I had a wonderful pregnancy, but I was nearly a week overdue and my doctor didn't think it would be wise to wait any longer, so around 7:00 in the morning on July 24, 2008 I was admitted to the hospital to have labor induced.
I don't know quite what I was expecting to have happen, but I did know that I wanted to try to keep labor as natural as possible, but kept an open mind about possibly needing an epidural. After a couple of hours my doctor came in and started me on a round of Cytotec, which is a drug used to reduce stomach acid - with a nasty side effect of premature labor for pregnant women. It actually helped to thin out my cervix, but I wasn't really having much for contractions. After a couple hours time my doctor started me on Pitocin. That seemed to jump start the contractions, but I dilated very slowly. I was hooked up to machines and was on IV drips for the Pitocin & after I ate dinner, insulin was added to the drip. I wasn't happy about it, but what could I do??
I paced back and forth in the room, hoping that things would progress more quickly, but no ... over 12 hours later and I had only dilated to a 3. Scott knew it would still be a while before things really started happening, so he ran home around 9:00pm to let the dogs out. Shortly before 11:00pm my doctor came in again and checked the baby's vitals. This was when she decided that she needed to break my waters to attach a wire to my baby's head to get a clearer picture of how he was handling labor. I was NOT prepared for the gush of water that followed. Absolutely everything was soaked. I think I was happy that Scott wasn't back yet to witness all of that.
OK, NOW I CAN FEEL THE CONTACTIONS & it HURTS!!!!! I waited until Scott returned to the hospital to make sure he was ok with it and then I requested an epidural. I was in tears because the delivery process just wasn't going the way I had hoped or anticipated. What I dreaded the most was possibly needing to deliver C-section. I really wanted to experience the whole 'natural childbirth' process... but I couldn't handle the pain of the contractions. Scott held my hand and helped me breath as the anesthesiologist started administering the epidural. I did pretty good, but it hurt like hell. I was distressed when I discovered that only my right side had been numbed and I could still feel everything on my left side. Kind of defeated the purpose! After about an hour I had the nurse call the anesthesiologist back in because the left side still wasn't numb. He gave me another dose & said we should wait for another 20 mintues to see if the 2nd dose made a difference. 20 minutes later my right leg felt like a HUGE tree truck, while I could still feel everything on the left... SO, back he came to replace the epidural ... it didn't feel any better the 2nd time around, but it worked that time!
I was able to sleep for a couple hours before the doctor came in again to check my progress ... I noticed that Scott was gone, having run home to give Jessie her medication & let the dogs out for a while. I think I was in shock when the doctor said that I was still only dilated to a 3 and that the baby hadn't been handling the contractions very well ... Scott came in around the time that she said that we needed to get the
baby out safely, for both of us ... and I broke down in tears again as they started to prep me for surgery. It was a very good thing that I had requested the epidural, otherwise they would have had to put me under general anesthic and I would have missed everything.At 7:00am they wheeled me into surgery and at 7:27am out little baby boy, Khristian James Donald was born!
No comments:
Post a Comment