A couple of people have suggested I write down Landon’s labor and delivery story so I have it for future reference… I’ve been told that you often forget those ‘more traumatic moments’ as you try to block them out – but I have to say, my L&D wasn’t all that bad. I’ve tried to make this as ‘not gross’ as possible, but if you don’t like medical stuff – you should probably skip this post 😉
Week 40, Feb 18 – due date came and went. The doctor told me they wouldnt let me get to 42 weeks – as the likelihood for problems with the baby increases greatly at this point. (And I wasn’t fighting her on it… I just wanted him/her out – I didn’t know the sex at this point!)
Week 41 – I go in for another check up – still no activity – everything is still completely closed up – doesn’t look like baby has any plans for an appearance. Schedule induction – to report to hospital on Sunday night – Feb 28.
Feb 26 – my sister has to have a planned c-section 10 days early bc Harleigh is not liking life in the womb. She is breech and also has low amnotic fluid levels – causes her momma some extra stress and the dr has to get her out that Friday morning.
Feb 28th – head to the hospital at 5pm – say hi to my sister who has her 2 day old baby just across the hall. I check in to get monitored and medicine to soften the cervix (since there is still no activity and baby is way up in my belly – hasn’t dropped at all). The nurses tell me the way my baby looks, it is likely that they will start Pitocin in the morning (to start contractions for me), then give me more medicine the next night and get me on Pitocin again the next day. They say that since the baby is so “snug” in there, that I shouldn’t be surprised if it takes 2 days for him/her to arrive. This news does not make me happy – I want to be able to lay on my back again, to not lose my breath when I walk up the stairs, to tie my shoes without feeling like I will pass out…
After they give me the cervix medicine, I ask the nurse if I can walk down the hall to visit my sister – she has to check with the doctor bc she’s never had that question before… 🙂 (What is the likelihood that two sisters deliver at the same hospital only three days apart?!?) The nurse said I couldnt leave the room bc they were monitoring me, but my sister was able to come down the hall and hang out with me. Of course my parents and Dean were up there too.
Mar 1 – In the morning (7am) the nurses come in to check my monitor and let me know that I’ve been having activity (“some contracting”) all night. They are shocked that I can’t feel any of this. She stands at the monitor and lets me know I am having a contraction and asks me if I can feel it. I can’t. They start me on the Pitocin drip at 8am.
Around 10, I start feeling slight pain – feels like my “monthly cramps” but not as bad as mine usually are… yet. (Dean calls my mom and lets her know that she can head up to be part of the labor and delivery experience.) By 11:30 they are starting to feel terrible and I call a nurse to come check on me and ask her if there is another position I should be in or something I can do bc I am feeling really nauseous (I have the trashcan at my bedside) and have pain in waves. (I’ve always been told that labor is waaaaay worse than monthly cramps, so I assume that I am not in labor yet. I am expecting labor to be super excrutiating pain – not that it’s not painful but I was expecting much more extreme pain – worse than my cramsp.) The nurse asks if I’ve had any progress (i.e. am I dialated or effaced). I told her I hadn’t been checked since last night and it was doubtful since the baby was so “snug” and high up there. She checked me and told me that I was actually 2-3cm dialated. She asked if I wanted an epideral (which I planned to likely get). I asked if I went ahead and got it, if it would slow down the progress and cause me to be in labor for hours and hours. She said that because I was already making progress, I should continue to progress. She also said that if I didnt choose to get it then, the anestesiologist had a couple of surgeries that she would be in and it might be an hour or two before I could get one… this was the kicker for me and I told her to go ahead and call up the needle doc.
I got my epideral at noon and immedately felt relief. After about an hour I was feeling really bad pressure (which they said is the sign of a good epideral – you can still feel pressure but not pain). At 1pm I called the nurse in again and told her that I felt like I needed to start pushing. She asked if my water had broken yet. I told her I didnt think so and she had the dr come in to check me. I was 7-8cm dialated and he went ahead and broke my water. He said it would help speed things up.
Well, by 2pm the pressure was getting unbareable. I called the nurse in again and told her I really wanted to push. She said she would need to see if I was fully dialated yet. I was at 10cm so she had me do a ‘practice push’ – because she wanted to see what I would do and I guess see how the baby would respond to it. I started pushing at 2:10pm – my hubby on one side, my mom on the other. At 2:40 the nurse told me I needed to stop pushing “unless I wanted my mom or husband to deliver the baby” and she was going to go get the doctor. The doctor came in and asked if I wanted to have the mirror to see my delivery. I always thought that I would say no, but for some reason I just decided to have the mirror and see my baby come out. I was afraid I would regret not seeing it. He had me push a few more times.
By 2:55 he told me that my last couple of pushes hadn’t made much progress and he said if he “helped it along” that the baby would come out on the next push. He went ahead and gave me a little episiotomy and told me to go ahead and push. The next push, I watched in the mirror and saw the head pop right out. One more push and out came Baby Dean. The doctor held him where I could clearly see it was a BOY!! At 2:59pm on Mar 1 2010, Dean and I’s lives were forever changed with the arrival of our Little Man – Landon Robert.
To quickly hit some thoughts of my labor and delivery experience – it was a MILLION times easier/better/less scary than I thought it would be (I tend to work myself up with worse case scenario so I am always prepared for it, or pleasantly surprised that it wasnt so bad); I still can’t believe that with how “not ready” he was to come out, he arrived within 5 hours from first painful contraction to having him in my arms – I didnt think it would move along so quickly; I didn’t really know how to react when I first saw him – I just kinda looked at him (I didn’t have this overwhelming – ‘I love this baby’ – feeling that many moms say they have, I just thought, “wow, this is cool… he’s here… now, what to name him?!?!”); it was really cool to be in the hospital and go through the experience with my sister – even though she had a c-section and I had regular birth, we still had lots of things to share with each other. Also the nurses always knew who we are and who our babies were – we were the sisters who delivered together!!
WOW this is long – sorry!
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