Hi ladies!
It's raining rainbow babies... I love it. Congratulations to all you yummy mummies... can you believe it??? We did it!
Our birth story:
On May 1, DH and I headed out to our final growth scan. We were seen right away and the peri did his usual business with the ultrasound. He got to measuring my amniotic fluid (which he always does last) and said, "hmmmm. Who's your doctor?" Hubs and I looked at each other with the same "oh sh*t" look as I answered. The peri said, "it's time for you to have your baby." And I said, "okay." Thinking that he meant everything looked good and I was full term so I could have the baby anytime. DH said, "Today???" and the peri said, "Yes. Your fluid is really low so I'm getting your doctor on the phone and letting him know you're on your way to the hospital." So off we went. We stopped at home to grab my hospital bag and got to the hospital a little before 11am. The nurse showed us to our room, I changed into a gown and she checked me. I was at 3 cm, thin and about 80% effaced. She called my doctor to see what the course of action would be. Sure enough, he ordered Pitocin. The Pitocin was started at 12:15 and everything seemed to progress nicely. My OB came in to break my water and insert an internal monitor at about 2:30 and said I was a tight 3. He told me he would see me at dinner time as that's when he expected I would have the baby. About 20 mins later, I was in absolute agony. I had both DS and DD with no drugs. I asked DH to have the nurse check me. I rationalized that if I was at a 6-7 or higher then I wouldn't ask for any drugs. Well, I was 4 cm dilated. I looked at my husband and started crying and said, "I can't do this for another 6 hours or however long it'll take." He told me to just get an epidural, but I didn't want one. I just asked for IV pain meds and was given Dilaudid, which did nothing except make me sleepy. So I would close my eyes, feel a contraction coming, grab my husband's fingers and squeeze the life out of them. Then once I felt the contraction coming down, my whole body would relax then start all over a minute and a half to two minutes later. I started feeling pressure and told DH to ask the nurse to check me. I was at an 8. Someone had just had a c-section and my doctor had assisted, but had already left to back to his office. Thank God his office is right next door to the hospital! The nurse called out to someone to get Williams (my OB) back here and tell him I'm ready to deliver. The next contraction, I started panting and told her I needed to push. She checked me again and I was fully dilated. She told me to breathe through my contractions and not to push. They couldn't get him as he was walking back to his office so they were asking another OB (the one who did the c-section) to deliver me because they didn't think my OB would make it back in time. Luckily, he got there just in time and told me to start pushing as he was washing his hands. So I did. One contraction and three pushes later, Annabel Claudine entered the world at 3:51 pm. My husband didn't get to cut the cord as it was wrapped around her neck tightly so I actually had to stop pushing once her head was out so my doctor could cut the cord from around her neck and deliver the rest of her. She has two black eyes and a broken blood vessel in one of her eyes as a result of the tight nuchal cord and her super fast delivery. Other than that , she was 5 lbs 12 oz and 18 inches of beauty.
It took her over 24 hours to pass any meconium so she was pretty severely jaundiced on day 3. We went to the lactation consultant the Saturday after she was born and her bilirubin was 13.5 which was pretty high. She also weighed only 5 lbs 3 oz so she had lost 10% of her body weight. We called her ped who told me to supplement formula twice a day, which I did. We went to the ped on Monday and she weighed 5 lbs 6 oz, but her bili was 17.8. Our doctor would have admitted her at 19-20 so we upped the supplementation to every other feed (I was worried sick so I ended up supplementing every feed) then went back on Wednesday. Her bili was down to 15.2. Our ped told us to keep doing what we're doing since it was going down. She doesn't seem as yellow or as lethargic so I'm assuming the number is continuing to decrease. Our next appt is next Monday so we'll see. My supply has severely plummeted though so that sucks.
hopefully I can get the go ahead next Monday to wean her off the formula and just have a breastfeeding boot camp for a couple of days where I do nothing but nurse to try and get my supply back up.
Anyway, that's my novel of a birth story and the subsequent 12 days afterwards. I just love her to bits and pieces.
Seriously, treasure every moment of these early days. My first born turned 12 today and I still remember him being this small and the awe I used to feel staring at him as a newborn. Now I stare at him as a young man and that awe is still there. I look at all my children and can hardly believe that my husband and I made them.
BFing is going great, I'm happy that he's gaining and I'm producing well. I hope I can keep this up!
So glad all turned out ok, sounds so scary! Yeah I bawled the second I heard my baby cry, I was just so so happy & there was more than a touch of relief in there too. 
