I have been lurking for quite a while and this board has been so helpful, so I thought I would take a few minutes and share my birth story. I was addicted to reading other mom's birth stories before my LO was born!
NOTHING about my birth went as planned! I had a normal pregnancy nothing out of the ordinary. I only had 1 sonogram at 20 weeks where we were told everything was normal. During my pregnancy I had asked my doctor multiple times if my baby was breech and he assured me multiple times that she was head down. I never felt kicking where others described it but I trusted him since I had never done this before!
After going to birthing classes and weeks of bouncing on my birthing ball at home, my water broke while making dinner at 11pm. I was 40+5 weeks. We each took showers and packed a few last minute items before heading to the hospital. At this point there were no contractions and no pain, just constant dripping (eww!). I arrived at the hospital around 2am and they confirm my waters have broke, I am 50 percent effaced and 1 cm dilated. The nurse thinks she feels something strange and gets an sonogram machine and does the world's quickest sonogram. She assures me that the baby is head down and that everything is ok. So about 4am I head upstairs to labor and delivery.
In labor and delivery they try to get an IV line started but I am so swollen that the nurse cannot find a vein. After a few sticks that nurse gives up and goes to find someone else to try. The next nurse comes in and is finally find a vein after her second stick. I don't deal well with needles and thought I was going to pass out. I was sweating so bad and was convinced after that ordeal there was no way someone was going to stick a needle in my back for an epidural!!! To top it off I was also strep b positive and had to be started on antibiotics. I was warned that they are a bit caustic and might burn when the drip starts. The nurse waited a few minutes and started the drip without telling me in hopes that I would not notice. Well I did, it felt like my hand was on fire!
Through out the morning the nurses keep coming in to up the pitocin. DH and I are trying to sleep since we still hadn't slept all night. At approximately 10am I am still feeling nothing. Not even a twinge of a contraction. The contraction monitor is also not picking up anything and they keep moving it around every 2 minutes. The doctor comes in (this is the 1st time a doctor had come in to check on me) and decides that she wants to put in an internal contraction monitor. I was only dilated another centimeter at this point. As the doctor was putting in the monitor she also said something doesn't feel right. She said that the baby was no where near moving down into position. She said it was either due to baby being way too large or that the baby was breech. After another sonogram.... it was determined that the baby was breech!!! (I couldn't wait to see my usual dr and tell him "I told you so!!!")
So after 6 hours of being on a pitocin drip I was off to the operating room for a c-section. I am so thankful that contractions never started. I wasn't too upset about getting a c-sec but I didn't want to go through a long painful labor and then end with a c-sec anyways! (sorry birth ball I really did want to use you!) So I am walked down to the O.R. with a towel between my legs so I don't leave a trail down the hallway.
I was dreading getting a spinal block after the IV line but the anesthesiologist assured me that I would LOVE my spinal and she was right I hardly felt the poke. It took effect almost immediately. She also injected a morphine like medication that would last the next 24 hours. The surgery went well and was unremarkable. I felt nothing not even the "pressure" that everyone else talks about. At 11:58am baby Savannah is born 7lbs and 5oz and is whisked off to the nursery with my DH following while I get put back together.
About 20 minutes later I am wheeled into recovery. My husband is already there with the baby and I am able to hold Savannah for the first time. My husband tells be that she has a smaller than normal chin and that he was told that she had a "high palate". The nurse tells me that I could still BF but it will more difficult and that they will get a lactation consultant to help me.
A few hours later I am moved to my hospital room with the baby. All is going fairly well at this point even though Savannah won't latch on and BF. By the end of the night Savannah is becoming agitated and won't stop crying. The nurse comes in the morning and finds that Savannah is breathing faster than normal. She takes her off to the nursery and calls the pediatrician to come check.
A while longer the doctor comes in to update us on the baby's status. The news is initially emotionally devastating. Our baby was born with a full bilateral cleft palate, a small chin (micrognathia) and a severe tongue tie. The combination is known at Pierre Robin Sequence. It is unknown was causes it. Savannah was then transferred to the NICU for care and monitoring. They told us that she would not be able to BF (she physically can't create any suction) and they would most likely she would need to be tube fed. On nurses advice I started pumping immediately. The 1st day we were able to feed her colostrum with an eye dropper and after a few days my milk came in and we were able to use special bottles and nipples to feed her. We never had to tube feed her and I was so happy and relieved.
After 4 days I was discharged even though Savannah was still in the NICU. I really didn't want to leave her there alone, not to mention that I could only pump enough milk for each meal as it was needed. That means we would have to return to the hospital every 3-4 hours to deliver milk for feedings. Thankfully we were offered a hospital room to stay in with the agreement that we would be kicked out if they needed it. It was a shared room as opposed to our private room that we had just been discharged from. I am sure the other couple was happy to hear us up every few hours to pump and leave to feed the baby.
The next day we packed up. I could not stay in the shared room for another night, I needed the privacy and my own bathroom. We went into the NICU while we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. While feeding Savannah we were approached by the Dr. She asked how we felt about the bottle feedings and if we felt ready to take Savannah home. She offered us to stay in a parents apartment next to the NICU overnight and that Savannah would stay overnight with us as a trial run. If all went well we could take her home the next day and if we needed help the NICU was still next door.
It was a long night but we got through it with no problems, other than lack of sleep! We met with the nurse in the morning and a few hours later we finally left with our little girl!!! It is now three weeks later and I am still pumping every 3-4 hours but I am proud to say that our little girl has had nothing but my breast milk! We still have a long road ahead and few surgeries that will need to be done but at least our little girl is at home and she is healthy! Many cases are much, much worse than Savannah's case and we are so thankful that she was not that bad.
