Labor & Delivery

Tuesday November 8th, I went out the dinner with some family to Sweet Tomatoes, one of my favorite places to go. I had been up since 4am that morning not able to sleep so I just got up and got ready for the day so I was ready to go home and crash after dinner. When I left home, I was having contractions but they were sporadic and not very consistent. During dinner, my back started hurting and I was noticing they were about 30 minutes apart. So I sat through my dinner while my sister rubbed my lower back for me.... we got home from dinner around 9ish and I changed into my pajamas and planned to just take it easy on the couch and watch the news before bed. As I sat down on the couch I had a contraction and as soon as I laid my head down I was out only to be woken up 15 minutes later by a killer contraction that sent me leaping off the couch and feeling like I was about to pee my pants. So I headed to the bathroom and noticed some bleeding that caused some concern. So I called my doctor and told her about this and that my contractions were about 15 minutes apart. She advised me to come in and told me that she was going to keep me since I was overdue 5 days already and was set to be induced just days later.....

Fast Forward to about 10:15pm, we arrived at Copley through the ER and enjoyed a fast paced wheel chair ride to labor & delivery thanks to the nurse who was walking rather quickly, Dennis and my sister had a hard time keeping up. I got registered, put in a room and was ready to go.

I was already dilated to a 3 and was pretty well effaced with contractions about 3 minutes apart at this point. At 11pm the Dr was called and I was told that if I had not made any progress by 4am they would start me on pitocin. The Dr came in to break my water when I was dilated to a 4, I think somewhere around 2am or so..... 4am came and went and we didn't need the pitocin at this point as my body was doing what it was supposed to do. Guess I will throw in here that it took 3 nurses and the anesthesiologist to get my IV going as I had my veins blown 5 times before the called in the professional who had to put the IV in, in the middle of my arm.

5:30 am....pain from the contractions was starting to get unmanageable so I asked for an epidural. As soon as that was in we turned off the lights for a nap...well everyone else napped but me. I was relaxed but unable to sleep, who would at this point with all the excitement. I was super comfy and warm though!

The rest of the labor and delivery is kind of a blur from here....I remember the Dr coming in around 7am before her shift was over to check me and I was an 8 at this point....I remember sort of dozing off and walking up to feeling the baby move down lower than she had been. I didn't feel pressure like everyone says you will I just remember it feeling weird. So they called the Dr in to check and I was already at a 10. So my nurse did some practice pushes with me and 30 minutes later at 11:03am on November 9th Lydia Kate was born weighing 8lbs 7oz, a complete shock that I had just given birth to such a big baby! I didn't get to hold her right away because the cord was around her neck and I needed to get stitched up which then led to about an hour of shaking from me so profusely that my sister said my lips turned blue and I had 5 heated blankets on me and 3 people rubbing my legs and my grandmother draped over me trying to get me warm and to get the shaking to stop. Turns out I had a fever and my white blood cell count was high, later to find out I had corioamnititis, an infection in my placenta which was caused from labor.

As a result of this, I was put on antibiotics and kept for three days. Lydia was monitored and was found to be ok, just jaundiced.

That's my labor and delivery story and I would totally do it all over again! Even though I was up for 36 hours straight and don't really remember the few visitors we had the evening being there, I spent most of that night holding Lydia and just staring at her like I was dreaming.