I set up the induction as early as the hospital would allow-7 days before the due date (which was the 27th). It was FINALLY time to go on one last date (after an unplanned trip to the pediatrician's, Grandma and Papa came and got Sisi and Riley and took them off our hands.) Ryan took me to Longhorn Steakhouse (yum) and then we settled in for the three hour movie Interstellar. It was going to be great. Cue the contractions. For the entire length of the movie, I was timing contractions and debating whether we should leave the movie and get to the hospital or wait until it was over. As you can imagine, I didn't enjoy the movie very much, but we stayed the entire time because my contractions never became consistent, and they never became painful. Once we left the theater we decided to run to Walmart and grab a few little gifts for the kids, so that we could say the baby had brought them. We picked out a little pony for Sisi and a batmobile car for Riley and then headed home. I wrapped the gifts, we cleaned up the house a little bit and decided to go to bed (it was getting close to midnight by now). Ryan threw a few things into a bag to take to the hospital the next morning, I set my alarm clock, he gave me a blessing of comfort and we turned out the lights. Again, cue the contractions. And this time they were a bit painful. And somewhat consistent. I told Ryan as he was falling asleep that I was going to time them for an hour and if they were still painful and within 10 minutes apart from each other, we were going to the hospital early. He went to sleep and I waited as the contractions became more and more intense. I don't think it had been quite an hour before I was nudging Ryan awake and telling him it was time to go. I wanted to get an epidural as soon as possible because I was terrified to repeat the labor experience I had had with Riley (when the epidural wouldn't work).
We drove to the hospital feeling totally gypped out of a good nights rest (really, my body couldn't just have waited a few more hours??) and by the time we got there it was really bad. We checked in, a guy named Jeff took me in a wheelchair to my room (it was about 1:45 a.m.) and then a nurse started getting me ready with an IV and heart rate monitors, etc... I was in a lot of pain but remembering how pathetic I had felt during Riley's birth (with me begging for medicine), I kept as quiet as I could and just breathed through each contraction. The anesthesiologist arrived (finally!) and after we explained our previous bad experiences with epidurals, he set to work.
He was easily able to get the needle into my epidural space but when he tried to place the tube it wouldn't go. There was some kind of resistance that really puzzled him (he told us to tell the anesthesiologist next time that L4-5 area on my spine is no good and to try either above or below that) and after a little discussion with Ryan it was decided that he would leave the tube where it was and give me a 'spinal' rather than an epidural. He was only supposed to give me a little dose of the medicine before it kicked in but it had no effect and in the end, he had given me 5-6 times as much as he thought he should have had to. Clearly, the tube was in the epidural space after all. It took forever for the medicine to kick in but when it finally did, I was totally numb from my stomach down and couldn't feel my legs or wiggle my toes. At one point, I heard a loud noise on the monitor and my first thought was that baby had kicked followed by the embarrased thought that maybe I had tooted (remember, I was numb and couldn't feel a thing). About 10 minutes later when the nurse went to check my cervix, she found out that my water had broken, so that is what I had heard :) The baby was really ready to come out and we were just waiting on my doctor to get to the hospital before I could push. Once he arrived, it was super quick. They used just one contraction to have me push 4 times and out popped the baby. (It was 4:08 a.m.) The doctor told Ryan to make the gender announcement, and Ryan said, "I can't see it!" but a minute later he told me, "It's a girl!!" The nurse wrapped her up and put her on my chest for a minute before they had to take her away to clean her up and take her vitals. All of that is a blur to me, probably from the lack of sleep and the drugs, but I was pretty happy to have it over with and to think about having another daughter was exciting!
To be continued :)
We drove to the hospital feeling totally gypped out of a good nights rest (really, my body couldn't just have waited a few more hours??) and by the time we got there it was really bad. We checked in, a guy named Jeff took me in a wheelchair to my room (it was about 1:45 a.m.) and then a nurse started getting me ready with an IV and heart rate monitors, etc... I was in a lot of pain but remembering how pathetic I had felt during Riley's birth (with me begging for medicine), I kept as quiet as I could and just breathed through each contraction. The anesthesiologist arrived (finally!) and after we explained our previous bad experiences with epidurals, he set to work.
He was easily able to get the needle into my epidural space but when he tried to place the tube it wouldn't go. There was some kind of resistance that really puzzled him (he told us to tell the anesthesiologist next time that L4-5 area on my spine is no good and to try either above or below that) and after a little discussion with Ryan it was decided that he would leave the tube where it was and give me a 'spinal' rather than an epidural. He was only supposed to give me a little dose of the medicine before it kicked in but it had no effect and in the end, he had given me 5-6 times as much as he thought he should have had to. Clearly, the tube was in the epidural space after all. It took forever for the medicine to kick in but when it finally did, I was totally numb from my stomach down and couldn't feel my legs or wiggle my toes. At one point, I heard a loud noise on the monitor and my first thought was that baby had kicked followed by the embarrased thought that maybe I had tooted (remember, I was numb and couldn't feel a thing). About 10 minutes later when the nurse went to check my cervix, she found out that my water had broken, so that is what I had heard :) The baby was really ready to come out and we were just waiting on my doctor to get to the hospital before I could push. Once he arrived, it was super quick. They used just one contraction to have me push 4 times and out popped the baby. (It was 4:08 a.m.) The doctor told Ryan to make the gender announcement, and Ryan said, "I can't see it!" but a minute later he told me, "It's a girl!!" The nurse wrapped her up and put her on my chest for a minute before they had to take her away to clean her up and take her vitals. All of that is a blur to me, probably from the lack of sleep and the drugs, but I was pretty happy to have it over with and to think about having another daughter was exciting!
To be continued :)
No comments:
Post a Comment