Ladies! Sorry I have MIA for the past week! I have been trying to keep up reading on my phone.
Vaurissa, Yazzy, Sharon: Congrats on your babies!!! Its sooo exciting to see all these baies finally making their appearances.
Luci: I only lost plug when I had my sweeps. I may have been losing bits in the increased discharge that I had, but I never had any big globs or even a bloody show. Also, Im pretty sure many first time mommies have gone into labour without having a single BH.
So here is my birth story:
As you all know, I'd been in slow labour for weeks, and was getting very frustrated with all the contractions and false starts. Sunday (May 6) started as usual, OH and I took the dogs to the park to run around and burn off some energy, and we had planned to go and watch a movie that OH really wanted to see, planning on catching the last show of the evening. When we got home from the park, we DTD, and shortly after the contractions were a bit painful, but felt the same as my previous false starts had felt. A few hours later, they were still really painful, so I decided to have a bath to see if that would help. I told OH that if the pains continued, I didn't think I would be able to go and dit through the movie, and if they were still hurting in hour I wanted to go in and be seen. at 630 pm I decided to go in and be seen.
So we got to the hospital, and we were admitted to the early labour unit. My OB was the dr on call, so she can and checked my cervix, and I was thrilled to hear that I was actually in labour, I was 4 cm dilated. We were told to head on out, walk around for 2 hours and come back in to have my progress checked. We went to the car so that I could toss my purse in the trunk, only to find some jackass had thrown a rock through the passenger window and stolen about 75 cents worth of change, dug through the glove box and took off with our GPS! Thankfully they didn't get into the trunk, cause we had a $1500 camera in there!
So our good friends (and baby's godparents) came to the hospital, she walked with me for 2 hours while he and my OH dealt with the car insurance, police and finally took the damaged car home and swapped it for my car.
When I went back upstairs, I was only 5 cm, and I told my dr that I wasn't going home, that our car had been broken into and I wasn't leaving without a baby!
We decided to break my water to help speed things along.
I had my water broken at 11pm, and My GOODNESS did the contractions start to hurt after that!! I plugged along through the pain until 1 am, and when I was checked again, I was only about 5.5 cm. So I got an epidural, because there was no way I was going to be able to take the pain for several more hours. I think if I hadn't had my water broken, I may have been able to cope better, but looking back I have no regrets. My Epidural took an hour to kick in, but in that hour I had gotten to 7 cm.
At this point, I had a large gush of fluid. The nurse checked the pad, and apparently it was all blood. I was quickly reattached to the fetal monitor as they were thought I was having a placental abruption. Thankfully baby's heartrate was perfect, so my dr decided to monitor me and baby. I guess the resident was really pushing for a c section, and my nurse was fighting to allow me a vaginal delivery, but I dont remember any of that discussion. By 330 am, I was 10 cm dilated and ready to start pushing. Baby's heartrate had stayed perfect, so I got to have my vaginal delivery.
Gabriel James was born at 501 am, weighing 6lbs, 13oz, and 22 inches long. When he came out, he was white as the sheets, but screaming his little head off. It took a few minutes, but he did pink up nicely. When they delivered my placenta, they were able to confirm that I had a partial abruption, but not bad enough to have bothered Gabe at all!
Since his birth we have been struggling with breastfeeding. during the 2 days I was in the hospital he refused the boob, and screamed bloody murder every time I tried to feed him. He was very sleepy, we had to go as far as putting cold wet cloths on him just to wake him up. I was able to express a bit of colostrum to feed it to him on my fingertips and after several nurses trying to get him to latch, we decided to start pumping to stimulate the breasts because he just wasn't doing it. Our first night home was a complete nightmare. OH woke up with me, he fed Gabe a bottle while I pumped the next feed. I spent 2 days crying because nothing I did could get this boy on the boob! I had a public health nurse come by (standard thing here) and talked to her about the trouble I was having. After about 20 mins, she managed to get him to accept the boob using a nipple shield. We are still having some issues, but most of his feeds are from the boob. I am still pumping so that OH can give him a bottle while I get some sleep, or run a few errands. I haven't had to supplement with formula yet. When we left the hospital he weighed 6 lbs 3 oz, and he is getting weighed on tuesday at his first drs appt. So hopefully he has gained some weight. I know he is getting something to eat, his jaundice is clearing, and he is much more alert (no more cold wet cloths!) but I am still worried that he is not getting enough. I know you cant really tell with breastfed babies, but I am a worrier.
Anyways, sorry its so long! Here's some photos of my little monkey!
