Thread: *~*~* Beth's (bethmcd_22) Birth Lodge*~*~*

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Welcome!

Welcome to our lodge Mama!

Thanks!

I "got" to stay late a work today so I actually have no distractions to start my intro. Warning, I wrote a novel. I didn't mean to, it just happened. I guess that is what I get when I'm not distracted!

First, my DH and I have been together for 10 years, almost to the day. We met because we worked together when I moved to town for my job. We are both teachers and we work at the same school. We started hanging out and went on our first date a few weeks later. After a short time of dating, maybe 3-4 months, we pretty much knew that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. We dated for around 3 years and were married in 2005.

We have talked about having kids pretty much the entire time we have been "serious". In an ideal world, we would like to have 5 kids, but realistically, we can't afford that. Maybe down the road, but definitely not any time soon. We have one son, Kelly, who is 20 mo. He is a doll and SOOOO funny. We tried for over a year to get pregnant with him. Needless to say, once I was pregnant, it was a very strange reality. I had the most normal pregnancy with him that anyone could have. Seriously, normal as normal can get. I am going to copy and paste my birth story from Jan. 10. when I get a chance. As ideal as his pregnancy was, his birth was not.

I had anticipated a natural birth with him, but had not prepared myself what-so-ever. We did the child birth class and practiced some breathing, but really never prepared for the reality of birth. Because of the no so great birthing experience with him, I have been SO much more proactive in my preparation this time around.
I had heard about hypnobabies, through preg.org, the first time around. We didn't really have the $ to spend then. This time around I decided right away that I was going to save up if I needed to to by the hypnobabies program. We looked into doing classes, but everything was too far away, so I opted for the home study course. I have to say, I love being able to lay down, relax and listen, uniterrupted to my tracks. It is my time to myself. I would like to say that I have listenend every day, but the reality of my life is such, that would be totally impossible. I try not to miss too many days in between, and lately I have been doing much better. I need that time to just relax. I have been able to use the hypnobabies techniques a few times when I have been very uncomfortable and just the relaxation seems to work. It seems like lately when I listen though, I fall into such a deep sleep I don't even realize that the track is over. I have read that it is okay to sleep, that my mind is still listening. I hope so!

So on to this pregnancy. First, I was still breastfeeding Kelly when I got pregnant. We had not really been trying but definitely not protecting. I kinda figured it would take us a while before we got preggo again. Well, I was wrong. Even though I had only had 2 pp AF, my body was apparently in good working condition. I wasn't sure when we had conceived and I for sure didn't know when I had ovulated because my 2 cycles had been totally wacky. Over MLK weekend in Jan. I went shopping with a friend and got a coffee while we were shopping. Almost instantly I got nauseous and flushed. I hoped it wasn't the flu that had been going around. I made it though our shopping trip pretty well, but as soon as I walked in the door, I ran to the bathroom and started throwing up. I knew something wasn't right, and snuck a POAS. It was -. That was Jan. 17. All that week I was trying not to think of all of the wierd symptoms that could possibly be happening, especially since I had already gotten a -. I had been running and working out pretty vigorously for the previous few months and that week it seemed like I just didn't have the energy to go at the same pace. I took a couple of days off and talked about it with DH. He even said, maybe you're preggo. I thought, hmmm, maybe. By Friday I got around to buying more tests. DH was going out with some friends that night and I was staying home with Kelly. I was feeling funky still, so I decided to test that night. I was very surprised when it came back +. I took a pic of the test and sent a txt to DH. I guess he didn't see the txt since I hadn't heard from him. I called him and asked if he got the txt. He said "no, let me look." Instead of asking me what it was, since I was still on the phone with him, he showed it to a buddy and asked what it was. His friend was like, "what?!?! You're having another baby?!!?" It finally registered with DH that it was a pregnancy test, so basically, his friend figured it out before he did! Silly boys!

