Hellobee Boards

@glitterboots: Woah!! Big girl! Congrats!! She's beautiful!

@DenverMom: Congratulations! She is beautiful!

Agh lack of sleep got to me. She was 8 lbs 12 oz. She's nursing like a champ and I nursed almost hourly from 11 am Tuesday until 11 am Wednesday morning!

@glitterboots: Haha, 8 lbs, 10 lbs... Close enough! Congrats mama!!

@Corduroy: WOW! Congratulations!!!

@Corduroy: @merriment: congratulations, ladies!

@Corduroy: wow, that sounds like a great birth experience! Glad you are feeling well!

@merriment: congratulations!

@merriment: congrats! Andrew's a great name. It was a top contender for us, but my SIL's sister named her son that.

So I'm super late but I've been a little busy....with my beautiful baby girl, born on 5/31/15! I'll come back and post the labor story when I get a chance, but the short version is 2 days of false labor -> woke up to contractions 2 min apart -> pushed for 3 hrs at the hospital -> baby stuck in pelvis, had to have an unplanned C-section. Baby Caelyn and I are doing well, although recovery from a c-section is no fun. Will update and add a pic later.

Ok, I'm going to try to get the whole story out while little one is napping. I had my 39 week check on 5/28 and was 3 cm dilated at that time. I had a feeling that the baby was going to arrive that weekend, even though I had nothing to base that on but my gut. The day after my last check, my bloody show started (Friday). That went on for about 24 hours and brought with it day 1 of false labor. I had mild to moderate contractions all day and all night, ranging from 4 minutes between to 10+ minutes between, and sometimes stopping for a couple hours before starting again. I was pretty miserable because I couldn't sleep and they weren't getting any more consistent, so I knew it wasn't the real deal yet. False labor continued the next day, all day just like before. I went to bed around 1am, feeling frustrated that nothing was happening and praying that I could get a break from the false labor just so I could sleep.

I woke up around 3:30am with a horrendous cramp in my stomach, bad enough to send me hurtling out of bed with some choice words. A couple minutes later another one hit, and I suddenly realized this was labor. I started timing contractions and found they were only 2-3 min apart. I waited about 45 minutes to make sure they weren't going to fade out before waking my husband up and calling the after hours nurse line to let them know we were on our way. My husband drove like a bat out of hell and made the 45 minute drive in about 30 min (thank God for empty streets at 4am). We had to get buzzed into the hospital because the lobby doors are locked after a certain hour and the valet service doesn't run all night, so my hubby had to leave my car sitting there unlocked while he rushed me up to labor and delivery, then rushed back down to park and come back in.

I got checked in around 4:45am and was shocked to find I was only 4 cm dilated. With the speed of the contractions, I thought I must be a lot closer to transition. They didn't have to ask twice if I wanted an epidural, since the contractions never got more than 2-3 min apart and I couldn't catch my breath or relax my muscles in between. The epi was hard to get - I had to sit through at least two contractions without moving and they made my husband stand across the room where he couldn't help - but once it kicked in, it was wonderful. We were both able to take a nap while waiting for me to dilate. A couple hours later, the on-call OB checked me and suggested pitocin, since I had only progressed a small amount in a few hours. I asked to wait a little longer, because pit has always scared me and I didn't want to trigger the whole cascade of interventions thing....which ended up being moot. The OB was very nice and understanding and let me wait it out a couple more hours before suggesting it again, since I hadn't progressed at all. They put me on a very low drip, which was all I needed to go from 6cm to 10 in just a few hours. Around 1pm, the doctor said I could start pushing and had the nurse do some practice pushes with me. He said I would likely be pushing for 1-2 hours as a first timer and having an epi, and that if it went longer than 2 hours we would talk about other options.

So I started pushing....and pushed, and pushed, and pushed. At the 2 hour mark, pushing every 2-3 minutes nonstop, the doctor checked me and asked if I wanted to consider a forceps assisted delivery. I did not want forceps anywhere near me so I said I wanted to try a little longer. After another half hour, I was so exhausted that I told the nurse I wanted to talk to the doctor again because I didn't know how much longer I could keep it up. In between all this, it took two nurses and one doctor to get me catheterized, which was painful, and I could feel my lady parts swelling to the point of throbbing, even with the epi. I don't think the nurse believed me until the doc came in and the first thing he said was "Oh you poor thing, you are so swollen." At that point, at 3 hours of pushing, he very kindly told me that forceps were not a good option at that point and that the baby appeared to be stuck behind my pubic bone. She hadn't moved at all after 3 hours of pushing, and he felt that the only way she was coming out was via c-section. I cried, my husband cried, the doctor almost cried, but in the end it was the only option.

The c-section itself was tricky because of where Caelyn was positioned, and I reacted badly to the stronger epidural - shaking uncontrollably, throwing up, etc - but baby girl never went into any kind of distress. My poor husband was amazing, an absolute rock of support for me, even though it was incredibly hard for him to watch. When they finally got her out, Caelyn was 8 lb 8 oz - a full pound bigger than they expected her to be! I could hardly keep my eyes open from all the drugs in my body to see her, but once we got into the recovery room around 7pm, I woke up enough to see and hold her for a little while. They gave me Dilaudid for pain the first night and apparently I said some ridiculous things (they made sense in my head at the time), and from then on it was just recovering, learning to breastfeed, and fielding visits from family. We came home after 4 days in the hospital and are slowly developing something of a routine. And to wrap up my novel, here is a pic of my little peanut.

@badwolf: I was shaking uncontrollably during my c-section too and I threw up in the OR while they were prepping the sterile field!

Amelia "Millie" Caroline was born fast and furiously last night. Contractions began around 2:00pm. They quickly progressed from 7:00 minutes a part lasting 30 seconds to 3:00 minutes a part to 2:00 minutes apart lasting 1.5 minutes by 5:00. We arrived at the hospital at 5:30 to find that I was already 8 cm dilated, 100% effaced and +1/2 station. I was already in transition!! At 7:15 the midwife asked me to try and pee and as soon as I sat on the toilet my body started pushing. I pushed for an hour and 45 minutes and Millie came at 8:45 pm with her hand by her face weighing 9lbs, 8.5 oz. I had some tearing because of her position, and getting sown up was awful.

Millie was having to put a ton of effort into breathing, so they took her for observation. They decided to admit her to te special care nursery at 3:00 and start her on a 48 hour course of antibiotics because they were nervous that I only got 1 round of antibiotics for GBS and her numbers had increased. They did a chest X-ray which showed what they call "wet/heavy lung" which isn't a huge deal. They expect the cultures to come back normal. I'm hoping we breathing will slow enough tonight, so that I can start nursing her. I've been pumping and they've been giving her colostrum via syringe.

@MamaB: oh my goodness!! So excited for y'all! That picture is beautiful!

@MamaB: congratulations!!!! Wow, what a fast labor indeed! My first was born with her hand on her head as well! As if it isn't hard enough to birth a head on its own, lol! You have my sympathy!

@badwolf: @MamaB: Congrats!!!!

Is everyone else getting newborn photos? Or are you taking your own? I'd love to see them! Maybe we should make a postpartum thread?

@78h2o: OMG love!! I convinced DH to splurge for them so I'm excited to get them done.