babydreams85
1 DS, Preg w/baby girl!
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After an extremely difficult pregnancy (multiple health issues and hospital stays), a very healthy baby Weston
arrived on Valentine's Day (February 14th, 2013)!! 
We are in love with him and he is just absolutely perfect! Worth everything I went through to get to this point.
Birth Story (Sorry this is LONG):
For several weeks I have had episodes of contractions that were coming 5-10 mins apart and lasting for a couple hours, but then they would stop. I was so aggravated with all this false labor! Last Wednesday I had a night of severe back pain. I couldn't sleep and was so uncomfortable, had a bloody show that night. Thought that might be 'it' but the next morning it went away. I just sat and cried, so tired of my body tricking me. Then for the rest of the week and weekend I had tightenings and cramps, but they never went anywhere. I did a lot of bouncing on my ball, DTD with DH a few times, and walked. My pelvis was incredibly achey and I could feel him LOW LOW LOW.
That Monday I had a doctor's appointment (at 38+4) where we were supposed to be talking about induction later in the week due to my complicated pregnancy. Unfortunately I hadn't made anymore progress from the last week though, I was still at only 1cm dilated and my cervix actually felt THICKER than it had the previous week. He said it could be irritated but he didn't see me going into labor on my own anytime soon. He said he wouldn't induce with Pitocin until I was at least 2cm dilated due to risk of c-section, so he wanted me to make another appointment for Thursday to have my cervix rechecked. If I hadn't dilated anymore we would have to start with a gel on my cervix and hope that worked to dilate me so we could use the Pitocin. I was so frustrated after the appointment, felt like my body was not doing much and I was in so much pain from all these contractions and cramps and my other health issues. I just knew I would go back Thurs and be told I had made no progress again.
Sooo fast forward to Wednesday. I felt 'off' from the minute I woke up. I was nauseous, had no appetite, and even more crampy than I had been. I kept going to pee every 5 minutes and as soon as I would stand up I would feel like I had to go again. I decided to run some errands...went to the grocery store and to buy a Valentine's Day gift for my DH. While walking around the store I got two terrible contractions that stopped me from moving for a full minute, and with them came this horrible shooting pain down my inner thigh. Went back home and watched a movie, got contractions and back pain throughout the whole thing...started around 20 mins apart and then went to 17. Then out to as much as 30. Called my mom because DH was working out of town and I just had a funny feeling that things might be real this time. I decided to go to her house and spend the night, just in case anything happened. On the drive over I had a few more contractions, painful in my lower back and just a tightening feeling in the front with a light cramp. When I got there we decided to go for a walk around her neighborhood to hopefully get things going. I had to stop a few times because I was so uncomfortable and the contractions were starting to really hurt. We picked up some dinner and came back to the house to eat, but I had no appetite and only ate a few bites. I just felt so thirsty, I think I had 5 glasses of water. The contractions kept coming so we decided to time them and found they were 10 mins apart, lasting 1 min. Then I didn't have one for 30 mins. I thought, "here we go again...another episode of false labor!!!!"
All of a sudden things picked up. I had a huge glob of bloody plug come out. Contractions came back and were hitting every 7-8 minutes. They were also getting more painful with each one, and still ALL in my back due to baby being sunny side up (back to back). The only thing I could do to get slight relief was to get on all 4s and rock. By 10pm I was getting them every 2-5 minutes and I couldn't walk or talk through them, so it was time to go to the hospital. When we got to L&D triage they hooked me up the monitors and found I was contracting about every 4 minutes, but when the nurse checked my cervix I was only 1.5cm dilated. She called the doctor and I was told to take a walk around the hospital for an hour and see if that caused me to progress anymore. If not, they would have to send me home. During the walk the contractions got so bad that I could barely breathe...the pain in my back was absolutely excruciating and I have a high pain tolerance. After the hour was up I went back to be checked and unfortunately hadn't made any progress at all. She did, however, do a stretch and sweep on me to try and help me out...so I had a lot more bleeding afterwards. I was so upset and in so much pain, I just lost it. It was the most helpless feeling in the world. The doctor ordered some pain meds for me to take and I was told to go to my regular doctors appointment later that morning (the one I had scheduled already for Thurs) and check again for any progress. The pain meds of course did nothing at all to help, I KNEW I was in active labor as I had never felt pain like this. The contractions kept coming for the rest of the night. I couldn't sleep at all, couldn't even breathe through them. After what seemed an eternity it was time to go to the doctor. I was terrified I would still be at 1.5cm and I couldn't fathom being in the kind of pain I was in for much longer. I could barely walk into the doctor's office. Kept having to stop and bend over in a contraction. The receptionists yelled at them to get me in a room ASAP! The doctor came in fairly quickly and checked my cervix. She got a big smile on her face and asked, "are you ready to have your baby today?" I was in shock and just stared at her, and she finished with, "you're 4cm now, go straight to the hospital to be admitted!" I started crying...I was so happy that all the pain I was in hadn't been for nothing!