Everything was good for the next few weeks, tired, a little shaky, but I was still able to run and work out. I figured by my LMP that I was about 4.5 weeks when I found out I was preggo. I just went about my business as normal. We had talked with a midwife about starting to see her, but we hadn't officially met with her. At 6 weeks we told my mom and step dad and my dad and step mom. I also told a couple ladies I work with. I was talking on the phone with my mom and she told me that a friend of our family had lost a baby during birth that day. It totally freaked me out. I was really upset about the loss, probably more so because it was a normal pregnancy and the birth started out normal. I'm still not sure what the actual cause of the loss was, but it sounded like there was not communitation between the nurses and dr. about complications until it was too late. My mom said, and who knows how reliable this is, that it could have been avoided if they let the dr. know that the baby was in distress when it first started, but they waited HOURS to call the dr.
Anyway, I decided to tell her our news even though we had planned on waiting a little longer. At that point we told my dad and step mom and I also told a couple ladies I work with. The next day when I woke up I had some spotting. I never had any with Kelly, so again I freaked out. My DH and I decided that we would go with an OB-GYN rather than the midwife (because she only does homebirth, which we weren't quite comfortable with). Since I didn't really like my dr. from before, a friend of mine referred me to her dr. that she loved. Now I see why. My dr. is great! I was able to get an appt with them even though I was only at 7 weeks by my calculations. The dr. saw me and immediately did an u/s to check to see that everything was okay. She also did a pap and couldn't see that I had any active bleeding. I was so relieved that I wansn't bleeding and everything looked good. But looking at the u/s the HB was really low and baby was only measuring 6w1d, so about a week behind what I was thinking. I was given the 9/28 due date then.
Again, I went a few weeks on light duty, just in case and everything was perfectly normal. Then the morning sickness came. She was a BEAR! I was so sick and it wasn't just in the morning. It would usually start about 10:00 and go until I went to bed. Somehow I managed to keep everything down until I got home. I cannot count the days I was driving home praying I wouldn't get sick while I was driving. I would literally, run in the door to the toilet, leaving Kelly in his car seat until I was done. All that poor kid ever saw me doing was puking! Pretty soon he thought the toilet was for spitting in! Pretty funny, though. I was prescribed 2 different anti-nausea meds, and luckily, with both of those, I was able to manage my vomitting during the day. Not so much in the evenings though. Finally about 18 weeks I stopped throwing up every day. After that it was a once or twice a week thing.
After I stopped getting sick all the time, everything went very normal again. I felt great, had lots of energy, could do pretty much everything I was doing before, minus the running and working out. Over the summer we hiked, played golf and I walked a lot and felt GREAT. Acutally I felt better than I had since before I was pregnant with Kelly. Then we got back home to the heat. The heat takes everything out of me. I am so exhausted if I have to be outside. It sucks. I am such an outside person and I haven't been able to spend any time outside. 100+ temps make it pretty much impossible. Hopefully the weather will get better and I can start walking again.

So my 36w appt. went great. My bp was great, everything seemed normal. Not so much for my 37w appt. First, I found out my GBS was + so there went no IV during birth. Then the U/S tech went low to find the head and immediatly went up into my ribs. Baby was transverse. UGH. I talked with my dr. and the first thing she said was that if baby hadn't turned by my appt. next week we would schedule a c-section. I think I gave her the 'No, not an option' look. I asked if there was anything else first, knowing that there were other things to try first. She then said that we could try the external cephalic version and if that worked she would immediately break my water and induce me. Again, not much better, in my opinion, than a c-section. I explainded to her that we were really planning and preparing for a natural birth this time (which I have told her before) and that we would be willing to try anything to get the baby to turn in order to avoid any interventions, but we understand that if my health or the health of the baby were comprimised and it was medically necessary, we would be open to what ever. She appologized and reassured me that she wouldn't do anything that we weren't comfortable with and she would be fine with waiting to see if the baby turns and if not then try the version, but monitor me to make sure the baby didn't turn back and let things happen on their own. I felt a lot better, but still freaked out. I got home and got on the internet and started looking at ways to turn a transverse baby and remembered spinningbabies.com. DH and I decided to start with inversion to see if that helped. Then we actually were able to turn the baby with him pushing down on the head and me pulling up on the butt. It sounds forceful, but baby actually moved very easily. After the fact, we both have realized that was not the wisest thing to do. We should not have done that. We should have tried less manipulative methods first. The baby seems fine and I seem fine, so I am hoping everything is fine. I called the Dr. to let her know the baby was turned and she was happy. We will check again when I go back next week.

