Two years ago today, we welcomed baby Z to our family. Here is his birth story.
I arrived at the hospital at 6:30am to be induced. My blood pressure had spiked really high, and my doctor wanted to get the baby out right away. I was already 39 weeks, so it was ok. There was paperwork to to be filled out (why did I pre-register again?) and stuff to do, so I didn't actually get into the gown and things didn't get started until 8am. It took about 4 tries to get the IV in. They also had to draw blood because they were concerned about the fact that my blood pressure had gotten so high so fast, and was spilling so much protein. It took a while to get those draws done, for some reason my veins were just being difficult.
At 8am, Dr. J broke my water and pitocin was hooked up. She wanted to crank it up right away, but my nurses knew I was planning on going drug free, so they started it at 2, and raised it slower than the doctor's orders. Dr. J never actually said it, but I could tell she thought I was silly to go drug free.
I brought my laptop, and the hospital had free wireless internet. I found that playing on the internet distracted me from the pain better than tv or music, so I just surfed around, and will be harassed for the rest of my life for surfing online posting internet updates while in labor.
When I checked in, I was a good 3, and 70% effaced. By noon or so, I was dilated to a 7, so I was making really good progress. Around quarter to 1, my nurses felt like I was fairly close, and i was feeling pretty miserable. My doctor arrived around 1. Felt like I wasn't as close the nurses said, thought I was only a 7-8 and though she didn't say anything, you could tell she was annoyed. But, it was my fourth baby, and babies 2 & 3 went from being 6 cm dilated to delivering in 5 minutes, so I think the nurse wasn't necessarily in the wrong.
She wanted to hurry things along a little bit, so when I'd have a contraction, she'd stick her hand in there and somehow try to push back the cervix a little bit. That makes no sense to me, but it sure hurt a LOT. Baby was also sunny side up, so I'm wondering it that contributed to the pain a little bit. Doctor wanted me to push through those contractions to see if that would finish the dilating a little bit more. It was really hard to push when the urge wasn't there yet. My nurses were wonderful in coaching me about breathing, and were a wonderful support to me. I was really appreciative that I had them there.
After about 15 minutes of pushing, Zachary Jett was born at 1:22pm. He weighed 7 lbs 7 oz., was 19.5" tall, and had a head of 37 cm. Apgars 8 and 9. I tore a tiny, tiny bit, but not enough to warrant stitches.
After he was born, he was grunting a little and wasn't at all interested in nursing. So, my husband took him and they went to give him a bath, hoping he'd scream a lot and get more liquid out of his lungs. Zack was really calm at birth and wasn't screaming as much as a baby normally would. I went to my room, and waited for my boys to come back. I was bleeding more than the nurses liked, so they gave me a shot of something that would help that, and hooked me up to another bag of pitocin. That made me quite crampy, but it did help with the bleeding.
Our lives are so much fuller, happier, and more exciting with little Z in our lives.
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