Once we got to the hospital and checked in, they put me in a room and the nurse had to check my cervix again to verify I was 4cm before ordering my epidural. I was already at a 5--more progress! Got the epidural and it was amazing--finally relief after hours and hours of horrible pain! I could still feel the contractions but they only felt like hard pressure and not painful at all. I felt comfortable and ready to have a baby! The doctor on call came in and broke my water to get things moving, then a few hours went by and the doctors changed shifts. The new one (who is my favorite in the practice) came in to check me. I was still stuck at 5cm. They put in an internal contraction monitor because he felt my contractions were a bit weak (probably due to the epidural and baby being turned the wrong way) and weren't progressing my body. The internal monitor showed he was right and they had gone from being a 10 on the contraction scale to only a 5. So he decided to start me on a low dose of Pitocin to get things moving again. I got the lowest dose possible on a slow drip, thinking things would take quite a while.
My contractions did pick up and went back to being strong, but about an hour after Pitocin was started the baby's heartrate began to dip way down during every contraction and I started to shake really badly. The nurses weren't concerned because the heartrate would bounce right back up as soon as the contraction finished and they felt my shaking was just due to the epidural, but I was terrified and I got really emotional. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I really felt like I had to poop during every contraction, and I told my mom. She rushed out the nurses station and they all came running in, and explained that a feeling like that meant I was actually feeling like I need to PUSH, but it's harder to recognize with an epidural! The nurse checked me and said, "oh my gosh, are you ready to have this baby?" My mom said, "what? how dilated is she?" and the nurse yelled, "she's 10 cm and at a +2 station. if she were at a +3 the head would be hanging out!" She called the doctor and they started setting up the room for delivery. Doctor got there 5 mins later and couldn't believe I had gone from 5 to 10cm in a little over an hour...and they decided that being ready to push was what caused his heartrate to drop with the contractions and also my shakes. They asked if I wanted a mirror and I got to see the hair on his little head--so amazing!
Then the pushing started. They asked for a practice push to see how I was going to do, especially having had the epidural. They told me to expect to be pushing for about 1-2 hours on average for a first time mom and with an epidural. After the practice push the doctor looked up at me and said, "ok nevermind, we're not going to be here for 2 hours...actually not even 1." He was right, because after only 10 minutes of hard pushing (it hurt but the epidural took the edge off and it just felt like a tremendous pressure--a bit like my pubic bones were going to break) and a quick episiotomy, baby Weston was born! He came out facing the right way (he had turned), and screaming (he didn't stop for 15 minutes except when he was briefly placed on my chest right after he was born). Scored 8 & 9 on his APGARs (good but not perfect because his feet and hands were purple and he had bruising on his face and had swallowed quite a bit of fluid due to the extremely fast birth). He was a good weight, 7 lbs 14 ounces, and 21.5 inches long! Placenta was delivered fairly easily. Even though I had the episiotomy I still tore in two places (one 2nd degree perineal and one urethral), so I had to have several stitches. It took baby about 24 hours to get out most of the amniotic fluid he swallowed, and he had a couple episodes of vomiting and a lot of gagging/choking and had to be suctioned a lot with a bulb syringe.
Weston is doing wonderful, eating well, no more fluid in his tummy, and I am loving every minute of being a mommy. Things are a bit painful 'down there' due to all the tearing, and my nipples are swollen and cracked so breastfeeding has been tough at times...but I wouldn't change any of it! I am tired, yes, and still waddling a bit like a duck (thought that would be over after I had the baby LOL), but he is 100% worth it! He is my little miracle and I feel so fortunate to be holding him after 3 losses and then such a complicated pregnancy where I was told several times I would not make it to full term. He was born at 39 weeks exactly and perfectly healthy! He proved everyone wrong and I am one proud mom!!!!
arrived on Valentine's Day (February 14th, 2013)!! We are in love with him and he is just absolutely perfect! Worth everything I went through to get to this point.
