Thought I'd start a thread so we can start sharing our birth stories...
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Okay, here's mine:
Thursday: I woke up and felt off. I got sick three times and felt dizzy and so I asked DH to stay home with me to help with DS. Continued feeling off all day and noticed my stomach dropping as day went on and lots of burning sensation on cervix when I waddled around. (exactly 36 weeks 6 days). While getting DS ready for bed, I was talking to DH in bathroom. All of a sudden, I felt a gush and looked down and noticed my pants were soaked. I must have had a freaked out look because DH starts panicking asking what's wrong. I told him I think my water broke. His response, "are you sure you didn't pee on yourself." Me, "hmm, let me sit on toilet because this isn't stopping." I then asked him to smell my pants to see if he thought it was pee or amniotic fluid. Yes, very sexy to have your husband smell your soaked pants. That's love. So, I convince myself, it's amniotic fluid. DH calls my friend who is going to watch DS. I call doctor and he tells me to come in to hospital, since based on past experience it is my water. My friend shows up, and we leave for hospital.We get to the hospital around 9 p.m. and are put right into a triage room. In triage they confirm my water broke and they are calling my doctor. They then tell me, if I can hold off for another hour, 37 weeks exactly, I can deliver without the NICU staff being on hand. Doctor checks me and I'm a loose 1. I get moved to L&D room around 10 p.m.. Things are fine, but having irregular contractions. My doctor arrives me and checks me again around 11 p.m.. Not much progress. I have to start Pitocin because of the chance of infection.
We start Pitocin and it gets bumped up every 15 minutes. Contractions hurt but are manageable. DH was excellent coach. The nurses then tell me if I want an epidural there is a line of 5 women ahead of me and to request sooner than I need it. So, after a couple hours laboring, I request epidural. It takes awhile to get epidural. At that time, I tell nurse I am having tons of pressure. She checks me and I'm 8 almost 9. Epidural is not working so contractions still hurt. Nurses call the doctor and he arrives in about 30 minutes. By time doctor arrives, I'm at a 10. Epidural still not working, so the nurse calls back anesthesiologist and they fix my epidural. Finally relief. Doctor has me practice pushing, first push sucks, OB coaches me on better way to push. He then has me try again. It's a good push. They break down the bed, two more pushes and baby girl, Darcy Evelyn joins us. She was born at 2:34 a.m. weighing 5 lbs 14 ozs and 19.5 inches.
The OB puts her on me and she latches on to feed right away. Nurse then takes her and cleans her while doctor finishes delivering my cervix and putting in stitches. Because she was born at exactly 37 weeks we skipped the NICU and she was able to stay with us and go home with us. She met big brother the next day and he loves her and is always asking if she needs a cuddle or kiss. We are very blessed and loving our family of 4.
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@BandDmommy: Ahhh, love your story!!!! It's crazy how quickly you had D after your water broke!! This makes me excited for my own upcoming birth!!
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@BandDmommy: aww, great story! Love your husband's role checking to see what exactly the fluid is.
and I love her name! Congrats!
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@BandDmommy: Love your birth story!
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@BandDmommy: Aww thanks for starting this thread - I love the birth stories!
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@BandDmommy: love birth stories! yours is getting me even more anxious!
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@BandDmommy: thanks for sharing and starting this up. I'm so glad your little girl didn't have to go to the nicu and your husband sounds awesome. Congrats
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LoL.. Delivering my placenta not cervix
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@BandDmommy: thanks for starting this thread and sharing yours! Sounds pretty perfect and so great to avoid the NICU.
I'm excited to write our story down soon while it's still fresh in my (sleep-deprived) mind
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Your stpr sounds wonderful! I cracked up @ DH smelling your pants...lol sounds just like us....lol
So thrilled for you there was no NICU stay! She is beautiful!
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@banddmommy: Congrats! I love her name, so pretty! I cracked up at the part where you had your DH smell your pants, I can totally picture my DH's reaction had I asked him to do that and it makes me laugh
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My birth story:
November 25th I went in for my 39 week check up. My dr. did another cervical check and I am still 3-1/2 cm dilated, 80% effaced, she really felt like I could go anytime, and really wanted to be the one to deliver me. While checking my cervix she stripped my membranes to encourage starting on my own. Baby is measuring at 38 weeks.