NOTHING about my birth went as planned! I had a normal pregnancy nothing out of the ordinary. I only had 1 sonogram at 20 weeks where we were told everything was normal. During my pregnancy I had asked my doctor multiple times if my baby was breech and he assured me multiple times that she was head down. I never felt kicking where others described it but I trusted him since I had never done this before!
After going to birthing classes and weeks of bouncing on my birthing ball at home, my water broke while making dinner at 11pm. I was 40+5 weeks. We each took showers and packed a few last minute items before heading to the hospital. At this point there were no contractions and no pain, just constant dripping (eww!). I arrived at the hospital around 2am and they confirm my waters have broke, I am 50 percent effaced and 1 cm dilated. The nurse thinks she feels something strange and gets an sonogram machine and does the world's quickest sonogram. She assures me that the baby is head down and that everything is ok. So about 4am I head upstairs to labor and delivery.
In labor and delivery they try to get an IV line started but I am so swollen that the nurse cannot find a vein. After a few sticks that nurse gives up and goes to find someone else to try. The next nurse comes in and is finally find a vein after her second stick. I don't deal well with needles and thought I was going to pass out. I was sweating so bad and was convinced after that ordeal there was no way someone was going to stick a needle in my back for an epidural!!! To top it off I was also strep b positive and had to be started on antibiotics. I was warned that they are a bit caustic and might burn when the drip starts. The nurse waited a few minutes and started the drip without telling me in hopes that I would not notice. Well I did, it felt like my hand was on fire!
Through out the morning the nurses keep coming in to up the pitocin. DH and I are trying to sleep since we still hadn't slept all night. At approximately 10am I am still feeling nothing. Not even a twinge of a contraction. The contraction monitor is also not picking up anything and they keep moving it around every 2 minutes. The doctor comes in (this is the 1st time a doctor had come in to check on me) and decides that she wants to put in an internal contraction monitor. I was only dilated another centimeter at this point. As the doctor was putting in the monitor she also said something doesn't feel right. She said that the baby was no where near moving down into position. She said it was either due to baby being way too large or that the baby was breech. After another sonogram.... it was determined that the baby was breech!!! (I couldn't wait to see my usual dr and tell him "I told you so!!!")
So after 6 hours of being on a pitocin drip I was off to the operating room for a c-section. I am so thankful that contractions never started. I wasn't too upset about getting a c-sec but I didn't want to go through a long painful labor and then end with a c-sec anyways! (sorry birth ball I really did want to use you!) So I am walked down to the O.R. with a towel between my legs so I don't leave a trail down the hallway.
I was dreading getting a spinal block after the IV line but the anesthesiologist assured me that I would LOVE my spinal and she was right I hardly felt the poke. It took effect almost immediately. She also injected a morphine like medication that would last the next 24 hours. The surgery went well and was unremarkable. I felt nothing not even the "pressure" that everyone else talks about. At 11:58am baby Savannah is born 7lbs and 5oz and is whisked off to the nursery with my DH following while I get put back together.
About 20 minutes later I am wheeled into recovery. My husband is already there with the baby and I am able to hold Savannah for the first time. My husband tells be that she has a smaller than normal chin and that he was told that she had a "high palate". The nurse tells me that I could still BF but it will more difficult and that they will get a lactation consultant to help me.
A few hours later I am moved to my hospital room with the baby. All is going fairly well at this point even though Savannah won't latch on and BF. By the end of the night Savannah is becoming agitated and won't stop crying. The nurse comes in the morning and finds that Savannah is breathing faster than normal. She takes her off to the nursery and calls the pediatrician to come check.
A while longer the doctor comes in to update us on the baby's status. The news is initially emotionally devastating. Our baby was born with a full bilateral cleft palate, a small chin (micrognathia) and a severe tongue tie. The combination is known at Pierre Robin Sequence. It is unknown was causes it. Savannah was then transferred to the NICU for care and monitoring. They told us that she would not be able to BF (she physically can't create any suction) and they would most likely she would need to be tube fed. On nurses advice I started pumping immediately. The 1st day we were able to feed her colostrum with an eye dropper and after a few days my milk came in and we were able to use special bottles and nipples to feed her. We never had to tube feed her and I was so happy and relieved.
After 4 days I was discharged even though Savannah was still in the NICU. I really didn't want to leave her there alone, not to mention that I could only pump enough milk for each meal as it was needed. That means we would have to return to the hospital every 3-4 hours to deliver milk for feedings. Thankfully we were offered a hospital room to stay in with the agreement that we would be kicked out if they needed it. It was a shared room as opposed to our private room that we had just been discharged from. I am sure the other couple was happy to hear us up every few hours to pump and leave to feed the baby.
The next day we packed up. I could not stay in the shared room for another night, I needed the privacy and my own bathroom. We went into the NICU while we were trying to figure out what we were going to do. While feeding Savannah we were approached by the Dr. She asked how we felt about the bottle feedings and if we felt ready to take Savannah home. She offered us to stay in a parents apartment next to the NICU overnight and that Savannah would stay overnight with us as a trial run. If all went well we could take her home the next day and if we needed help the NICU was still next door.
It was a long night but we got through it with no problems, other than lack of sleep! We met with the nurse in the morning and a few hours later we finally left with our little girl!!! It is now three weeks later and I am still pumping every 3-4 hours but I am proud to say that our little girl has had nothing but my breast milk! We still have a long road ahead and few surgeries that will need to be done but at least our little girl is at home and she is healthy! Many cases are much, much worse than Savannah's case and we are so thankful that she was not that bad.
