Thread: March 2009 - Our Lucky Charms' Arrivals, Stats & Birth Stories

Claire Inara L
April 1st 6:36 pm
40 wks 4 days
7 lbs 7 oz 20 inches

Fiance and I got to the hospital at 445 am and checked in for my induction, which was set for 5. We got up to the room, I changed and a really wonderful nurse came in to start a three mile long list of questions. For the hour she was taking care of me (shift change was at 6) she was amazing. She was friendly and talkative and very funny. The next nurse wasnt so fun. She was very to the point and only occasionally made a joke or tried to be super friendly. Anyway, the first nurse got me hooked up to the monitors and she asked me if I was feeling the contractions. I turned to the screen and gave it, and her, the most confused look. Turns out I was have regular contractions 3 minutes apart, but it just felt like the baby was moving around. So then she got the IV in and started the pitocin and got me on my way. I sat there for two hours, not really feeling anything except the slightest bit of back pain (hooray for 13 hours of back labor!) My OB came in at 7 and broke my water. That was definitely an unusual feeling. When he was done he told me that little monster had already let loose some meconium so when it came time to push, I would have to stop once her head was out and let them suction her throat. After that contractions got bad, and fast. They checked me several times over the next few hours, and I stayed at 1-2 cm for at 3 hours, managed to eventually get to 3, and then 4. During one of the internals the nurse made a comment that made me so excited. After the first 3 or four hours of contracting painfully and nothing actually happening, I finally dilated enough to get the epidural. She said that baby had a nice head of hair on her. Unfortunately it took at least an hour to prep me and wait for the anesthesiologist to finish with the woman next door. Finally he comes in, asks a billion questions that I've already answered many times before. He asked me if I would be ok with student doing the epi. My fiance (who has always hated the idea of an epi and worried endlessly about my safety) was probably close to having a fit when I didn't immediately say no. The anesthesiologist said the student was just about to graduate, and was very good at it.He had just done the lady's before me. It took a little convincing, but my fiance agreed to it (I know it's my decision and I probably should have been more worried about a student doing it, but I let him decide because I know he's just looking out for me). The guy came in, set everything up, and it turned out to not be bad at all. The meds finally kicked and my legs were so numb, it actually almost hurt a little. Things were kinda slow and boring for a while after that. My brother, several of my SIL's, and some friends visited for about two hours. Somewhere in the midst of that the epi started wearing off, but only in one small area of my belly. The pain got back up to where it was before the epi, so they gave me another dose. That lasted until about 430 pm.
So after 9 hours of boring, and generally unevental labor, I finally got 5 cm. About an hour later the nurse came in to check me again (she had an errand to run, and last time she did that during someone's labor, the baby was delivered before she even got back) and I was a full 10. That shocked me. I had to get out my phone and start texting my mom to get her back in the room.
The nurse had me do a few practice pushes, and she said nothing was really happening ( I was still COMPLETELY numb, everywhere) and baby hadn't dropped enough. They had me sit with my legs in a weird and uncomfortable position for half an hour to get her to come down a little. Then, even though I was still numb, she had me started pushing. By that point the epi had started wearing off on my left side again. I pushed for at least an hour and a half before the nurse called my OB in. When he got there I guess things were picking up so he started doing a putting-on-his-scrubs-and-gloves dance. It was comical. That man is the greatest doctor ever. I pushed for a few minutes and apparently baby wasn't quite fitting so he tried to make room without cutting. That didn't work so he made a small cut on the inside (that's fiance says. i couldnt actually see that part) but that didnt work either so he to finally give me a 2nd degree episiotomy. Another few minutes of pushing and she eventually crowned, then her head came out and I spent a painful 5 minutes waiting for them to suction her throat. A few more pushes and little girl was out and screaming. It was so amazing. I was surprised to find myself watching everything happen. It was kinda mesmerizing, not weird like I expected. The OB spent a good 10 minutes sewing me up, which wasn't fun, but I spent the time listening to the funny conversations, and watching little girl being cleaned up.

Overall, it was pretty pleasant as far labors go.
I've got some pictures of her right after she was born.








Fiance started crying so hard when they handed her to me. He had to go to the bathroom and try to calm down, but it didn't help much. So when he went to the waiting room to announce her, the first reaction everyone had was "Oh S***, what happened." He said that his mom immediately exclaimed "Nooo!" (she's the only mother we know who has had a loss like that) and my brother said it was the scariest moment of his life. My fiance had to reassure everyone little girl was ok and that he was crying because he was happy.




my brother holding her.


her first bath

May Victoria
April 5th 7:52am
42 wks 1 day
9 lbs 8 oz 21 inches

She finally made her entrance on April 5th at 7:52am. She weighed 9.5lbs and was 21" long.

