SL’s Birth Story
As I approached the end of my pregnancy with you, Dr. L and I decided that March 25th would be a good day to have you. I would be 39 weeks pregnant at that point and by the time that date arrived I was more than ready! I had high blood pressure on and off, my sciatic nerve made it hard to walk and my feet were super swollen.
The night before we had you, we packed up our family and went to Grandma and Grandpa’s house to spend the night since they lived closer to the hospital. On the morning of March 25th Daddy and I got up early and were at the hospital by 7:30. I got checked in and signed endless forms. By 8:00 and was in my hospital gown all ready to get things started. Dr. L came and checked me. I was still only dilated to 1+ (had been there for an entire month) and 80% effaced. Dr. L broke my water and officially stared my labor. Not much happened for a while. The nurses came and got my pitocin started and I had maybe one contraction. At 9:30 the nurses came back and upped the pitocin since nothing was happening. At 10:00 they came back and upped it again. After that I finally started having contractions.
By 10:05 I finally had contractions that were 2-3 minutes apart. Now they started to get stronger as well. By 10:30 the nurse checked me and I was only at a 3. I was pretty disappointed and decided I was ready for an epidural. While I waited for the anesthesiologist to come the nurse showed Daddy how to apply counter pressure during contractions to help ease their intensity. Daddy did a great job helping me!
At 11:20 the anesthesiologist showed up for my epidural. Yay! I was more than ready for him. But, I didn’t get relief as soon as I hoped. First he noticed my potassium was really low. When your potassium is low you are at risk for heart arrhythmias and heart attacks so he was concerned. He also decided he wouldn’t do the epidural until he knew what my platelet count was. So we waited and waited and waited on the lab to find out what my platelet count was. While we were waiting they checked me again and I was at a 5. I spent the next 30 minutes sitting Indian style and laboring while the anesthesiologist prepped me and chatted with Daddy. Finally we got my count back (normal) and we proceeded with the epidural.
Once again (as with your sister A’s birth) the epidural didn’t work right and I hit transition as soon as the epidural was finished. I could feel everything on my left side and my right side was barely numb. We rolled me onto my left to try and get the medicine to work over there and that was awful! I stayed that way for about 10 minutes while the nurse went and found the anesthesiologist again. He came back (12:00 by now) and gave me some stronger drugs. Still no relief. So he decided it was time for the spinal block. So once again I was sitting Indian style while contracting non-stop. He gave me the block and I instantly started to feel better. As soon as they got me laid back down (12:15) they checked me again and I was at a 9.
Dr. L came into the room around 12:40 and 6 pushes later you were born. It was 12:46pm. You were 7 lbs and 5 oz. and 19 ¾ long. You were so beautiful and angry! You were crying and crying but calmed down as soon as you heard my voice. We love you!
