The first lesson that I learned from having my daughter is that nothing goes as planned when it involves a baby. My entire pregnancy I was so positive that I would have my daughter early by a few weeks; I may have if she had been turned correctly. Throughout the 4 months I had contractions pretty regularly. She was doing okay, and the contractions weren’t causing dilation so they weren’t too concerned at that time. Time continued to drag on as I anxiously awaited for her arrival. The last month was the worst, thinking that she could be here at any time. Every time I had contractions I would nervous and excited, just to be let down when they stopped. I went to my 37 week appointment and found out I was 1cm dilated, I was so excited. I had been walking (while shopping for her!) constantly trying to start labor. I figured I would do the same thing for the week and see what happened. I went back at 38 weeks and was at 2cm. My Dr. was very pleased and thought that she would probably make an appearance over the weekend. The weekend came and still no baby! I had an appointment on Monday morning and I was still at a 2! We scheduled an induction for the following night. My goal for delivery to have a natural delivery, I didn’t want an epidural or Pitocin.
We
arrived at the hospital Tuesday night at 7:30, the plan was to get up to 3
doses of a pill that would last 6 hours each and help me dilate. The nurse
hooked me up to an IV and put a monitor on my belly to monitor the baby’s
heartbeat, and another to monitor contractions. After being checked and told I
was a good candidate for the pill they said they wanted to see a little more
activity from the baby before we started it. They started me on fluids and kept
having me change positions. I wasn’t really too concerned at that point, just
irritated that we hadn’t started anything yet. My Doctor walked into my room at
about 10:00 and I was really pretty surprised to see her, I didn’t think that
she would come until a lot closer to delivery. What was even weirder was seeing
her in regular clothes. She asked how I was doing then told me that my baby’s
heartbeat wasn’t looking too good. It kept dropping below 100, they thought
that the cord may be wrapped around her neck, or that she had meconium. I was
really worried. She told me that we needed to get things started right away and
we needed to start Pitocin, they also wanted to break my waters and place two
internal monitors, one that would record every single one of my baby’s
heartbeats and another to monitor the strength of my contractions. They tried six times to break my waters but
they were unable due to the position of the baby. They decided to give me as
much Pitocin as possible in hopes of starting labor and if the baby didn’t
react well to the medication than we would need to have an emergency
cesarean. I was terrified, even though I
wanted to avoid Pitocin, I knew I wanted to avoid a cesarean even more.
They started the Pitocin immediately and I tried to get some sleep. I dozed off for a little while over the next hour and a half, but I was so nervous I wasn’t really able to sleep. Soon the contractions started, they weren’t really all that bad, just uncomfortable. The worst was the pressure in my back. As the night progressed they became stronger.
Every couple of hours they would check
to see if had dilated anymore; each time was the same, I had zero change. I was
so frustrated. The doctor came in and was able to break my waters this time.
They also placed the internal monitors. Once my waters broke things started to
get a lot stronger. They didn't see any meconium when the waters broke, but
soon after they realized that there was some. They planned for NICU to be at
the delivery to hopefully avoid having her swallow any, but to care for her if
she had. After all the stress of the night I ended up getting some IV pain
medication- the first dose worked great, and lasted about 45 minutes, the
second didn't do much, and wore off after about 15 minutes. My back labor
continued to intensify and I ended up getting an epidural. The epidural was
great, the doctor had it placed in less than a minute after he prepped during a
contraction. It was such a relief.
Things got pretty boring, I had to change position often because the
baby’s heart rate would drop once I stay laying a certain way for too long. The
worst part at this point was being so hungry, and being stuck in the bed.
Luckily my fiancé and Mother were there to keep me company and help the time
pass. The next time they checked me I had dilated to 3 cm! Each hour they would
check me, next thing I knew I was at 5, 7, and 9! It took longer to get to
10cm, about an hour and half to two hours to get to 10 and fully thin out. All
throughout labor her head was facing the wrong way which was the cause of my
back labor. Because of that, they wanted me to “labor down” for an hour. That
meant that they wanted my contractions to just push the baby down further with
hopes of turning her. I wasn’t ready to push yet, I was exhausted! I told the
nurse that I just couldn’t do it! I began to get sick at this point also, I was
terrible. After an hour they told me it was time to push, I was about 7:45. The
doctor was there by 8:00. Pushing wasn’t terrible, but the third push each
contraction was by far the hardest. I was able to talk and laugh between
contractions which was a big surprise. They had to turn the Pitocin back up
after the contractions began to get further apart, they wanted to speed things
up because there were more problems with the baby’s heartbeat. After an hour
and half my Doctor gave me one more contraction to try to get her out otherwise
she was going to help me. She wanted to get the baby out right away. I tried,
but was unable to get her out because of how she was turned. At 9:26pm on
Wednesday, February 12th my daughter, Liliana Marie was born.
They
had to use the vacuum to get her out. They had told me previously that unless
she came out screaming I wouldn't get her right away. She was silent. They rushed
her over to where the NICU team was and after a minuet I heard a small, brief
cry. It was such a relief to hear her- my fiance’ left my side at this point to
go over to see her. By the time he got over there she began to really cry. He
brought back pictures of her for me to see. She was beautiful, and I had never
been happier in my life than I had been at that point. Luckily she was fine and hadn't swallowed any
meconium. The doctors were concerned about my bleeding, I was losing too much
blood, they gave me a shot to stop it and planned to run blood tests on me
before I was discharged. Eventually they
finally gave her to me, and I was able to enjoy my daughter and finally eat
after 26 hours.
They
came to do blood tests before I was discharged, and my iron levels were half of
what they should be. They were at a 10 prior to delivery, and currently at a 6.
The iron levels are supposed to be at a 12. My doctor ordered a blood
transfusion. They got up to a 9 before I left and they plan to check them again
at 2 weeks post-postpartum.
Labor
and delivery taught me that you have to expect the unexpected and you have to
be able to just go with things. I thought I had my whole labor and delivery
planned out and things would be easy, that definitely wasn't the case. I
learned my first lesson as a parent; when it involves a baby, you can never
expect things to go as planned.
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