Monday, February 6, 2012

Welcome to the world of Connor Robert

I wanted to write down my birth story to share so I finally gave in to starting a blog.  As you probably know I didn't have the easiest pregnancy.  Hyperemesis, preterm labor, and gestational hypertension made it very hard to enjoy being pregnant.  This makes me sad because pregnancy is something I wanted so badly, especially after my loss.  I wonder if I didn't know as much as I do if things would turn out differently.  Maybe if I wasn't so in tune with my body and knowing something was off they wouldn't have known how bad my blood pressures could be and maybe would have waited to induce.  But hind sight and all that jazz.

Mike and I headed to the hospital on Wednesday January 25th to be induced.  We stopped at tofts for some icecream on the way since I knew I wouldn't be eating anything for awhile.  (It sounded way better than it tasted )  Dr Campbell put the cervadil in herself about an hour after we got there and we settled in for the night.  I had menstrual like cramps the whole night.  It wasn't anything more painful than what I had been feeling over the past few months so I took an Ambien and went to bed.

Thursday morning I woke up and they let me shower.  My mom came into braid my hair because after all those hospital stays I discovered what a rats nest my hair could get to be.  Dr. Campbell came in to check me and said I was still a loose 1 cm and Connor was still super high.  She took out the cervadil and tried to break my water.  She thought she got the forebag, but later on we realized she didn't since I didn't leak all day.  A little bit later they started the pitocin.  The day pretty much dragged on.  My mom kept my company and Mike played on his dad's IPAD.  I never got checked because I wasn't in enough pain to need something for it. 

After dinner the cramping finally started to get a little more painful, but I was almost maxed out on pitocin.  Dr Campbell came in and checked me and I was still the same.  She stripped my membranes again and said she would come back in two hours to try and break my water.  If not then we would go from there.  My nurse mentioned another dose of Cervadil or sending me home.  Which confused me because the whole reason I was being induced was they decided it wasn't safe for Connor anymore. 

A little bit later I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed some mucous on the TP and called for Mike to come look.  The funny thing was my mucous plug was stuck to my thigh and I didn't even know!  Mike's face was priceless!  I had never seen one before and at first thought it was cord so cue freakout.  But I touched it and it came right off so that calmed me down.  Dr Campbell came in to break my water and I was finally 2 cm!  She was able to break my water and halved my pitocin.  Instantly the contraction pain was intense and I asked for something for pain.  Dr Campbell advised trying nubain first so I did that.  It did absolutely nothing so they started prepping me for my epidural.  The anesthesiologist got there and I got into the position.  Somehow I only had one contraction while in the position otherwise I don't know how I would have sat still.  The epidural was a piece of cake.  The numbing was the worst and after that all I felt was a grinding sensation.  He gave me some medicine and about ten minutes later I finally was pain free and couldn't move my legs.

Two hours later I could move my legs again.  I started to have cramping on my left side so they turned me to the left to try and get the medicine that side.  The contractions were getting more and more painful and I was crying through the contractions again so they called anesthesia to bolus me.  This was about 2 am on Friday.  The bolus worked and I became numb again.  About and hour later I noticed I could move my legs again.  So just like before they turned me to see if that helped.  It didn't and around 5 the called anesthesia to come back in.  By this time I was crying through the contractions.  I snapped at Mike (which I felt horrible about).  By 630 the anesthesiologist still wasn't there so I started to get mean.  I was demanding that they call him again and he get his ass in there.  I'm pretty sure I was cussing about him and finding someone else to do it when he finally got there a little after 7.  I asked that he just re do my epidural since it obviously wasn't working.  He basically refused and went to bolus me again.  I asked what I'm supposed to do because two hours from now its not going to be helping.  The nurse said to let them know ASAP so I wouldn't be out of control by the time they arrived.  So unhappily I layed there and he gave me more medicine.  40 min later big surpise I was in pain again.  I told the new nurse and she paged him again.  Dr Campbell checked me and I was 6 cm! Finally some change!  This time a different doctor came in and he agreed to redo my epidural.  When they went to sit me up for the epidural I had horrible pain in my neck and back.  Worse then the contractions at that time.  I personally think the first guy screwed up because with this epidural I didn't feel that grinding sensation.  It was a quick procedure and pretty soon I was pain free.

I had 6 glorious hours without pain when all of the sudden I could move my legs. (cue freakout)  Dr Campbell checked me and I was still at 6 cm, Connor was still at a -1 station and my cervix was starting to swell.  I was running a low grade fever and Connor's heartrate was tachycardic (too fast).  She said she would give me two hours and if I still hadn't made change then she thought it was best to get a C section. (Cue crying again).  Over the next hour the contraction pain was getting worse and worse.  I finally asked to be checked and was unchanged so at this point I said I just wanted the C Section.  The pain was horrible and I doubted another hour was going to make a difference.  They turned off the pitocin and started calling the team in.  Another anesthesiologist came in and I told her what had happened with the first two epidurals.  She gave me another bolus dose and said she'd come back and if it didn't work she would pull it and do a spinal.  Different people were in and out and my entire family was there.  Mike changed into scrubs and the wheeled me into the OR.  The bolus did not do anything so she pulled it and sat me up to do the spinal.  It didn't take long at all and was no worse than the epidural.  They layed me down and my neck pain was terrible.  They put up the curtain and surprise surprise I could still feel everything.  I knew my leg was hanging off the table and was wiggling my feet.  They made the decision to use a general which I knew meant that Mike couldn't be in the OR with me.  I started hyperventilating as they put a mask over my face.  Connor was born January 27th at 410 pm.  I had two surgeons and my whole family there.  I went through 12 hours of cervadil, 30 hours of pitocin, 2 epidurals that did not work, a spinal that did not work, and finally a C Section.  Mike brought Connor into the recovery room so I could hold him first and it was love at first sight.  Mostly of my "birth plan" did not happen, but it doesn't matter.  My son is perfect.