Miss K's Birth Story

Before I go over K2's birth story, it is important that I record K1's, and so here it is. 18 months after the fact has my memory bleary, but try to bare with me.

First some background: K was not my first birth. For a number of personal reason I will not go into any information about the older child, just suffice it to say he is well, and making another family very happy. His pregnancy was not an easy one, and resulted in a very premature birth. With that background, and some early bleeding with K, I was put on bed rest at 8 weeks and stayed on bed rest for the entire pregnancy. It was the most difficult and lonely 30 weeks of my life.

Toward the end of my pregnancy my blood pressure had been rising slowly but surely. And for a few weeks it had to be taken multiple times before we could get an acceptable read. But, we always ended up with a good number. At my 38 week appointment however, that wasn't happening. I don't remember the specifics but I do remember my doctor was concerned if I was allowed to continue on to 40 weeks I would have a stroke. So he scheduled my induction.

The morning of December 17th, I woke up, showered, and tried to eat a breakfast bar before packing up in the car and heading south. Both my doctor and I agreed that it was more comforting for me to bypass my local hospital and go to a bigger, more specialized birthing hospital an hour south. At 9 am I was moved into a room, and set up on the monitors and a nurse applied the Prostaglandin Gel. A few hours afterward I was started on a Pitocin drip.

Ask just about any rational person and they will quickly tell you, pitocin induced labor is no walk in the park. My plans of sticking to an unmediated birth flew right out the window, as I learned that Pitocin is not something I would wish on my very worst enemies.

I dilated some, I think no further than a 6, and then just stopped. I was in so much pain, but still stubbornly insisting that I needed no epidural, and only the bare minimum of the pain killer I had so far accepted. Eventually a nurse came in and called it how she saw it. Basically my body was so tense from holding in the pain that I was actually to tense to dilate. If I continued doing what I was doing I would be to worn out for the actual pushing, and would end up with a C-Section. She gave me her best suggestion: Epidural, or volunteer for one now so it doesn't turn into a stressful emergency setting. I thought about it for about a half hour I believe, but around 4 AM I got the epidural.

And I began to dilate soon after that. The nurse was right though, I had worn myself out pretty badly. I had just enough energy when it came time to push, which was around 10 AM. Unfortunately at this point K had decided she was going to stay put. Between every contraction she would scoot back in, and during every contraction I would push her back to the point of almost crowning. At about 2 PM I was delirious, I asked for a break- and fully dilated, in active labor, I fell asleep. After an hour I woke up, and felt charged enough to give it one last shot- because if she wasn't out soon I would be having that emergency C-Section.

I actually was getting her to the crowning point, but she was still playing that game. The doctor explained my options to me. I had torn, so he was going to cut me a little more, and I had the option of forceps or vacuum to pull her out since my body was not able to push her out on its own. We discussed the risks and I chose the vacuum. K was out at 3:32 PM December 18th, 2010. 6lbs 11ozs, 21 1/2 inches and very unhappy with her current state of affairs. But the second she was laid on my chest she looked up at me with those sweet blue eyes, and calmed herself as I said hello.

Then we both promptly fell asleep. For just a minute! Then the nurses took her to be cleaned up and I "birthed" the placenta and then watched my lady parts get repaired in the reflection of my doctor's glasses. Delightful.

The next few hours were really hazy. I finally slept, and so did K. Breast feeding, as I've said previously was a struggle, and so was getting any rest after that first post birth coma- K was kicked out of the nursery twice the first night for disrupting the other babies, but would quiet down the second she was with me. That's where our bed sharing began, in that hospital bed. Before we left the hospital two days later she was supplementing with formula and I had to receive a blood transfusion. Apparently the tear/cut situation was a lot worse than I was told at the time, and I had lost a lot of blood. The transfusion made me swell and I was shocked to find at discharge that my flip flops didn't fit!  And K's newborn sleeper was way to big. But all was perfect none the less, and has more or less remained so ever since.