Birth Story (Sorry this is LONG):
For several weeks I have had episodes of contractions that were coming 5-10 mins apart and lasting for a couple hours, but then they would stop. I was so aggravated with all this false labor! Last Wednesday I had a night of severe back pain. I couldn't sleep and was so uncomfortable, had a bloody show that night. Thought that might be 'it' but the next morning it went away. I just sat and cried, so tired of my body tricking me. Then for the rest of the week and weekend I had tightenings and cramps, but they never went anywhere. I did a lot of bouncing on my ball, DTD with DH a few times, and walked. My pelvis was incredibly achey and I could feel him LOW LOW LOW.
That Monday I had a doctor's appointment (at 38+4) where we were supposed to be talking about induction later in the week due to my complicated pregnancy. Unfortunately I hadn't made anymore progress from the last week though, I was still at only 1cm dilated and my cervix actually felt THICKER than it had the previous week. He said it could be irritated but he didn't see me going into labor on my own anytime soon. He said he wouldn't induce with Pitocin until I was at least 2cm dilated due to risk of c-section, so he wanted me to make another appointment for Thursday to have my cervix rechecked. If I hadn't dilated anymore we would have to start with a gel on my cervix and hope that worked to dilate me so we could use the Pitocin. I was so frustrated after the appointment, felt like my body was not doing much and I was in so much pain from all these contractions and cramps and my other health issues. I just knew I would go back Thurs and be told I had made no progress again.
Sooo fast forward to Wednesday. I felt 'off' from the minute I woke up. I was nauseous, had no appetite, and even more crampy than I had been. I kept going to pee every 5 minutes and as soon as I would stand up I would feel like I had to go again. I decided to run some errands...went to the grocery store and to buy a Valentine's Day gift for my DH. While walking around the store I got two terrible contractions that stopped me from moving for a full minute, and with them came this horrible shooting pain down my inner thigh. Went back home and watched a movie, got contractions and back pain throughout the whole thing...started around 20 mins apart and then went to 17. Then out to as much as 30. Called my mom because DH was working out of town and I just had a funny feeling that things might be real this time. I decided to go to her house and spend the night, just in case anything happened. On the drive over I had a few more contractions, painful in my lower back and just a tightening feeling in the front with a light cramp. When I got there we decided to go for a walk around her neighborhood to hopefully get things going. I had to stop a few times because I was so uncomfortable and the contractions were starting to really hurt. We picked up some dinner and came back to the house to eat, but I had no appetite and only ate a few bites. I just felt so thirsty, I think I had 5 glasses of water. The contractions kept coming so we decided to time them and found they were 10 mins apart, lasting 1 min. Then I didn't have one for 30 mins. I thought, "here we go again...another episode of false labor!!!!"
All of a sudden things picked up. I had a huge glob of bloody plug come out. Contractions came back and were hitting every 7-8 minutes. They were also getting more painful with each one, and still ALL in my back due to baby being sunny side up (back to back). The only thing I could do to get slight relief was to get on all 4s and rock. By 10pm I was getting them every 2-5 minutes and I couldn't walk or talk through them, so it was time to go to the hospital. When we got to L&D triage they hooked me up the monitors and found I was contracting about every 4 minutes, but when the nurse checked my cervix I was only 1.5cm dilated. She called the doctor and I was told to take a walk around the hospital for an hour and see if that caused me to progress anymore. If not, they would have to send me home. During the walk the contractions got so bad that I could barely breathe...the pain in my back was absolutely excruciating and I have a high pain tolerance. After the hour was up I went back to be checked and unfortunately hadn't made any progress at all. She did, however, do a stretch and sweep on me to try and help me out...so I had a lot more bleeding afterwards. I was so upset and in so much pain, I just lost it. It was the most helpless feeling in the world. The doctor ordered some pain meds for me to take and I was told to go to my regular doctors appointment later that morning (the one I had scheduled already for Thurs) and check again for any progress. The pain meds of course did nothing at all to help, I KNEW I was in active labor as I had never felt pain like this. The contractions kept coming for the rest of the night. I couldn't sleep at all, couldn't even breathe through them. After what seemed an eternity it was time to go to the doctor. I was terrified I would still be at 1.5cm and I couldn't fathom being in the kind of pain I was in for much longer. I could barely walk into the doctor's office. Kept having to stop and bend over in a contraction. The receptionists yelled at them to get me in a room ASAP! The doctor came in fairly quickly and checked my cervix. She got a big smile on her face and asked, "are you ready to have your baby today?" I was in shock and just stared at her, and she finished with, "you're 4cm now, go straight to the hospital to be admitted!" I started crying...I was so happy that all the pain I was in hadn't been for nothing!
