Birth Story

Introducing:

Nathaniel Louis

August 25th, 2009 @ 9:47pm

7lbs, 15oz

20.5 inches

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Birth Story Below: WARNING, medical/"labor" info you may not care to read ;-)

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He's here! I was induced on August 25th which was also my EDD.

We had to call L&D that morning to find out when we were supposed to come in. We finally got the all clear to come in around 10:30am CST but when we got there we still had to wait until 11am to get our room.

Once in there it took a while to get my IV in, they had to try twice before getting it so the pitocin wasn't started until 11:30ish that morning.

They checked my cervix around noon and it was 2 and 1/2 cm, very effaced but very posterior. BTW, I thought I'd had my cervix checked before but OMG this was the most painful thing I'd ever experienced. Nathan's head was in the way and to get around it I think the doctor ripped me in half. I couldn't believe how bad the pain was!

After the evil cervix doctor left, my contractions started going and were getting very close together but they were painless for quite a while. They upped my dosage to 8 around 3pm right after they broke my water (I'd advanced to 4cm by that time) and that was when I finally started to feel something. After about a half hour of that I went ahead and asked for the epidural. It took another hour or so for the guy to get there, so that was placed around 5pm. The contractions were a lot stronger but I could still talk through them.

My epidural was easy -- very painless to get, I HIGHLY recommend it! Once I got the epidural they upped my pitocin to 10 but when they checked me an hour later I was still only 4cm dilated.

The same evil cervix doctor decided to place a monitor inside to check the strength of the contractions. An hour later my nurse wasn't sure how well it was working or if it had been placed correctly so she found another doctor to redo it. The doctor then found that I was 9cm! 4 to 9 in an hour! I couldn't believe it. I'd been worried I was going to stall at 4cm.

After that they went ahead and let my doctor know (she was on call but not at the hospital) and then decided to let me labor down for a while. It took forever for my doctor to get there so when she finally did around 9pm we were given the all clear to start to push.

The nurse and my mom held my legs while Caleb held my head. I couldn't believe how hard it was to keep from using your face! He just provided some pressure on my forehead which really seemed to help, but I still ended up with a rash from it the next day. It went away pretty quickly though. I started pushing from 9:15ish and by the time 9:30 (I think, I wasn’t paying too much attention to the time) rolled around the nurse was calling for the doctor who had disappeared again! I guess she figured, first baby, I’d be pushing for at least an hour. At one point the nurse called for ANY doctor otherwise she’d be delivering the baby herself!

My doctor did show up just in time and at 9:47pm Nathaniel Louis was born! I was able to have him placed right on my chest for a few minutes before they took him to clean him up and give him the vitamin k shot. We did get to wait an hour before we put the eye drops in and they also did the cord blood collection for donation.

Overall I think it went well. I didn’t have a huge idea on birth plan, I just figured I’d get the epidural and as long as the baby was healthy, I’d be happy. I knew I wanted to donate the cord blood as well as wait for the eye drops until after the initial bonding time, but other than that I didn’t have a set plan.

I did tear a little bit, but I haven’t had too much pain with the healing process. One of my tears caused me to have the catheter in place until morning. It was nice not having to get up!

Anyway, that was my experience … again, I love epidurals! ;-)