She was 15 days overdue, so they had me come in Friday pm for a cervical ripening--which I was less than thrilled about, as I really wanted to avoid an induction and have a natural childbirth. The nurse told me that they had to do constant fetal heart monitoring, which I refused. I was going to go home when the midwife on call called to talk to me. We agreed to do 20min of monitoring per hour, so in went the cervadil.

Around 3-4am I started having bad cramping and hip pain, and labor started on its own (no pitocin needed) around 8am, although it felt like it had started hours before thanks to the cervadil. I was happy to avoid pitocin, though.

I dialated pretty rapidly, and was at 8cm by 3:30pm Sat when they broke my water--which they had a very hard time doing. The midwife finally had an OB come in, and even he struggled for quite awhile before getting it to break. No meconium in the fluid, so that was good. I was soon at 9cm, but then things came to a halt. Contractions weren't getting closer together, and I was in absolute constant misery from the hip pain. May must've been in a bad position in my pelvis. The only relief I got was in the shower, but even then when the contractions came, it was horrible. As I had been at 9cm since about 5-6pm, I thought for sure I'd have the baby before midnight, but I was wrong. Around 11pm I got stadol, but it didn't do a thing for me. I was afraid the lack of progress, and the fact that I was dead tired (falling asleep standing up between contractions) would make me end up with a c-section. So after talking to my midwife I agreed to an epidural. So much for natural childbirth, but at that point I didn't give a $%&@. I just wanted relief and to get that baby out!! Unfortunately the anesthesiologist had just gone into a c-section when they called in for the eppy. So I ended up waiting nearly two hours before I got it. But it was instant relief and I was blessing whoever created epidurals. I slept from 2-4am and when the nurse checked me at 4am I was at a 10. So they had me "labor down" for an hour and then started pushing. The baby was pretty low in my pelvis, but my contractions were still 4-8min apart, despite a pitocin drip that was started when I got my eppy. They had me push anyway, it just took longer b/c I had to wait so long between contractions. After over 2hrs of pushing (which wasn't as bad as it seems b/c I had lots of rest between pushes), she crowned, and I had to wait ages before the next contraction to finish pushing her out. That was very painful, but it helped to stretch my perineum so that she came out during the next push--all 9.5lbs of her without any tearing at all.

Then I hemorrhaged a gallon of blood. My midwife was awesome, though--calm, cool and collected. She took care of it by shoving 3 cytotec pills up my rectum. I had May on my chest and we were occupied with her, so I didn't know how badly I had hemorrhaged until much later. She anticipated the hemorrhage b/c of my age (37) and how long I'd been in labor. Plus, she said I had a "funky" uterus so she was expecting it to take a vacation and think it didn't have to contract anymore. They kept me on a mild pitocin drip for the next 12hrs to make sure my uterus kept contracting. After that, I was fine. The eppy wore off quickly, and the nurse couldn't believe how quickly I was up out of bed considering how much blood I'd lost and the eppy making my legs numb.

We've been home nearly a week now, and May is doing really well. She's breastfeeding well, and is very good--only cries when she's hungry or when she's getting her diaper changed--or disturbed in some other fashion. I'm really lucky to have such a good baby. I thought throughout my pregnancy that I was having a boy (we didn't learn the sex), so it was quite a surprise when dh announced she was a girl. It took me a few days to wrap my head around the fact, but now that I have, I can't imagine her being anything but a girl.

DISCLAIMER: This birth story is filled with some pretty negative medical stuff. If you are lurking and are trying to focus on positive birth experiences, I would maybe skip this one.


After being diagnosed with high blood pressure and protein in my urine on Thursday 3/26, I was placed on bed rest. I was dilated to 3 and 60-70% effaced, so the doctor expected I would go into labor on my own over the weekend. We scheduled a non stress test and ultrasound on Monday 3/30 to see where we were at. I didn't go into to labor on my own that weekend and we were pretty disappointed.

On 3/30, my urine came back very high in protein, my blood pressure was even higher, and the ultrasound showed a decrease in fluid level. After lots of discussion, for the sake of my health and the baby's, we decided it was time to induce. I talked the doctor into a very low level of pitocin, just to hopefully get me started. We started that at 7pm. Because of the blood pressure, I had to also go on magnesium, which I was told would stop me from having seizures.

By 10:30 I had made no progress and was not really contracting. We decided to rupture my membranes. Almost immediately I started a regular pattern of contractions, but the doctor was having trouble with the outside monitors, so I had to have internal monitors placed in for measuring contractions and fetal heart rate. I also had to have a catheter since I was now completely strapped to the bed. I think placing all these monitors inside hurt worse than any of the contractions.

