Okay - finally stole a moment to get back on here.
So, we'd planned for a natural, medication free birth. That is NOT what we got.
I was doing really well at home. We get to the hospital and set up in triage for monitoring (where I realized I had contractions I wasn't feeling in between the ones I could feel). Anne's heartrate dropped for several minutes. So they had me turn on my side (I'd been on my back). Heart rate came back up, no problem. But the doc on call for my practice wanted a full ultrasound anatomy check done before admitting me.
Tech went silent quickly. She said she was waiting for our daughter to demonstrate the ability to breathe, but it wasn't registering on the ultrasound. That was all. No indication of what that meant, nothing.
Nurse came in to check me - I was 70% effaced, still only 1 cm dilated. Too little to keep me, but the contractions were too many to let me go. So, I was admitted and told they'd start inducing me - cervadil that night then pitocin 12 hours later. I get to my room and they determine I'm having contractions too frequently for the cervadil...so we're going to take a "wait and see approach." That was around 2/3 am. We labor through the night, catching snippets of sleep between checks and contractions.
Somewhere around 6/7-ish I started transitioning (and vomiting). I called the nurse because I was starting to lose feeling in my arms/hands and back labor so severe I couldn't really move. I was hyperventilating and Anne's stats were dropping again. So, I suddenly had 3-4 nurses in my room flipping me to my left side then onto hands and knees (at this point my water REALLY broke). My stats were going wacky, too. Once it got under control, I was told that it would be in both of our interests to consider pain management beyond breathing and visualization.
We talked to the anasthesiologist and decided that a walking epidural would be best. At this point, I'm thinking I'll likely get a C section as they've found meconium in the amniotic fluid. Walking epidural can be changed out in 5-10 minutes for the full if needed. So, they place that after 2-3 attempts. Relief. Best decision I made.
At this point, I'm back on the birthing ball and waiting. And vomiting...several times. I'm still talking between contractions, breathing, it's working out well.
Then my body took over and was ready to push, but I wasn't fully dilated yet. In they come with the "peanut" to put between my knees to help me "open" (for the love of everything in the world, that sucked so bad) then hands and knees for 20 minutes. I told the nurse I was going to push whether they were ready or not, my body wasn't listening to me. Doc comes in and says I'm good to go whenever I'm ready. There's another lady with the practice across the hall who is also crowning, but she has a full epidural, so my doc says she'll stick with me.
They estimated 15 minutes. Forty five minutes and 2 2nd degree tears later...she arrived - greyish with the cord around her neck. Because of the meconium, a whole peds team was there to evaluate her. It was a long few seconds after birth before she cried, and even then she sounded off from the cord. But a minute later I was able to see her at the warmer, and about 10 minutes later my husband brought her over to me. I was sobbing.
After we got home, I basically crashed. She cried inconsolably the first few nights - I was trying to breastfeed her but felt something was "off" or wrong. I went almost immediately into anxiety induced digestive upset, had excruciating pain from the epidural placement, and basically went into a depression. We went to a lactation specialist and discovered Anne was tongue tied (which is why breastfeeding hurt so badly) and we realized that she wasn't getting enough breastmilk and we needed to supplement, which explained the crying and why she was sleeping so much as she was fatigued and not getting nutrients. We had her tongue clipped but then my milk dried up entirely. So, we.re exclusively formula now.
Lots of twists and turns, none of my wishes, but she's healthy and thriving now.
Not with hydrocodone of course... Ibuprofen and heating pads were my go to.
yestarday at 16 DPO 
Hope you're doing better, too.