My dr. gave me the option to come in the next morning for an induction since she will only be available the next day, and the week of my due date would be out of state. I talked it over with DH and mom and we decided to go for it, also keeping in mind that we have an hour drive to the hospital and have to worry about snow/ice. Induction is scheduled for 7 am Nov. 26th. I am super nervous/excited at this point! The dr. stressed that I would be an easy induction because I was already so far along on my own.Wednesday on the way to the hospital I'm having contractions about 5 minutes apart so feel like today may have been the day regardless.
We arrive at admitting at 7:07 and are in the labor and delivery room by 7:25, contractions still about 5 minutes apart, 3-1/2 and 80% effaced. At 8:15 the Pitocin drip and IV is started. At 9:00 I am 5-6 cm dilated and contractions are 2-3 minutes apart and still painless, just a tightening. At 10:01 my dr. comes in and breaks my water. By 11:15 contractions "start to suck". At 11:45 I asked for the epidural and am 9 cm dilated. The contractions quickly went from a 5 pain to a 9/10. I was very glad to get the epidural at 12:06 and was left to 'labor down'.
**We did have a scare around 1:00 where baby's heartbeat was only reading at 50-60, the nurse tried switching sides but couldn't get a better reading so all of a sudden we had 7 nurses & the dr & I was on oxygen. Thank god when I was switched to my back to get ready to push the heartbeat again was reading right at 120-140 and the room again cleared out, absolutely terrifying but good to know they were ready if something did go wrong! They did shut off the Pitocin at this point as I was laboring fine on my own.**
My dr had me sit up and lean forward while laboring so that baby could drop some more. By 2:00 I was on my back and started to push, pushing 3 times / contraction. They had to direct me when to push as I couldn't feel the contractions at all. The dr. said I was a great pusher and made great progress but at contraction 5 they were getting concerned the baby was stressed so hooked up the vacuum. My husband and the baby nurse were great at letting me know how close I was. One more push and baby boy was born at 2:27 pm. Such an overwhelming/amazing feeling, both my husband and I were in tears. He was born weighing 7 lbs, 3 oz, and 20-1/2" long. At this point we're still debating between Ethan or Kipton for names...
Luckily I had an amazing epidural so I didn't feel anything, but I had some pretty bad tearing. I was so focused on our baby boy that none of that mattered though. (as everyone says).
My family had been waiting in the family room so once I was stitched up and the room was cleared we let them in to meet him. They stayed for just a half hour and then DH and I are alone to finally decide on a name, Ethan Michael.
Here is a photo of me and baby right after delivery... Thank god for a strong epidural!
And a photo of Ethan right before going home... We were able to check out 24 hours after delivery.
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@BandDmommy: great story!
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@josina: congratulations! He's beautiful.
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@josina: glad everything went smoothly! You look great and he's a handsome little guy!
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@josina: he is beautiful!!!! Congratulations
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@josina: so glad everything went well. He is so handsome!
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@josina: Dude you look amazing having just given birth and he is just adorable! Loved your birth story and so glad that everything went smoothly!! Congrats!!
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@josina: Wow, you look AMAZING for having just given birth! And baby Ethan is soooooo cute!! So glad to hear you had a fairly smooth delivery and the epidural was awesome for you!!
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Thanks everyone! Excited to hear everyone else's birth stories!
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HB ate my birth story...
So here it is again, but probably more condensed because I don't feel like typing the whole thing out all over again!
Friday night, I started feeling contractions around 6:00 p.m. We put Xander to bed and by 7:00, I was nervous that I was actually in labor, so I called my mom to have her come over just in case and I started timing my contractions. Right away, they were every 3 minutes and lasting 40 seconds to 1 minute. So while we waited for my mom to show up and I continued to time contractions, I finished packing everything for the hospital and got a bunch of Xander's stuff together in case my parents took him to their house (our house didn't have power).
