I scheduled induction for October 26 at 5:30am. I got up and showered at 4am and got a phone call right after that they were full of laboring women and asked me to call back at 7, to see if I could come in at 7:30. When I called they said they had no idea when I would be able to come in, so asked that I hold tight and they would call me when they had a bed open and ready!
At 8am, I got the call to come in. So I ate some cereal and we dropped Ethan off at school, brought Parker over to Grandma’s house and headed into the hospital.
I was dilated to a 3 already, so I was hopeful that everything would go quickly and I’d have the baby by late afternoon! I was hooked up to the pitocin at 10am and then we sat around waiting for contractions to start.
Didn’t take long for the contractions to start and regulate to every 3 minutes. By 11 I was feeling them pretty good, but without pain. I wanted to get up and walk around, but my nurses were not allowing it because they needed a trace on baby’s heartbeat for the whole time. I finally whined about it enough that they rolled a birthing ball in for me, then even let me get up and walk.
I was up walking for about 45 minutes, then went and stood by my bed and just did mini squats as that was more comfortable than walking. I laid back down around 1 so they could check dilation. There were 2 nurses - an experienced one and a new one. The new one was doing cervix checks, which I was fine with because of course they are taught these things in school... I was super pleased to hear I was at a 5!!
Laid there and dozed off and on, played on my phone, and watched some sports crap on TV (lol). Contractions were more noticeable, but as long as I was sitting upright, they were very tolerable as far as pain goes. I was checked again around 4, nurse said I was at a 6. Contractions really started hurting at this point, though I could breathe through them. Next check at 6, I was maybe a 7, she said… but she wanted the other nurse to check as well, as cervix was in a weird spot. Other nurse checks and says no… I’m barely a 5. The new nurse was checking the openest part of my cervix, not further up. This seriously made me upset and I felt myself give up on trying for an unmedicated birth. The contractions were getting incredibly painful by that point and I had already been at it for so many hours, I just realized that there was no way I could get through another 5cms at the pace I was going.
I had accepted an epidural as likely outcome of a induced labor, so I wasn’t too overly upset about it. I was a little bummed, as I did want an unmedicated delivery, but I also knew my own limits and I knew that I was reaching them. So I cried about it for a minute, asked DH to reassure me that I wasn’t a failure for wanting an epidural (which he totally reassured me of, he was very happy for me to get an epidural, I think my crying and groaning was annoying him lol!)… then called for the nurse and demanded that she get the epidural guy there ASAP. After what felt like FOR-EV-ER, he finally showed up. I was in so much pain I could barely move, so they had to help me sit up and get into the right position for the placement.
Instant relief when he got it placed. They laid me back down and got the catheter in, etc. My legs were numb, especially my thighs, but I could still move them without much effort - which I couldn’t do when I had an epidural with my first baby. I had refused to let them break my waters up to that point, as I knew I wouldn’t be able to get through once the waters were ruptured. But now that nothing hurt anyway, I let them break my waters. It was shift change for nurses, so I got a new nurse. She broke my waters and told me she’d be back to check me in a bit. So at 7, when I got the epidural i was dilated to about a 5… by 8 or 8:30, after the epidural and after my waters were broken, I was fully dilated.
She said they were going to let me rest and let the contractions work the baby down the birth canal a little before calling the doctor. She reminded me that if I had the urge to push or poop, to call for her. I rested for about an hour. My mom showed up at some point to visit, and then was reluctant to leave because the baby was so close, so I decided to just let her stay for the pushing stage. She was taken by surprise, but was absolutely elated to be there to watch a grand baby be born!
I quit paying attention to the clock to be honest, but I think around 9:30 or 9:45, the nurse came in and said we were going to do “practice pushes”, to get the baby to move down more so that things would move along quickly when the doctor showed up. Deep breath, let it out, another deep breath, curl chin down and push! Push 3 times with each contraction, rest. I had allowed my epidural to wear down quite a bit, so I could feel just about everything, only minus the sensation of pain. Just as I’m feeling her head coming through my pelvis (but not crowning), my doctor shows up, gets his stuff on and she was out in a couple more contractions.
