I'm sure you all have been wondering "OK where did she go?!", but man, it is hard to find some time to write a blog with a little one around :)
My sweet daughter was born on 3/30. On 3/28, I went to the doctor again with concerns. It looked like I was loosing more mucus plug, with bloody show, and I wasn't consistently feeling her move. The doctor says "the only one who knows how she is doing in there is you", and if that doesn't put on the pressure to make sure your baby is okay, I don't know what does. It really stressed me out more than anything. And you feel like a ticking time bomb! So when I saw the doctor again just to make sure everything was alright, I asked her to strip my membranes again. This time I was further effaced and dilated, so that was encouraging. 3/28 was my last day of work, and I started my maternity leave the next day.
On 3/29 at 4am, I woke up feeling more labor pains. It felt very much like my typical Braxon Hicks that I had been experiencing, however it was now accompanied with pains of period cramps. I still didn't feel pain in back, but these were getting more intense and frequent. My husband woke up and we timed them for an hour. They were about 2-3 minutes apart, lasting about 30-40 seconds. We called Kaiser's after hours line, and the nurse advised us to go in to the hospital. We were just hoping THIS COULD BE IT!!! We put all our stuff in the car and off we went. We checked in, and they put a monitor on my belly to check the contractions, and also checked how dilated and effaced I was. I was a little further (2 cm dilated and 80% effaced). They gave me a couple hours, and then checked me again. My contractions were waving on and off in strength, so I wasn't sure what that meant, however when they checked my cervix again, there was no change/progression, so they sent us home. I was heartbroken, and thinking 'this has got to be the start of real labor, it hurts!'. I was determined more than ever to keep this labor going though, if that is what it was. When I got home, I ate more pineapple, went on a walk, and drank more of my raspberry leaf tea. My husband and I figured we would be back in the hospital that evening. And we were right! Around dinner time, even though I was craving a delicious Rubio's burrito, I couldn't bring myself to eat it, with very painful contractions every few minutes. We timed the contractions for two hours, and they were more and more consistent, lasting 40-50 seconds long, every 3 minutes or so. The nurses told us to go back to the hospital. When we went in (around 6:30pm), they checked my cervix and I was not dilated to 4cm, so that was a great start. As they monitored my contractions, they could see them growing with intensity, and I was moaning and breathing through them very consistently...they were painful! The doctor verified that it was go-time, and we got checked in and got our room. I requested my epidural promptly, as I felt I had already gone through enough laboring all day, haha. The epidural was no big deal at all, and went smoothly. The doctor checked in on us periodically, and the nurse was with us most of the time. I had a constant IV fluid drip, as well as the epidural slowly releasing on a timed progression. I started getting the shakes, which turned into violent, uncontrollable convulsing. The nurse told me this was normal, but I thought I was going to have a seizure or something! It was terrible. My husband thought maybe my body was cold because of the fluids dripping into me, and they were able to get some warm blankets on me, which helped a lot.
The doctor eventually broke my water, and gave me a slight dose of pictocin. I was terrified of using pictocin, but was reassured by a friend who had to use it as well, and she said the smallest dose was all she needed to get here to where she needed to be, and the same thing happened to me. With both the water breaking and the pictocin, I was dilated to 10cm very quickly and ready to push. The doctor advised us that most first-time moms push up to 3 hours.
I pushed with all my might for so long! They even put a monitor up inside me between my inside and my uterus to see how hard the contractions and my pushing was, and my pushing went off the charts at times! The baby should be coming out! But there was a problem: she was sunny-side up. A very difficult delivery in a normal case scenario. The doctor said I was being a champ, and even though I had been pushing for 3 hours, that she thought we could do it vaginally still, if I had another hour of pushing left inside me. I wanted to avoid the c-section if possible, so I gave it another hour. After the 4th hour passed with hardily any success, the doctor said we needed to start considering the cesarean option. I was devastated. All of that work, and for some reason, Ali didn't want to come out. I felt like a failure. The doctor reassured me that I did everything I could to the best of my ability and that they couldn't have asked anything more of me, but for some reason she just couldn't come out (I was thinking MONDO huge baby maybe at this point, haha). I was so tired from pushing all night, I was ready to just get her out. So off we went to have our c-section.
Hubby got into his scrubs and met me in the room. Since I already had the epidural, that is what they continued to use as pain management. I started to shake and convulse again, and they were pumping so many different medications inside me, I have no idea what was going on. The curtain they draped over me was so close to my face, and my husband was by my head. I felt a lot of tugging, and I was wondering when they were going to start cutting into me, and all of the sudden they said "here she is!", and they brought her out to the side and started to clean her up! I was amazed that she was already out. But at this point, I felt like I was about to die. I have had heart problems in the past, and I felt like I was having a heart attack, or that the doctor had my heart in her hand and was squeezing it. I told some people that I couldn't handle whatever they were doing, that it was too much. I was so terrified that I was going to die, and was just praying that I could see my sweet girl's face before I departed. I was telling this to my husband as well, who was torn between trying to be with me, and be with this new daughter and catching things on tape/camera.
The doctor then asked my husband "are you squeamish? Come look at this.". Apparently there was a large fibroid that had grown on the outside of my uterus, and it was a large mushroom looking thing about the size of my tiny doctor's fist, and they suspected that was what was pinning Ali inside of me. I still did such a good job of pushing that she was pretty far down, but since we did the c-section, they had to 'pull her back out' and did some internal tearing in the process. I lost almost 2 liters of blood, and eventually had to have a blood transfusion. The whole thing was a nightmare. I had to go through regular labor, and then a c-section...one of my worst nightmares.
The doctor said that if we have another child, we will just go straight to the c-section, as the fibroid will most likely be there and grow back/large. I keep telling my husband that I LOVE our girl, but if we have another child, we are adopting! Lol. But no, seriously, we will be adopting..I'm not going through this again :p I don't know how people do this more than once!
We were in the hospital for 5 days. Recovery has been slow, but I am thankful to have made it out. Now I am looking at my sweet angel in her bouncy chair, as she is making soft cooing noises, and fluttering her eyes trying to wake up. Time to eat soon! Breastfeeding has been a challenge in itself, I had no idea how hard it was going to be. People tell you it will be hard, but nothing can prepare you for it. I think we are through the worst parts, and sometimes still struggling on a good latch, but she is gaining weight and is a happy girl!
I'm sure this blog sounds a bit different than the other ones...that is what you get on little sleep, and trying to write things quickly before you run out of time and the baby wakes up. This will conclude my journey of pregnancy blog, and thanks for joining me on this ride!
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