My mom arrived and I called my OB to tell them about my contractions. I spoke to the midwife on call and she said that since I could still talk through them fine, there was no rush, but second babies come quicker, so to come when I was ready and I'd get checked out.
We got to the hospital around 9:30 and got into triage and I got checked out and was at 5-6 cm dilated already. So they moved us into a room, I got an IV for prednisone, blood taken to check my platelets, and fully admitted and I told them of my plans to go med-free since I couldn't get an epidural anyway.
Around midnight, I was in the jacuzzi tub. The contractions were definitely getting stronger and more painful and I asked Hubs if he remembered how much worse they were going to get, haha. He had no idea, of course! Around 2:00 a.m., I got out of the tub to pee and felt a slight gush and had some bloody show. The nurse thought my water probably ruptured, but didn't break completely. I got back into the tub and every contraction seemed to cause more of my water to leak out.
Around 3:00 a.m., I started feeling what was probably the urge to push, so I got out of the tub and got into the hospital bed. I got checked again and was 9 cm dilated. Not much longer, and I really needed to start pushing, so Hubs grabbed a leg, a nurse grabbed the other, and we got the show on the road. I was a total wuss and just kept saying "I can't I can't I can't" while pushing, but roughly 6 pushes and 10 minutes later, he was out!
Logan Matthew was born at 3:28 a.m. weighing 8 lbs 8 oz, was 20 inches long, and had a head circumference of 35 cm (Xander's head was 38 cm, so Logan came out a LOT easier). We immediately did skin to skin while I delivered the placenta and got a 2nd degree tear stitched up. Then he got cleaned up, weighed and measured, and I got a chance to nurse him!
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@Adira: Awesome birth story!!
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And a couple pics:
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@Adira: great story! I know that you didn't have a choice, but I'm still so impressed with your med-free births! Congrats
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@Adira: what an incredible birth! So quick and with no interventions. I'm jealous!!! He is lovely by the way. So happy for you
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@Adira: great story! He's so handsome! Congrats on going med-free!
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@whenoceansrise: @MrsF: @MrsMccarthy: @BandDmommy: Thank you ladies!! I'm proud of myself for going med-free (and even high-fived Hubs as soon as Logan was born, haha), but I think it helped that I didn't have much of an option and I also had a very easy labor and delivery, all things considering! Logan's head was a lot smaller than Xander's, so that made things MUCH easier!!!
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@Adira: congratulations!!! he is gorgeous!! what a great story! how come you didn't have a choice though? (just curious)
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@californiadreams: I have ITP, which is basically just a low platelet count. Your platelets need to be around 100,000 in order to get an epidural and mine were around 50,000 at the time! I couldn't gotten a few IV drugs, which is what I did last time with Xander, but I remember them not really helping that much, so I decided to just skip them so I could say I did it med-free, haha.
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@Adira: ah ok, well congrats on doing it!! very inspiring.
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@californiadreams: Thank you!
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Finally getting a minute to post baby Jack's birth story!
I was scheduled for an induction last monday (39 weeks) because I had been having high BPs throughout my last trimester and had developed pre-eclampsia requiring early induction with my daughter. DH and I left for the hospital early in the AM. My mom had come to stay the night before to take care of M.
We got checked in to L&D about 6am. They checked baby with a quick ultrasound to make sure he was head down and did a cervical check that showed I was 3cm. My BP wasn't too terrible so I didn't have to be on a magnesium drip (as I had with my daughter) - which I was VERY glad to hear. They started my IVs and did bloodwork and started Pitocin at about 9am. I was continuing to have lots of BH contractions, but it took a very high Pitocin dose to make them painful. I was still pretty comfortable around noon, even though I was having regular contractions, but my OB wanted the covering doc to break my water. They put in my epidural first, which was great, and broke my water around 2pm. Things escalated pretty quickly after that and as the contractions got stronger I could feel that my left leg was MUCH more numb than my right and I was having pain on my right abdomen and back during contraction. Anesthesia came back and gave me some extra meds in the epidural, but it didn't do much to help.