DH was wonderful and helped me through each contraction which were now coming on strong and frequent. I had previously wanted to try and go natural as possible. However, my blood pressure kept increasing with each time it was taken. At one point it was 168/107. All I could think about was how I was going to have a seizure. I couldn't calm down. I knew the epidural would lower my blood pressure, so I requested one at 1:30am.
When the epi took affect, my blood pressure immediately decreased. Unfortunately, the epidural only lasted about 45 minutes. It seemed to just wear off. I tried to get through more and more of the contractions. At 5am I was fully dilated and effaced, and the nurse said I could start pushing.
Pushing actually helped relieve the intensity of the contractions.Each push was absolutely exhausting. The nurse was confused about how much pain I was in considering the epidural. She gave it a "booster", but it pretty much did nothing to help. At one point she gave the booster button over to DH and told him to push it as needed, but nothing helped relieve the pain. By 6:45am I was still pushing at not making any progress bringing the baby down. I was wearing out completely.

The doctor came in a little after 7am and did an internal exam in between pushing. He said that the baby was in a transverse position, and I was not going to be able to push him out without intervention. He called for forceps and a vacuum. I was hysterical. I did not want either, but had been pushing for over two hours with no progress. The doc said my only other option was a c-section. We decided on the vacuum. The doctor told me this needed to be the push of all pushes. The next contraction came and he came out at 7:28am. It was so amazing. My DH started crying like a baby himself. They placed him on me and we said "what is it?" and started crying all over again when they said boy. I got to hold him a few minutes and then they took him to the other side of the room to be cleaned off.

My doc was doing all the after birth stuff, but I wasn't paying too much attention. The doctor's tone began to change and get more serious. He started massaging very strongly on my stomach saying the placenta wasn't coming. He tried that for several more minutes. I heard him tell the nurse to get an anesthesiologist team and an OR booked STAT. The next thing I know, I am signing papers that say I can be given a blood transfusion if needed and they are wheeling me out. They hand the baby to DH and say they will come and update him, and everyone leaves the room. (DH said he was unbelievably freaked out). I get in the OR and the anesthesiologist says he can use the epidural during the procedure instead of a general anesthesia. I tell him the epidural didn't work and I could feel everything. After checking a few things, he agreed and I went under general anesthesia. The procedure to manual extract the placenta took over an hour where I lost a LOT of blood. I was also in recovery for 1 1/2 hours. Next time I saw DH and the baby, the baby was cleaned up and in our room.

The whole experience was so vastly different from what I was expecting. I so wanted something natural, but I think short of a c-section, I had about every medical intervention there was. I do know for sure, that he was worth every second of it all!

The Birth of Whitney Kristine
Here it goes:

on Sunday 3/22 i was having on again off again contractions that I attributed to braxton hicks. We put all the kids to bed at 9pm and I started feeling crampy. I tried walking around, eating something, laying in bed taking a bath etc etc but the crampy feeling would not go away. (My DH has sleeping problems and sometimes takes sleeping pills) at 11pm i told him to go ahead and take one Im sure I am fine. at 12:15 I called my MW and said the cramps wont go away it hurts but i can still talk through them. She said go ahead and come in...

My dh was totally out LOL and when I woke him up was so confused as to what i was saying to him. Originally we were going to take all the kids but i decided I didnt want to wake them up incase this was fake. So i tried calling my sister and mom and no one answers (of course) so i told my DH to go over to my sisters and wake her up. He goes over luckily they left their front door unlocked and he had to go wake her up my BIL said it was so surreal to have my DH whispering Melissa Melissa I need you to wake up. (we have laughed pretty hard a few times over all of this) So she comes over and we left for the birth center.

My Dh is drving like he is drunk (because of the pill) and i of course am telling him how to drive becuase it is really hurting.. we make it there fine! I got right in the tub. They checked me and i was only 3 cm but she said I was in labor so at least it wasnt a false alarm. at that point they were coming every 2 minutes.

My Dh sat at the end of the tub in a rocking chair drinking coffee.. his only job was to fill my tub with hot water, get me water and talk when i said lol! at one point he and the midwife were trying to show me how to moan "low" and i just told them both to shut up

at 3am I was still only at 6 but the baby was super low. I opted to have her break my water because it was still in tact. After she broke my water I had one more strong contraction and then said I was going to push. She was born at 3:14 am.

She is absolutely beautiful and i cant believe she is finally here. The best part is that she does NOT have downs. Talk about an emotional bubble being popped. i cant even explain how we feel about having her here and NOT have downs.

We dont know who she looks like but we dont care! I got the birth that i wanted and loved it!