Welcome!! I am so excited for you!
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Welcome!! I am so excited for you!
Ahh thank you all so much ladies! I am so pumped to have my lodge! I'll update in a later tonight or tomorrow with some stuff about DH and I and our preggo road thus far.
Oh, wow! Another familiar face! Welcome to your lodge. I'm looking forward to learning more about you and your journey to this point!
Congrats!!!!! Way to go, and welcome to the world Emma!
I'm glad she got to pick her own birthdate!
Sounds like you and Emma did an amazing job!! I can't wait to read your story! Six hours of labor?!?! That is awesome. I hope it was everything you desired.
We probably should have started your lodge earlier! Congrats on your natural birth and WTTW baby Emma!
I can't believe you went so quickly, congratulations and I want to hear lots of details :)
Wow, sounds like a fast birth! I can't wait to hear your story. I'm so glad she picked her own date. WTTW Emma!
Congratulations! I've heard through the grapevine that Emma is doing well. Wow! 6 hours! I can't wait to hear her birth story!
Thanks everyone!
I'll warn you, my birth story is SO long for being such a short process. Enjoy!
Emma Lyn
Born on Sept 14th, 2010
5 lbs 5 oz, 19” long
born at 10:03 am (36 weeks 4 days)
Saturday, August 14th, 2010
I woke up at 3:45 am to our alarm clock going off. My husband works out of state and had a “half day” this day, so he had to be on the road a little after four. I went to the bathroom and felt like my underwear was really wet. I didn’t think much of it, as my cm had been more “liquidy” for a few days which I knew was common in the late third trimester. I get up and step to the sink to wash my hands and feel a small gush and trickle. I hadn’t had any issues with my bladder leaking, so it made me wonder what was going on. Something told me that my water had broken, but I didn’t want to believe it. With all the false alarms in the last month, I didn’t want to go to l&d again only to be sent home when I knew I had the amnio and induction coming up in a few days.
I told my husband what had happened, but that he should go to work (2 hours away) and that I’d let him know if anything changed. I was having contractions that were crampy and annoying, but I wasn’t timing them. I just didn’t want to believe what was happening. The pain of these contractions was similar to my other ones, but I had some back ache with it too. He left and I went online to look up stuff about your water breaking as I know the experience can be different for everyone. One site was saying how even with a trickling, if you sit down for a while and get up, you may get some kind of gush to let you know what’s going on. I stood up a couple minutes after being on my computer and was soaked. I put towels on the floor and two pairs of pajama pants later, called my husband and told him to turn around. This was around 4:30 in the morning.
I waited until he got home to call l&d and let them know what was happening. One of the nurses I had been taken care of before answered and asked if I was going to shower before I came in or not. I said I’d like to if it wasn’t a problem. I took a quick shower which felt good. I have always responded well to heat therapy, so I was glad that I took the time to soothe myself at home before going in.
My husband and I quickly grabbed some last minute things (we’d had basic hospital bags for us and Emma packed for a couple of weeks) and headed out the door. We arrived at the hospital around 6 or so. I went into the triage room and the nurse I spoke to on the phone tested my pad to see if the fluid I was leaking was amniotic fluid., which I was. I brought the pee jug with me as instructed incase they still wanted to pursue the 24 hour urine sample. It was annoying but at this point, I didn’t mind peeing in a little hat and pouring it into a container. I was admitted into a l&d room and went over the standard admittance paperwork. At this point I had to take breaks when answering some questions to breathe through the contractions. At 7:34 the phlebotomist came up from the lab to take my blood for standard blood work (I only know the time thanks to the time stamp on the bracelet). The contractions were bad enough that I had to have him wait until I wasn’t having one to take my blood.
