Labor and Delivery

Just before leaving for the hospital - 40 weeks, 3 days

At my last OB appointment (day before my due date), we discussed inducing labor, and when the doctor said that he was available Monday I said let's do it without giving it a second thought. It was really surprising to me how relieved I felt to know that baby was coming out in 4 days, whether she wanted to or not!

On Monday morning (April 5) we got to the hospital just after 8 am, reviewed paperwork, my vitals (3 cm dilated, 75% effaced, -1 station, anterior cervix), and got situated in our room. Around 10 they started an IV of Pitocin, a drug used to start labor contractions. I had a few contractions, but nothing really painful, and by 1:45 I had only dilated up to 4 cm. Even though I wasn't in much pain, when they offered the epidural I went ahead and had it put in and after that the doctor came and broke my water to get the labor going faster. I took a nap and when I woke at 7 pm I was at 8 cm, having felt nothing due to the epidural. By 8:45 I was at 10 cm and they started setting up the room for delivery.

I started pushing around 9:45. I could feel pressure in my lower pelvis so I knew when a contraction was coming but I couldn't feel anything else (thankfully!). The doctor came in around 10:30 and pushing continued. It became obvious pretty quickly that her head wasn't going to fit out without an episiotomy, and all at once, my IV came apart causing blood to start running down my arm (quickly attended to by the nurses), the doctor made the episiotomy cut (again, I felt nothing due to the epidural) and I pushed out most of her head. Tom tells me that after that push her head slowly slipped the rest of the way out and after another push I heard a nurse say, "now that is a big baby!"

She was born at 11:15 pm, April 5, 2010, weighed 8 lbs, 13oz, and measured 20.25 inches long.

Advise to mothers - when they offer you pain medicine before the epidural wears off, take it! I didn't feel any pain when I went to sleep at 4:30 am after the delivery, but at 7 when I woke up the pain was horrible - they offered me pain medicine at 4:30 am but I declined because I wasn't in pain (because I was still numb from the epidural) and didn't realize how much I would hurt when it wore off!

 

 35 minutes after birth