The birth story

This was supposed to be on the 'Charlotte is here post' with the picture but it doesn't look like it went through so I'll send it again....

Ok that's old news- Charlotte was born 2 weeks ago today on 1/20/11 at 8:26pm via c-section. She was 10 lbs 5 oz and 20 inches.  Now 2 weeks later she is 10 lb 8oz and 22 inches. She's in the normal range of a 2 month old for her height, weight, and head size.  
The picture at the top is of her on the day we got to leave the hospital 1/24/11.

We had to stay 4 nights in the hospital- it was terrible. Don't get me wrong our hospital, the doctors and nurses were all great but the experience was not good. I have never been so exhausted in my life.

Well I guess I should give you the birth story...
We went to the doctor the 18th bc we couldn't wait any longer. We were at the doctor the 13th and he 'stretched' me and was sure I would go into labor that weekend. It didn't happen so I moved my 41 wk appt up a couple days. Well I was 4cm and 80% effaced . So the doctor told me they should induce especially since she thought it was a big baby. She thought big was 8 or 8.5lbs. They scheduled me to go in at 6am the 20th.
The 20th...
We check in at 6am and wait for 30 mins or more before we are taken up to labor and delivery. We were already kinda tired because of course we had trouble sleeping the night before. 
Well we get up to the room and o change into a lovely gown and they hook me up to all the monitors and start my iv antibiotics for the group b strep. I was surprised to see I was having somewhat steady contractions every 3 mins or so but I couldn't feel them. The doctor was supposed to come in at 8am so of course it was closer to 9am when he came. I was still 4cm. He started a very low dose of pitocin and ordered it to be increase slightly every 30 mins or hour I can't remember. 

I'm a lil fuzzy on the times but they broke my water a little after 1pm. That's when things started hurting. Everyone says getting your water broken doesn't hurt but it sure hurt me. Well the contractions intensified. The first one that really started hurting took my breath. Jacob had to keep me from hyperventilating. I remember in our birth class the instructor saying people would forget to breathe during contractions and I thought what idiot would do that- apparently this idiot would. 
Well I didn't take the hard contractions very long, I got my epidural a lil before 2pm. It was the weirdest thing. It didn't hurt getting it, it just felt... Well weird. Good description. Jacob had to leave while I got the epidural- I don't think he was doing well at this point. He didn't like seeing me hurt so much. They put a catheter and a fetal monitor in at that point. I felt like I have stuff all over me and I didn't like it much- IV, heart monitor on my belly, catheter, fetal monitor, epidural thingy, blood pressure cuff that checked my bp every so often and an o2 finger thing then later an oxygen mask. In order words a very natural birth. Ha 
I made Jacob go get some food around 4pm. And about 10 minutes later I kept worrying the crap out of my mom asking where he was and why he wasn't back. I just kept feeling a lot of pressure. Everything annoyed me at that point. Jacob was gone maybe 20 mins and when he got back I told him I felt ALOT of pressure. I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom- #2. my mom left and the nurse came in to check me- sure enough fully dilated and effaced. She prepped the room and had me pushing around 4:30 or 5 ish. I pushed and pushed. The nurses put me in the strangest positions. They yelled/ 'coached' at me when I forgot to breathe the right way or couldn't push hard enough. They had me doing 3 or 4 pushes with each contraction. And I felt like I was doing the biggest loser workout. Ha. One nurse had to leave after an hour to help with a c-section. So another nurse came in for an hour. Again Jacob was great. I got annoyed a few times when he kept reminding me how to breathe during my pushes. Ha but I needed it. I didn't yell at him any, so that a plus:)
Well after about 2 hours of pushing and she was only at 0 station, the doctor came in to watch me push and checked me and the baby. He said she was face up (you want face down) and she was twisted a little bit. He recommended a c-section but would let me try to have her vaginally if I wanted. But he was afraid that with her size and position, she would get stuck in the birth canal and I would still need a c-section. 
So we went for the c-section. Since it wasn't an emergency we had to wait til 8 for an OR to free up. 
I'm not sure I can explain how scared I was before and during the c-section. The CRNA came in and added something to my epidural to make it stronger. Then everything kinda went hazy. Maybe not because of the meds but more bc I was freaked. I was wheeled to the OR while Jacob got dressed in his scrubs. They put me on the table and strapped one of my arms down and put up the big blue curtain so I couldn't see anything from the chest down. I started shaking really bad. They said the epidural could cause that so the CRNA asked if I wanted anything to stop the shakes and calm me. YES. It worked. Jacob came in and sat on one side of me and he watched the surgery. It was so strange because I could feel the pressure of everything they were doing. It didn't hurt but I could tell they were opening me up. They told me at one point I would feel pressure on my chest like somebody was standing on it. Jacob said that a nurse was standing on the table pushing Charlotte out at that point. Charlotte was apparently still being stubborn. Then out of nowhere I heard her cry. What a great sound. I heard everyone talking about how big she was and trying to guess her weight. No one got close to 10lb 5oz. Then Jacob brought her to me to see while they were sewing me up. She was beautiful. She had a conehead on the side of her head, but it straightened out by the time I saw her again. Jacob left while they finished with me then I met him in the recovery room. I had her at 8:26pm and I don't think I got to hold her until around 10:30.

It was not the birth experience I had hoped for by any means- I wanted to be able to hold her immediately and not be loopy from the drugs and have our family meet her right away....
But the end result was great. And Charlotte was completely healthy and safe. So we couldn't ask for more than that. 

This has been a long post. I'll write about my after birth experience in the next post...
Sent from my iPhone