Wow... it has been a loooong time since I have had a chance to update this blog! This entry will be the birth story... I warn you now, if you don't like the visual of things like bloody show, mucus plug, cervix, VAGINA then this entry is NOT for you cuz sorry, but child birth is NASTY and so is this story =) You've been warned...
The story begins on December 29th. Wilbur still had shown up. At my appointment the week before, I was dialted to 1 cm and 50% effaced and I had not progressed anymore from the previous week. The doctor decided to strip my membranes and then stretched me to 2 cm and scheduled my induction for the following Tuesday. After she stripped my membranes she told me that that could cause me to go into labor at any time. Yeah, not so much.
Ehee and I arrived promptly at 8 am to begin the induction (which was actually scheduled for 7:45 am). I was put in a room, told to get undressed and the doctor would be in shortly. SOOOO, about an hour later, in comes the doctor to check me. They want to see how far I have progressed since my last appointment because that will determine how they induce me. They check. No progress... as a matter of fact, I actually went BACK to being 1 cm dialted. Who does that? The doctor told us that they couldn't put me on the pitocin until my cervix was ready, so they had to make it dialate. They inserted a little pill or something on it and told me it would cause contractions and in four hours they would check to see if I had dialted. Four hours came and went and NOPE, no change. So, they inserted another one... four hours came and went again, and NOPE, no change!!
The doctor told me I could keep having the pill inserted, but at this point they wanted to insert this little tube into my cervix. At the end of the tube was a balloon that they would fill with water. They would then come in every hour or so and pull it a little and this would manually dialate me to four cm. Once I reached four cm, it would fall out and I would be ready to start the pitocin. Of course, this evil little tube would cause much worse cramping and contractions, but it would be faster than the stupid pills. So, I went for it. Please keep in mind I am now 8 hours into being induced, having contractions every few minutes, but nothing is happening down there. I was ready for it to be OVER. So at about 7 pm, they inserted that evil little tube. Not fun. I won't get into all the details, but let's just say when I hit four cm, the tube did NOT fall out and instead there was a lot of blood and I thought I was going to die and the nurse had no idea what was going on and its only thanks to the doctor that they realized I had finally dialted to four cm and was ready to be put on the pitocin. So, at 11 pm the doctor comes in ready to start the pitocin. At this time, I also got the epidural because I knew I would need to sleep at some point if I was going to push this sucker out. Ahhhh.. that is the final comfortable moment I would have.
At about 5 am on December 30th, another doctor came in and hooray... I was finally dialated to eight cm and was almost fully effaced. The doctor said he was going to break my water and once it was broken, and I quote "this is going to go really fast now!" Ehee asked if he could run to Starbucks to get coffee before I would start pushing and the doctor said NO. Once the water was broken it would be ANY MINUTE. So, the doctor tries to break my water. Didn't happen. He asks the nurse for a new set of tools. Still nothing. Apparently instead of a water bag, I had a leather satchel and it was NOT breaking. It took almost 15 minutes and it was NOT comfortable. He basically had to get those knives they advertise on tv that can saw through nails to break my water. Ginzu knives!
So an hour later the doctor comes in to check on me. I am having contractions every minute and they are thinking I am going to be ready to go. Can you guess what happened? Well, one side of my cervix was fully dialated, and the other side was still at an eight. An hour later they came back again, same thing; contractions every minute, no progress on one side. Apparently even though I am having contractions every minute, they are useless. They came in to insert a monitor to measure the contractions and see why they weren't working because the external monitor was telling them nothing. Unfortunately, the lady who put it in didn't put it in correctly and an hour later they had to re-do it. The reason I tell you this is because I believe that lady is the reason the NEXT thing happened.