Her head absolutely did not feel like it was going to fit. It felt like I was pushing a bowling ball out, ha! Then there was a massive feeling of relief (during which I honestly thought I had somehow sucked her back up into my body lol), and all the pressure was gone. Everybody is saying, “Look down!! Look down!!” So I look down. And there is my brand spanking new daughter, covered head to toe in vernix and still attached to me. I don’t remember that instant with my first two, and it is a memory I will treasure forever.
After the blood was out of the chord, my husband cut it and they took her to be wiped off while I delivered the placenta. Then I look over to the nurses and my heart stops. I see a CPAP thingy on her face and the nurses are mumbling to each other. She isn’t breathing well on her own, they explain, as they alternate the CPAP and some suctioning thing. Lots of mucus in her lungs. Her color is good, but her breaths are more of a gasp and she isn’t crying or making any noise at all.
They stopped temporarily to get a weight and length on her - 7 lbs 14 oz, 19.5” long. I looked at the clock after I looked at her and knew she came out at 10:16pm. But when they stopped the CPAP her oxygen levels fell to 80%. “We have to get her breathing!” they say and then she is wrapped up and carried off the NICU, while I’m stuck laying in my bed, crying, as a doctor has his hands up my vagina looking for tears etc. No tears, no excessive bleeding… no issues for me.
My husband kept telling me she’ll be fine, and the nurses assured me that this is not super uncommon. My mom kept saying that she just needs a little help. My heart keeps saying “This is my fault for inducing. She wasn’t ready to breath. This is my fault because I had an epidural. That screwed her up somehow. This is my fault, somehow. I did this to her, and now I’m paying for it by missing the first moments, minutes, hours, DAYS?? of her life.”
My nurse came back in around 11 with some food for me to eat. My husband was exhausted, so he headed home at this point. The nurse explained that they call it “transitioning” (at least at our hospital, I have not allowed myself on Google to see what its actually called). Basically she has a bit of a large head, and so everything was stretched out over her head, and then her body just fell right out after her and she didn’t get the compression that most babies get that gets the mucus out of their lungs. From there she just couldn’t get her lungs to inflate on her own, which is what her gasping breaths were trying to do. The CPAP she was on was to put “positive pressure” on her lungs to help them inflate and stay inflated. It was not my fault for inducing. It was not my fault by having an epidural. It could have happened anyway. I hate the line - but it is “just one of those things.”
At midnight I was told that she was off CPAP and just on oxygen. The pediatrician on call came in and talked to me. She asked if they were allowed to give her formula. I consented to formula if necessary, but asked that it be done in a feeding tube instead of a bottle. In the end, they didn’t give her any formula but just put her on an IV to keep her blood sugars stable.
I finally got to see her and hold her when she was 3 hours old. I didn’t get to attempt nursing yet because she was still flaring her nostrils some, which indicates she would struggle to breath if latched. She was off the oxygen by that point and breathing room air, but was still on an IV, and had various monitors on her to keep an eye on all her levels. She was (is) beautiful, naturally the most beautiful baby ever.
I was exhausted by this point as it was like 1:30am and I’d been up since 6:30, after a very broken night’s sleep. I held her for like half an hour until I started dozing off in the chair. A nurse came in and put her back into her bed, then they gave me a pump and had me pump for 15 minutes to stimulate my milk, as I was already 3 hours in and not yet able to nurse.
I was finally able to sleep after that - I would not have been able to sleep until holding her and knowing she was OK, so it was worth the extreme exhaustion. I slept for about 4 hours and then woke up to find text messages from my husband indicating he had been awake and worrying about her all night.
At around 7am, I was called in to go nurse her. Her latch was perfect, she nursed for quite a while. I finally believed that she was going to be OK. She stayed in the nursery to keep an eye on her levels for most of the day, but I went in every couple of hours to nurse her again and to cuddle her. She was moved into my room around 3:30 or 4pm. We were finally able to leave the hospital at 10am the next day.
Other than that we're good and I'm still so elated to be a mummy again of such a beautiful little girl 
(though sometimes I do think... "maybe just one more..." 
)
