epidural until I reached 7cm and the only reason I did was because the nurse said I should because it was going to get worse... NOTE TO SELF: listen to your own body, not the medical professionals who you're told to trust. I hadn't asked for any pain meds so far because the contractions truly weren't that bad... they were like a bad period cramp which i've had more than a thousand times so I didn't need to mask that pain. I ended up getting the epidural because of the medical staffs advise but that quickly proved to be pointless. THE EPIDURAL DIDNT WORK. they redid it a second time but that didn't work either. they had the head of anesthesiology come in and explain to me that they don't do epidurals after 8cm because labor usually progresses pretty fast from there but since the other two hadn't worked they were going to give it a THIRD shot... FAIL. The third one was miserable because I was contracting with no let down between contractions and throwing up from the anxiety!! it was a nightmare that none of the epidurals worked and I wasn't progressing past 8cm fast enough AND Kamden was already in my birth canal. Each time the nurses checked my dilation they said "WOW I can feel how much hair he has!"... Cool but awkward while their examining my vagina. With my labor being so long already and my uterus being angry because it was not resting between contractions (there was no "let down" so the poor girl <--my uterus-- just kept trying to squeeze Kam out), they suggested a C-Section before any complications arose for Kamden or myself. I was devastated. I HAD A BIRTH PLAN AND EVERYTHING!!!! That all went out the window because low and behold, none of this was my plan and surely wasn't in my control. After talking it over and bawling my eyes out to my dad and Deke, they assured me that I wasn't weak or giving up by agreeing to the C-Section. I was heartbroken for a few reasons: I wasn't going to get to experience a vaginal birth like every mother is intend to do, I wasn't going to be able to pull my baby out of my vagina myself which my Doctor said I could do, and I was going to have a long road of recovery ahead with a major surgery to my abdomen. I was so scared that if I kept laboring that Kamden would be affected negatively so I went ahead with the C-Section. At this point they had the anesthesiologist come back in and give me a full spinal numbing so we could proceed with the C-Section. The medicine kicked in and i was able to relax for about 20 minutes and then I started feeling all the contractions again!! by this time we were wheeling over to the operating room and I was starting to freak out because I COULD STILL FEEL EVERYTHING. They kept saying it was normal and the numbing would kick in soon. It never did and I felt them cutting me and pulling him out of me. I was kicking my feet and pulling my legs up toward my chest and the nurses on the other side of the drape kept telling me that i had to stay still (AS IF THAT WAS FUCKING POSSIBLE...) and then held my legs down. WHY COULD I MOVE MY LEGS?! I'll never know and I don't think I will ever understand fully what happened besides the medical schpeel that i metabolized the medicine too fast. The only way I could stay focused on not feeling like I was going to die was to talk to the Doctor and tell him to tell me what he was doing as he did it so I could know that the end was getting nearer and nearer. I counted the staples as they stapled my uterus up, 12. Dr. Hazelrigg said "wow look at this uterus" in regards to how overly exhausted it was (you could see the "wear and tear" on it so to speak.. google it lol) I'm glad they made my incision short for scaring but that made for an EXCRUCIATINGLY painful time trying to get my 7lb 15oz kid out of a tiny whole in my stomach while feeling the entire thing. Basically it was the most horrific birthing experience ever and it breaks my heart because every woman deserves to have a vaginal delivery and a happy delivery at that. I am proud to say I survived the odds of that awful experience and have THE MOST PERFECT baby boy to show for it!! He was happy and healthy and came out screaming :)I found this article very interesting on the statistics of C-Section vs. vaginal deliveries in todays world--->http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2011/02/cesareans-and-induced-births-who-is-choosing-these-procedures-and-why-part-2/
Thanks to Deke, here is the first moment I got to hold my baby boy
This is the only photo that we have of the 3 of us from the entire hospital stay. The nurse was obviously a professional photographer...