Another hour went by and they came back to check me yet again and I had a fever. Not only that, but my cervix had actually begun to swell and I was back to 8 cm all around. Infection! YAY!! I blame the idiots who kept INSERTING their hands and tools in me over and over and over, hence why the part above is important. So anyway, they took me to the carving station, re-drugged me, pinned me down and began to cut this stubborn baby out. Of course, they didn't realize how big this baby was... they had predicted between 8 and 9 lbs. He was bigger. They started having issues getting him out because he was bigger than expected. Ehee swears that at one point he looked up and saw a small Asian woman jumping up and down on my chest trying to push him out.
Finally, I feel a lot of pressure and then a release; and then the sound we had been waiting for... the cry! Of course, it didn't sound like a newborn cry, it sounded like a 12 year old crying. They call Ehee over to take a look and to get the weight on video... 10 lbs 1.2 oz! No wonder I had stretch marks on my chest from this kid!
Unfortunately at this time, things took a turn for the worse for me. They couldn't stop the bleeding from my uterus. Apparently when you start to lose a lot of blood, your heart rate speeds up to compensate so all of the sudden, Ehee hears my heart monitor start speeding up and the doctors getting more serious. He comes over to me and the next thing I know he is slapping me in the face! He thinks the reason I am shaking and my eyes are rolling in the back of my head is because I am dying... he doesn't realize that the reason I am shaking is because of the epidural and my eyes are rolling because they gave me a super duper pain killer! So I am trying to rest and closing my eyes and this fool is yelling at me and slapping me in the face. I tried to tell him that if the doctors didn't want my eyes closed, THEY would tell me to keep them open, but I think it sounded something like....sdigodfgi aisodgh aiohig aoishdg hoasidgh. The doctors obviously started getting annoyed with Ehee's presence in the room, so they handed him the baby and made him go stand in the hall, WHICH, if I would have been in my right mind I would NOT have allowed because Ehee looked like he was about to pass out!
Finally, I was sewn up. They gave me another main line IV in my arm to pump me full of fluids to help my blood volume and they started talking about getting me a transfusion, but all I was focused on was seeing the baby. I still hadn't seen him! They put a bundle of blankets with the baby on my hospital bed to wheel me back to my room, but again, I still couldn't see him. When they got me back to the room, they immediately took him and put him under the warming lamp and started pumping me full of fluids and antibiodics.
We decided to let family come in for a few minutes to see the baby because I was definitely not up for visitors but I knew some people had driven a long way for the birth and I didn't want them to go home without seeing him. Ehee took a picture of the baby and brought it to me so I could see what he looked like, but it wasn't the same. People started trickling in and anytime it looked like someone wanted to hold him, I said that no one was allowed to hold him until I got to hold him.
After what seemed to be hours, but was probably more like one, they put up my bed a bit and brought the baby to me. I'm not going to be lame and go over each emotion, but it was definitely overwhelming. They wheeled us to our new recovery room where I would spend the next four days laying in bed and trying to build up enough blood volume so they would finally let me stand up. It was the most miserable days of my life. They wouldn't let me shower because of the staples, they wouldn't let me stand up because of the blood loss, they were pumping me full of fluids and antibiodics and Iron which left me dehydrated and swollen all the way up to my shoulders and WAY constipated. My legs looked like tree stumps and I am not exaggerating. I don't think I will EVER post pictures because they are horrifying, but the only way I can describe it was it looked like I was wearing a fat suit. The nurses were great for the most part and helped with the baby as much as they could. Ehee was fantastic! I can honestly say he went above and beyond all expectations I had for him. I will always be thankful for how well he took care of me the first few weeks I was home.
So that is the end of the birth story.I will try update you with the adventures of Wilbur and my day to day battles with baby barf, poop and screaming sooner rather than later but let's get real, it took me eight weeks to finish the birth story! haha
PS. As a footnote, they told me later I had lost 2000 ml of blood which is roughly two liters which is roughly 40% of your blood volume. Also, thanks to all the iron they made me take, I didn't drop the kids off at the pool for 10 days. I'm sure none of you would have been able to live if you didn't know the ending to that! HA!
