There are some things I want to share in blog posts, but to do that, I must preface my birth stories to provide a little background.
To start, I wanted to share K’s birth story since she is child #1.
I conceived K in March of 2005. She was not a “planned” pregnancy, but she was a welcome pregnancy.
We were living in an extremely stressful situation, I was 1700 miles away from my family and friends, and this was my first pregnancy. I had no idea what to expect.
I wouldn’t say the pregnancy was easy either. The entire pregnancy, I was told that she was too big. She was constantly measuring big. Her due date was set as December 27th.
Starting in October, I had to go to the doctor twice a week for stress tests because she wasn’t moving as much as she should of. Each time I took the test at the doctor, I ended up in the hospital for another test and an ultrasound only to be told everything was fine. I did this two times a week for roughly two and a half months before she was actually born.
In November, one doctor told me they would induce at Thanksgiving because she would be a large baby. (They were estimating her to be 12-14 pounds by her due date.)
The first week of December, we scheduled my induction for December 13th.
The beginning of the week of December 13th, I had an ultrasound that resulted in the doctor calling me in a panic telling me I cannot go into natural labor. She was breech (bottom down rather than head down) and that they would have to do a c-section immediately. In a panic, I started calling my friends who lived 1700 miles away to support me through my panic. Fortunately, a call back five minutes later assured me that my baby was fine- it was someone else’s ultrasound pictures they were looking at!
When they schedule inductions, you have to call the night before to make sure all is good to go. We called the night before as instructed and were told there was no room so I could not come in for my induction.
Now bear in mind, I was told I am having a 12-14 pound baby, I was a new soon to be mommy, I was scared out of my mind and I could not go to the hospital to be induced. This was my daily life from December 13th until December 26th. Every day we called. Every day we were told there were too many women having babies and there was no room for me. Every day I cried because my 12-14 pound baby was continuing to grow inside me. I was terrified!
On December 26th, we had just arrived home from spending time with family and received a call at roughly 9pm. The hospital called stating they finally had room and I could come in to be induced. We called everyone and rushed on our way.
Now for me, I would never recommend induction or want to go through it again. It was a long night of medication to induce pregnancy, no eating or drinking, little sleep because they are constantly checking you- just not my thing. Additionally, if I wasn’t so petrified that my child was going to come out a giant, I wouldn’t have been so insistent on being induced (and I have now learned to not listen when they say my baby is growing big and just go with the flow.)
To top it off, I could not get comfortable. If I was not on my left side, K’s heart beat would drop so I would have to move back to my left side. Do you know how uncomfortable it is to lay on your left side for hours on end!?
By 3:32pm (after three epidurals), my daughter was born 7 pounds 14 ounces.
I don’t recall how long the pushing actually went, but recall it wasn’t long. I had little sleep, lots of medication, and became violently ill after birth (I am sure it had nothing to do with not eating or drinking since the previous night and then guzzling liquids immediately following birth *note the sarcasm*).
We learned that her heart beat kept dropping because the umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck. When she came out, she gasped for breath so hard it punctured a small hole into her lung which required her to be put in NICU for two days.
I didn’t see her after birth the entire first night. She was in the NICU and I was asleep and sick that entire evening. In fact, I don’t recall if I saw her the second day either or if it was the third day that I finally got to see her and take her home.
Because of my being ill, pumping wasn’t mentioned to me that night and I wasn’t provided my baby that night. In fact, I don’t recall trying to nurse her at all in the hospital, but do remember pumping the next day. Needless to say, breastfeeding did not happen with her, but I did pump for the first 4 weeks.
Fortunately, the hole in her lung healed on her own and she is completely healthy.
There are things now that looking back, I would do differently, and I did do differently with the next two.
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