xoxoxo
I was induced at 39 weeks, 6 days (Tuesday night) and I had him at 40 weeks 1 day (Friday morning), I was in labor for 2 1/2 days. The first night was easy. instead of using Pitocin, they used less harsh methods of starting labor. I'm not sure of all the names since they used gels and strings behind my cervix to ripen it and eventually breaking my water with a sharp stick (medical, not from outside; don't worry). lots of my friends said that when they had their water broken it was so painful opposed to it being painless when breaking on its own. mine didn't hurt at all, i didn't even know she did it aside from sitting in a puddle lol My Doctor was Dr. Shelly Messer with Oasis OBGYN. She was a great doctor but I was very upset that she wasn't going to be my delivering doctor. I found out the night before i had Kamden that she had to leave for a vacation. Instead, my delivering Doctor was Dr. Eric Hazelrigg with Comprehensive Women's Healthcare because he was on call. I didn't get to know him at all and was very uncomfortable with a guy being my delivering Doctor. He seemed very impatient and wanted to get the birth over with...My water was broken two days into laboring by Dr. Messer and Pitocin was started. I was also given penicillin because I tested positive for group B strep (totally common and not an STD ;)). the penicillin was like FIRE going into my vein and I could have fucking screamed!! excuse my french. i asked the nurses to dilute it and get me an ice pack to hold on my IV site until the bag was done. it was AWFUL and I had to have multiple bags of it because the group B strep can be passed to the baby when coming through the birth canal and taking its first breath. Fast forward to late Thursday night to 7cm... I didn't get the epidural until I reached 7cm and the only reason I did was because the nurse said I should because it was going to get worse... NOTE TO SELF: listen to your own body, not the medical professionals who you're told to trust. I hadn't asked for any pain meds so far because the contractions truly weren't that bad... they were like a bad period cramp which i've had more than a thousand times so I didn't need to mask that pain. I ended up getting the epidural because of the medical staffs advise but that quickly proved to be pointless. THE EPIDURAL DIDNT WORK. they redid it a second time but that didn't work either. they had the head of anesthesiology come in and explain to me that they don't do epidurals after 8cm because labor usually progresses pretty fast from there but since the other two hadn't worked they were going to give it a THIRD shot... FAIL. The third one was miserable because I was contracting with no let down between contractions and throwing up from the anxiety!! it was a nightmare that none of the epidurals worked and I wasn't progressing past 8cm fast enough AND Kamden was already in my birth canal. Each time the nurses checked my dilation they said "WOW I can feel how much hair he has!"... Cool but awkward while their examining my vagina. With my labor being so long already and my uterus being angry because it was not resting between contractions (there was no "let down" so the poor girl <--my uterus-- just kept trying to squeeze Kam out), they suggested a C-Section before any complications arose for Kamden or myself. I was devastated. I HAD A BIRTH PLAN AND EVERYTHING!!!! That all went out the window because low and behold, none of this was my plan and surely wasn't in my control. After talking it over and bawling my eyes out to my dad and Deke, they assured me that I wasn't weak or giving up by agreeing to the C-Section. I was heartbroken for a few reasons: I wasn't going to get to experience a vaginal birth like every mother is intend to do, I wasn't going to be able to pull my baby out of my vagina myself which my Doctor said I could do, and I was going to have a long road of recovery ahead with a major surgery to my abdomen. I was so scared that if I kept laboring that Kamden would be affected negatively so I went ahead with the C-Section. At this point they had the anesthesiologist come back in and give me a full spinal numbing so we could proceed with the C-Section. The medicine kicked in and i was able to relax for about 20 minutes and then I started feeling all the contractions again!! by this time we were wheeling over to the operating room and I was starting to freak out because I COULD STILL FEEL EVERYTHING. They kept saying it was normal and the numbing would kick in soon. It never did and I felt them cutting me and pulling him out of me. I was kicking my feet and pulling my legs up toward my chest and the nurses on the other side of the drape kept telling me that i had to stay still (AS IF THAT WAS FUCKING POSSIBLE...) and then held my legs down. WHY COULD I MOVE MY LEGS?! I'll never know and I don't think I will ever understand fully what happened besides the medical schpeel that i metabolized the medicine too fast. The only way I could stay focused on not feeling like I was going to die was to talk to the Doctor and tell him to tell me what he was doing as he did it so I could know that the end was getting nearer and nearer. I counted the staples as they stapled my uterus up, 12. Dr. Hazelrigg said "wow look at this uterus" in regards to how overly exhausted it was (you could see the "wear and tear" on it so to speak.. google it lol) I'm glad they made my incision short for scaring but that made for an EXCRUCIATINGLY painful time trying to get my 7lb 15oz kid out of a tiny whole in my stomach while feeling the entire thing. Basically it was the most horrific birthing experience ever and it breaks my heart because every woman deserves to have a vaginal delivery and a happy delivery at that. I am proud to say I survived the odds of that awful experience and have THE MOST PERFECT baby boy to show for it!! He was happy and healthy and came out screaming :)I found this article very interesting on the statistics of C-Section vs. vaginal deliveries in todays world--->http://www.healthbeatblog.com/2011/02/cesareans-and-induced-births-who-is-choosing-these-procedures-and-why-part-2/
Thanks to Deke, here is the first moment I got to hold my baby boy
xoxoxo
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