At about 5pm I realized I was in transition. I was starting to get shaky and nauseous. I didn't want to alarm DH (for some reason) so I didn't tell him something was happening but I kept yelling at him to eat his mac & cheese. When I started vomiting the nurses started bustling around saying that was a good sign that things were moving quickly. They had the resident come in and check my cervix and I was 8cm.
People had been telling me all day that even though my OB wasn't on call she was really hoping to come in to deliver Jack. We've been seeing each other 2 to 3 times / week for much of my pregnancy, so I was very touched by this! I started having pressure down low with each contraction and eventually realized that I better tell them that I was getting close if they were going to call her in. They checked me and said "you could have this baby right now or you can try to wait for Dr. P if you want". I told them I would see how it went and they called her to come in. She got there within about 10 minutes as the nurses got the room ready. They thought that waiting a few minutes and "laboring down" would make things easier anyway. As soon as Dr. P got there they got me ready to push. Less than 15 minutes of pushing later (I think it was closer to 10 minutes) and Jack was born at 6:54pm! He was 7lbs 11.5 oz and 19.5 inches. They put him right on my chest and I just remember saying "I love you! I love you! I love you!" as I held him. It took him a little bit to pink up, but his APGAR scores were 8 and 9, so it couldn't have been too long. DH cut the cord and Dr. P delivered the placenta and cleaned me up. The nurses helped me get him latched right away. I didn't have any tearing and we headed to postpartum pretty quickly. I was still vomiting for an hour or two, but still very happy!
I wouldn't change anything about my induction or birth experience. It was very different from M (which was special in its own way) because she had been premature and there were literally about 15 people in the room for the delivery. This time it was me, DH, my nurse and my OB. No drama and got my little boy in my arms quickly and safely
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@MrsF: What a great story!! It sounds like things went really smoothly for you! Sorry about the nausea though... That sounds awful! I had the shakes, but no vomiting. Congratulations again!!
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@MrsF: great story!
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@Adira: Thanks for sharing! I can't believe your contractions came out of nowhere and that strong!
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@MrsF: great story! a little teary here
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@winniebee: I know!! I couldn't believe it either!!
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@Adira: Whoa! I missed you had him! Congrats!!! Love the name.
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Wed 8-10pm
When my induction is scheduled for at 39 weeks exactly. Busy night in L&D; waited 2 hrs to be admitted! I assumed we were low priority since I wasn't in labor.Wed 10pm-12am
Keep being passed off to diff people to be checked, monitored, etc... Got a room NOT on the L&D floor. Was told I'd move there once I'm in labor since it can take a whileThurs 1-9am
I think that's when my induction officially started. Had 2 dose of vaginal meds to ripen cervix during this time. Resulted in zero dilation still.Thurs 10am
I has been having erratic heartrate here and there. They suspect induction is stressing her out. At one point it went really low and wasn't coming back up. Suddenly a million ppl rushed into our room and I got wheeled to the OR to prep for emergency csection while DH scrambles to get our stuff and follow. Thankfully she ended up stablizing but I started to be monitored very closely.Thurs afternoon
They were checking me to see if they should try a 3rd dose. But they were concerned about the stress on the baby. At that point I was going to get sent home or have a csection. Lo & behold, I was suddenly (or finally really) at 3cm! The world rejoiced and I got my epidural and started on pitocin.Thurs afternoon/evening
They checked me twice and I was at 4cm and then 6cm. Got a booster epi at some point. I started to feel pressure though and when they checked I was 9.5! I pushed for almost 2 hrs.. At this point, I had been in the hospital for so long without food or water (just iv fluids). I was so exhausted so I think that contributed to the king time I had to spend pushing. In the end they use the suction cup on her head to help me out. I had to get cut a bit also. The end was uncomfortable as I had the epi wear off just enough so I could feel the pressure to push. Once her head kinda came out I was in limbo! That relief when I pushed her out is indescribable! I still can't really believe I actually did it and gave birth!
and I love her name! Congrats!
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