Welcome to your lodge! I hope your birth experience this time is everything you're hoping for! Keeping my fingers crossed that the baby stays head down for you!

Welcome! That's so funny your DH didn't understand the text!

Husbands are so funny sometimes. I think it's kind of cute that he didn't quite get the txt but his friend did Really hoping your little one decides to stay head down & that you get your natural birth.

So I can't find Kelly's birth story so I will try to recall as best as I can.

My mom and I started the day by going to a Babies R Us to look for a glider for baby's room. The BRU is about 90 min away and is the roughest ride ever. Of course I started having minor contractions on the way there. Contractions coupled with a very bumpy ride, I was pretty uncomfortable. The contractions were about 8 min. to 10 min. apart for most of the morning. It was my mom's b-day that day, so we had plans to meet a friend for lunch. We got to her house and the ctx pretty much stopped. Here is a pic of me at lunch that day:


When lunch was over my mom and I went back home for a while and then we went to dinner for her b-day. At dinner the ctx started up again, but weren't too bad. I was pretty sure it was the real thing, but they were inconsistent and weren't very painful. I stuffed myself with dinner and desert, to the point that it made me uncomfortable. Once we got home I had some di-di. I asked my mom to rub my back because I was really achy. She gives the best back-rubs and I couldn't have asked for anything better at that point. We were all tired and everyone was going to bed. I laid down and had been asleep for less than 5 minutes when I felt a ctx. I lifted my head to see what time it was and POP my water broke. I jumped out of bed and ran to the bathroom (tile floor) where it gushed everywhere.
DH was a little freaked out and asked what happened and I told him my water broke. He ran down the hall kinda yelling to my mom "the water broke, the water broke!" They both came to the bathroom and she kindly cleaned up the mess. She was talking on the phone with my brothers so I was able to say hi to them while I was sitting on the toilet. It was kinda strange sitting there naked in front of my mom talking to my brothers on the phone.
We discussed what we should do and decided that we should go to the hospital. We got packed up, dressed and a garbage bag on the front seat of the truck. My mom came with us and thought this was quite comical.