Shortly after, the nurse that would be my nurse for her shift came in. She asked the pain scale question, I answered a 7 out of ten. These were now a bit worse then the contractions I had been experiencing in previous weeks. I kept feeling like I needed to have a bm but just couldn’t. My nurse asked if I wanted to get into the shower to help with the contractions. I said yes and in I went. The shower had a regular head and a wand that you could alternate between. This shower was one of the most blissful experiences I have had in a long time. I held onto the safety bar and just let the hot water center on my lower back while breathing and chanting (om) through the contractions. When I got out, I went to the bathroom to pee and try to have a bm as I figured the shower would have relaxed me enough to do so. I told the nurse that I kept feeling like I needed to make a bm but couldn’t. She said she wondered if I was transitioning, and that based on what she’d seen, she’d guess I was at 8 cm. This floored me. 8 cm? I tried not to get my hopes up as she called the OB on call (who happened to be the one that diagnosed and had been the primary provider in the office in regards to my cholestasis). He came in and checked me. I knew I had to have some progress as he didn’t need to go far to check. I was 9 cm, 100% effaced and +2 station! I was floored but so excited. He was also excited that the baby was ROA as he doesn’t see that much especially in a FTM.
My OB went to get ready and the nurse asked if I wanted some nubaine (sp?) for the pain. I said no and that I wanted to do everything natural. (I wasn’t going to fault her for not having time to read my birth plan yet as it was on file in a folder somewhere). When everyone was prepped, we got to business. I started pushing at 9:00 am. I always wondered how I’d feel about my modesty (I know of my OB outside the office as I went to high school with his son) but I didn’t care. I know this is TMI but I did poo on the bed while pushing but I didn’t care. They must have realized I knew I did it as they said it was good and that I was pushing the right way. There was another nurse in the room who was there to take Emma to the warmer and help get her cleaned up after. Another nurse or LNA maybe was watching too which I allowed. Each push I made progress and they kept complimenting me as being so in control. I would just breathe through the contraction (or chant Om as I knew the low guttural noise would help “open” me) and focused. When I wasn’t breathing through the initial pain, DH would feed me ice chips which were heaven. It was a little annoying when she was getting under and over my pelvic bone, but knowing each push made progress helped. At one point my OB said that there were plenty of ways he could “make the baby come now” but that it wasn’t necessary. I was doing fine and she was too so there was no reason for him to “step in”. I really appreciated that he wasn’t going to force it.
When she was crowing, I felt her head and was so excited. I could feel all her hair and it just made me even more motivated to meet her. I was scared for the “ring of fire” but honestly it was not that bad. She came out and cried right away. They put her on my belly and I just about died. I wasn’t crying but it was such an unreal experience. The placenta came easily and although i could feel it, I didn’t mind too much. Her apgar scores were 8 and 9. They only took off because her skin got a little blotchy (blusih and white) when she was laying on me, but the second they put her under the warmer, she was pink again.
She weighed in at 5 lbs 5 oz and was 19” long. I felt great after birth and our immediate families came in to visit. In hindsight, I sort of wish we had waited to let people come in, but it was fine. I was having some pressure and noticed a few big gushes when getting out of bed 3 hours after birth. Turns out I was hemoraging and so my OB and my nurse had to clean everything out. I had some huge clots and I felt bad my DH was holding Emma in a rocking chair front row center. I screamed (the pain was far worse then l&d) only because with how they were pushing, I couldn’t breath through anything in a soothing way. They then gave me miso (which I made notes that I would not take for intervention purposes) rectally to cause contractions and get me where I needed to be. I was then on watch for a few hours to make sure I wouldn’t need a d&c in the OR. Thankfully, they got everything and I just had to have an IV of fluids (something ringers?) some antibiotics for a while.
Our hospital stay is another story, but here are some pics:
Us just after birth
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...a/IMG_0455.jpg
Emma on the scale
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...a/IMG_0458.jpg
In the hospital on one of her first days:
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...a/IMG_0463.jpg
Hospital going home pic:
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u...aFaller007.jpg
Me today (four days pp and WICKED engorged):
http://i659.photobucket.com/albums/u.../Emma/18pp.jpg
Thanks for reading! Seriously. This is way longer then I meant it to be.