Details

(the long version)

Thursday morning I had an office visit since I was 4 days past my due date. They did a NST and this time I recorded the baby's movement as well as recording the heartbeat and contractions. I really hate those external monitors. But all looked well, except that when I came in at the start of the appt my blood pressure was higher than it had been (150/99). On monday the doctor had ordered yet another 24 hour urine test because I had been spilling protein which is of course a sign of pre-eclampsia.
So I left the dr. office office waiting to hear what the results of the urine had been from the day before. The dr. called at 2:30 and said I tested positive for 'mild preeclampsia' so 'game over, we're inducing today'.
I wasn't very upset, in fact, I was pretty happy about it. Finally, we were going to get this show on the road!
So I called DH and told him 'game on' we were going to check into the hospital. He left his track meet and came home and we were checked in and sitting on the hospital bed by 4:20.
Because of the danger of preeclampsia the dr. had ordered me to be put on magnesium, but that wouldn't start until labor began. For now they used prosti.glandin to soften my cervix (which was about 1 1/2, 50%) when I got there. So that dosage wasn't too painful, and the first one was about 5pm-ish on Thursday. The hospital monitored my blood pressure about a billion times while I was there and never once was it high. In fact, it errored on the very low side, especially when I was lying down. Every nurse called my dr. to confirm that I would still need the magnesium because my bp was just dandy, but the dr. insisted.
I got three doses of prostigland.in, each 6 hours apart and by 9 am the next morning my cervix was about a 4, so on with the labor. The dr. came in and broke my water and used internal monitoring (which was so far superiour to the external monitors, but I still see the scratch marks on the baby's head! ouch!) and that really started labor going. I had planned to get an epidural, but I had about 2 hours of active labor before that happened and I'll tell you, for each of you ladies who do it naturally, more power to you, but I felt like a genious after getting an epidural!
This is not a judgemental comment towards anyone, but the feelings before vs. after epidural: night and day. I wasn't feeling those awful contractions and it was nice to be a little more relaxed as I saw the contractions peak at 80!
The woman next door had not opted for an epidural and was screaming her head off so natch I felt like the smartest woman ever. And for the record, the epidural was the easiest, most non-scary part of labor. The anesthesiologist described everything and it was virtually painless.
After that, it was close to 11:15 am and that's when the magnesium and pitocin was started. Things progressed nicely and by 6 the nurse said I was 10 and ready to push. The problem was, the dr. was unavailable until 7 pm. There was an on call dr. but no one thought I'd be ready to deliver so quickly. by 6:45 the baby was just about crowning and epidural or not, the pressure to push was enormous and the nurse made me blow through those last contractions. That was by far the hardest part of this whole thing. They tried to distract me, but at that point there is no way you can just not push. So I did the best I could and about 15 minutes later the dr. came in, the nurse practically put the gown on for her and I was allowed to push. Her head came out easily but I had time stopping to let the dr. guide out the shoulders, so I ended up with a stage 2 tear. Boo! So I sit here with some lovely stiches but at least that part is getting a little better each day. I'll save the first post partum bowl movement discussion for another day. Stitches are not fun!
So at 6:59, our little one was born, and it was crazy. I see this miracle in my husbands arms right now, and if I hadn't seen her come out of me, I never would've believed it. Each child is such a miracle.
I have more to say but Macie is ready for her 5th feeding this morning so I'm signing off.