We got checked in and they checked to see that it was amniotic fluid so the nurse checked me. I was barely a fingertip. UGH. Because my water had indeed broken they admitted me, but my Dr. office "forgot" to send the hospital my records. They wouldn't take my word that I was GBS - so I got an IV and antibiotics right away. Well I should say after 4 tries to get an iv in me. The nurse wanted to start pitocin right away but I declined. After they got us in our room and all of the monitoring, vitals, IV etc, it was about 1:30am. So of course they said, try and get some sleep. Yeah right. Between the nurses coming and going and the ctx, I didn't get any sleep. It seemed like just as I would fall asleep someone else would walk in the room and need something. It was very frustrating. So I had back labor pretty much all night. At about 7:00am I woke dh and told him I needed help with ctx because my back was hurting so bad. He had no idea how to help me so I just told him to leave me alone. The nurse checked me after shift change at 8:00am. I was barely at 1 cm. At that point I knew that they were really going to want to give me pitocin so I talked with dh about an epidural because I knew that it was only going to get that much worse with pitocin. About 9:00 am I started needing to really breath through ctx and the back labor was killing me. The dr. came in around 10:00 and said I could get my epidural when I was at 4. WHAT!!! We had asked a friend of ours to come to the hosp. to be with me. She was the head nurse of L&D but had the day off. She was there all day starting at around 8:00. She worked very closely with my nurse so she asked the nurse to see how far they could stretch me. She got me to stretch to about a 3.
Finally at about 11:00 they could stretch me to about a 3.5 so they fudged a little to the anesthesiologist and he came in a little bit later. It felt like hours later. Finally he got the epidural in and OOPS it was a "wet tap." So he tried it again. He couldn't give me as much as they normally load the epi with because of the wet tap. While I got a little relief, it was short lived. Within about 15 minutes I was having horrible back labor ctx and couldn't move off the bed. It was about 3:00 by the time they got a different anesthesiologist to come in and figure out what was wrong. They tried upping the dose in the epidural and said it should take about 15 minutes to work. It didn't. Finally they got a new epi in and by about 4:00 I was feeling some relief. However, I was not really progressing. Since the epi was working, they gave me a catheter and put in an internal monitor. Then they pumped up the pitocin. I was really worried that I hadn't progressed much as I was only at a 5 by this time. I knew the dr. was going to be back around to check on me and the last thing I wanted was for him to say I wasn't progressing and I would need a c-section. I started crying because this was my fear. DH tried to comfort me. Our nurse friend, in a very curt manner said, "Suck it up, Beth. You're doing fine!" I guess this was all I needed to hear because after that I had a much more positive attitude and by-golly, I was going to have this baby. Since they kicked up the pitocin, I was having contractions that I could feel, but were not painful. They were right on top of each other and the nurses had me keep changing positions. By the shift change at 7:00pm I was at about 8. The nurse didn't want to leave and miss the birth so she stayed as long as she could. Unfortunately, she left just before the baby came. The new nurse was not as good. I didn't really like her. She was rude and just not as caring as the day nurse. Around 8pm I also started feeling some of the signs of transition, uncontrollable shaking, nausea and vomiting.
About 8:30 I was at 10 and feeling some pressure so they had me push about 3 times. I guess I was doing a really good job because they told me to stop so they could call the Dr. in. Finally at 9:00 or so I told them I needed to push, even though they were not happy about the dr. not being there. I pushed once and the Dr. came in. He got ready and I pushed again. Once he was ready, I pushed and the head was almost out. I pushed again and the head was out. My dh was gloved up and ready to catch the baby. The dr. told him on the next contraction you need to pull. I had another contraction and while I was pushing, I guess dh didn't pull enough, so the dr. helped him. Dh was able to deliver the baby and put him up on my belly. It was all kind of crazy and I was waiting for them to tell me if it was a boy or a girl. Finally someone said "it's a boy! It's Kelly!" Then my mom said "he's got a mullet!" Thanks mom.
Kelly was born at 9:12 pm. I was crying and holding him on my belly when DH cut the cord, which covered me and the side of the bed and the equipment/monitors with blood. They took Kelly from me after just about a minute so they could clean him, weigh and measure him, etc. I called my dad during that time to let them know we had a boy. Iwas just crying and crying, so relieved it was over and overjoyed to have a healthy baby boy! The dr. was sewing me up the whole time. All I could think of was "Give me my baby back. I want him. NOW" He was 7lbs. 6oz. and 19 in. long. They cut off the epidural and gave me a shot of nubain. I HATED IT! They gave me Kelly back and I couldn't even hold up my head. I couldn't keep my eyes open and there I was trying to breastfeed. It was awful. This pic is exactly how I felt, terrible.

I was so out of it. I hated every second of that. I just wanted to be with my baby and I wasn't even coherent. Kelly was wide awake and alert. He latched on perfectly on the first try, even though I wasn't much help. Then the stupid nurse told me to take him off and get him to latch on the other side. Well she wouldn't just let me do it. She was trying to "help". Finally I asked her to just let me do it and he got it just fine.
I WAS STARVING! The only thing I had in 24 hours was a few sips of cranberry juice and ice. I was pissed that they wouldn't give me anything to eat during labor. The were able to find me a snack, but seriously, a granola bar after 24 hours...thanks.
We had a pretty good night once we finally got settled and Kelly fell asleep on Mike's chest around 2am. The nurse wanted to clean up my bed and change the bedding so she helped me go to the bathroom, but I couldn't hardly walk. My whole left leg was numb. I couldn't get in or out of bed on my own. It sucked. I finally got a little bit of sleep for the first time in about 40 hours.


Wow, that was long and I am surprised how much I remember. I know there are lots of things I missed. Typing this had made me realize how naive I was with Kelly and really think about what I want differently this time.

what a crazy ride! and what a birthday present to give to Gramma!

I hope you are able to have a more pleasant experience this time around.

My goodness, what a birth story! Your mom sounds really sweet btw - I bet it was nice to have her close by for all of that. Totally laughed at the mullet comment too