Once we got to the hospital and checked in, they put me in a room and the nurse had to check my cervix again to verify I was 4cm before ordering my epidural. I was already at a 5--more progress! Got the epidural and it was amazing--finally relief after hours and hours of horrible pain! I could still feel the contractions but they only felt like hard pressure and not painful at all. I felt comfortable and ready to have a baby! The doctor on call came in and broke my water to get things moving, then a few hours went by and the doctors changed shifts. The new one (who is my favorite in the practice) came in to check me. I was still stuck at 5cm. They put in an internal contraction monitor because he felt my contractions were a bit weak (probably due to the epidural and baby being turned the wrong way) and weren't progressing my body. The internal monitor showed he was right and they had gone from being a 10 on the contraction scale to only a 5. So he decided to start me on a low dose of Pitocin to get things moving again. I got the lowest dose possible on a slow drip, thinking things would take quite a while.
My contractions did pick up and went back to being strong, but about an hour after Pitocin was started the baby's heartrate began to dip way down during every contraction and I started to shake really badly. The nurses weren't concerned because the heartrate would bounce right back up as soon as the contraction finished and they felt my shaking was just due to the epidural, but I was terrified and I got really emotional. Then it suddenly occurred to me that I really felt like I had to poop during every contraction, and I told my mom. She rushed out the nurses station and they all came running in, and explained that a feeling like that meant I was actually feeling like I need to PUSH, but it's harder to recognize with an epidural! The nurse checked me and said, "oh my gosh, are you ready to have this baby?" My mom said, "what? how dilated is she?" and the nurse yelled, "she's 10 cm and at a +2 station. if she were at a +3 the head would be hanging out!" She called the doctor and they started setting up the room for delivery. Doctor got there 5 mins later and couldn't believe I had gone from 5 to 10cm in a little over an hour...and they decided that being ready to push was what caused his heartrate to drop with the contractions and also my shakes. They asked if I wanted a mirror and I got to see the hair on his little head--so amazing!
Then the pushing started. They asked for a practice push to see how I was going to do, especially having had the epidural. They told me to expect to be pushing for about 1-2 hours on average for a first time mom and with an epidural. After the practice push the doctor looked up at me and said, "ok nevermind, we're not going to be here for 2 hours...actually not even 1." He was right, because after only 10 minutes of hard pushing (it hurt but the epidural took the edge off and it just felt like a tremendous pressure--a bit like my pubic bones were going to break) and a quick episiotomy, baby Weston was born! He came out facing the right way (he had turned), and screaming (he didn't stop for 15 minutes except when he was briefly placed on my chest right after he was born). Scored 8 & 9 on his APGARs (good but not perfect because his feet and hands were purple and he had bruising on his face and had swallowed quite a bit of fluid due to the extremely fast birth). He was a good weight, 7 lbs 14 ounces, and 21.5 inches long! Placenta was delivered fairly easily. Even though I had the episiotomy I still tore in two places (one 2nd degree perineal and one urethral), so I had to have several stitches. It took baby about 24 hours to get out most of the amniotic fluid he swallowed, and he had a couple episodes of vomiting and a lot of gagging/choking and had to be suctioned a lot with a bulb syringe.
Weston is doing wonderful, eating well, no more fluid in his tummy, and I am loving every minute of being a mommy. Things are a bit painful 'down there' due to all the tearing, and my nipples are swollen and cracked so breastfeeding has been tough at times...but I wouldn't change any of it! I am tired, yes, and still waddling a bit like a duck (thought that would be over after I had the baby LOL), but he is 100% worth it! He is my little miracle and I feel so fortunate to be holding him after 3 losses and then such a complicated pregnancy where I was told several times I would not make it to full term. He was born at 39 weeks exactly and perfectly healthy! He proved everyone wrong and I am one proud mom!!!!
