We had planned to be induced on Monday, December 14th one day after my due date. I woke up during the middle of the night having period like cramps which I thought was probably just my mind because I knew what was coming. Woke up to get ready for the big day and I was having noticeable contractions they were more of an annoying pain then something I couldn’t breathe through, so we headed off to the hospital. On the way my contractions got stronger and were coming about 8-9 minutes apart. It seemed as though my body wanted to start things on its own. We were to arrive at the hospital at seven to get things started.
When we arrived we got lost in the hospital because of construction some of the hallways and elevators were closed. Our nurse was waiting for us when we arrived at the women’s and children’s unit and off to our room we went. They hooked me up to the monitor and sure enough my contractions were recording. Calyn was very active during this whole time so her heart rate was in the 140-150’s.
My nurse midwife came in and we talked about the plans for the day. Since I had been contracting on my own they though the best thing to do was to break my water and see what happens. I was only 3 centimeters dilated and 95% effaced, baby was still at -1 station. So she broke my water and they headed off to clinic and would check on me in a few hours. After they broke my water my contractions started getting more intense and closer together but nothing I couldn’t handle. So we went for a little walk and then headed back to the room. She came and checked me around 11 and I was only dilated to 4 and baby had dropped to station 1. My pain level had been increasing so I decided to go into the Jacuzzi tub to see if it would help with the pain. At this point I really had to breathe through contractions and hold on to DH to get me through. I was in the tub maybe for 20 minutes and my pain level just kept increasing. I asked for some IV pain meds and they gave me fentynal. The fentynal made me loopy and I was able to relax through a few pretty bad contractions. After about twenty minutes my pain level was 10 out of 10. I was crying through contractions and just couldn’t handle it. She offered the epidural and I accepted she checked me again and I was dilated to a 7.
I was still loopy from the fentynal and all I could do was cry and breathe through the contractions. The anesthesiologist came in, and thank goodness let me stay on my side. He was super fast and did an awesome job. My pain was pretty much gone but I had severe pressure. My nurse midwife checked me again and in that time I dilated from 7 to 9.5-10. I had some pretty bad pressure so she said to call the nurses when I was ready to push.
About five minutes later I had the urge to push and in came the delivery team. I had the perfect amount of epidural I couldn’t feel a lot of pain but I could feel when I needed to push and I had the sensation to be able to concentrate my pushing. I pushed in sets of three through all of my contractions. In between the contractions the whole room was talking about the WII and movies. It was actually a very nice distraction. I pushed for about an hour and a half and our little girl was here. The last twenty minutes were the worst because I could feel the burning and stretching of everything down there.
The little munchkin came out with her hand by her mouth so that’s what took so long to get her head out. After she was out they put her on my chest and I heard the best sound ever her little cry. She was born at 1454 weighing 7lbs 14oz and 21 inches long.
I only had a few superficial tears and needed 6 stitches overall I felt pretty good after and only need Motrin a few times.
I got to jump into the not so joyous part of motherhood right away. Around 7 o’clock the nurse came in to take our vitals and noticed Calyn’s heart rate was on the low side. She called the pediatrician and he wanted her to go to the special care nursery to be monitored and have an EKG and chest x-ray. Within hours of her being born she was whisked away I bawled. I think knowing the medical side of things makes it worse. I knew what it could be and of course thought the worst. Calyn was diagnosed with a heart murmur and hypertrophy of the ventricles. The nearest pediatric cardiologist is an hour away so everything had to be faxed up there and we had to wait for the results. Calyn was in the special care nursery for about 16 hours and it was the hardest 16 hours of my life. Everything finally came back Wednesday evening with the all clear, so we will just have to follow up clinically. Her murmur seemed to be improving through our stay so hopefully it will resolve itself. She’s perfect in so many ways and Lyle and I feel so luck to be blessed with such an awesome gift.
