Makclair: Quick Delivery

Posted Sunday, February 24, 2008 4:49 PM

"I was scared because I couldn't see if he was breathing or not, but by the time I flipped him over, he was screaming and pink and perfect..."
 
 

The beginning

I went to the doctor on Monday, December 1, not expecting there to be any changes, but I was dilated to 2 centimeters. In light of my blood pressure issues, my doctor was very ready to induce me. By this point I was just a day shy of 39 weeks, 5 days -- so definitely not too early! They had been waiting to induce me since 37 weeks, but I just wasn't ever favorable.

 I checked into Labor & Delivery on Monday night and they put me on Cervadil overnight. I didn't really have any changes, but this wasn't unusual, especially for a first baby. Of course I did not sleep at all because they were pumping me full-blast with IV fluids and I literally had to get up every single hour to pee -- which involved the ordeal of unplugging a lot of different stuff.

Progressing quickly

Tuesday morning at around 8 a.m. I started Pitocin. My doctor came in to check me at 9:30 or 10 and I was still very comfortable; in fact I was barely feeling any contractions at all at that point. I was 3 centimeters but the baby's head was super low, so my doctor went ahead and broke my water.

Almost instantly I went from feeling a little crampy to having contrations every minute to 2 minutes. OMG that was not fun! I was like those women on Discovery Health, doing all kinds of crazy positions; but it was the only way i could deal with the pain. I think my husband Patrick was scared to death at that point!

I had told them I wanted to get an epidural when I checked in the night before, so they had drawn the labs already. But it literally felt like days waiting because they had to run a bolus of fluid before they could do it.

By the time they did my epidural it was around 11 a.m., and I started feeling better around 11:30. My doctor came in and checked me and said he was hoping for 4-5 centimeters. I was already dilated at 7 by then, so that was good news. The nurse suggested I try to rest, so I sort of dozed off and on 'til around 2 p.m. When the nurse came back to check me, I was 10 cm dilated, 100% effaced, and -1 station. So his head was very low. The new On Call doc had arrived and he had a planned c-section to do, so they were going to let me hang out a little longer (since I was totally comfortable). This way, gravity could do some of the work and I could get more feeling back in order to work on pushing.

The nurse told me to call her if I felt "A ton of pressure or pain," but I was fine -- just chilling out, texting people, and talking to my sister on the phone. Seriously.



The surprise of our lives

Around 3 p.m., I started feeling more pressure (not bad, but I just knew something was going on) and my legs were starting to get some feeling back into them. I jokingly put my hand down there and OMG I touched his head, I immediately called the nurse and she came within a minute or two, examined me and said, "Oh, don't worry, it's just some swelling on the very top of his head you are feeling" I jokingly said back, "Well I don't want to have him come out in the bed before my doctor can get here." She reassured me that would NEVER happen with a first time baby -- especially in an induction labor with a big term baby. So I laughed, because honestly I was so comfortable that I was afraid labor had stopped or something.

It was literally ten minutes or so later (after calling my sister and joking around) that I started feeling a lot more pressure. I moved the blanket because I wanted to see if I could still feel his head. Then all of a sudden, his entire head popped right out and his body followed. Patrick literally ran 100 miles an hour out the door screaming for the nurses and I pressed the call button and said, "Um the baby just came out!" I am not joking.

I was so scared because he came out face-down so I couldn't see if he was breathing or not, but by the time I flipped him over, he was screaming and pink and perfect. The nurses all came barreling in immediately. (I later found out that there was a life-threatening emergency next door, which is why nobody had been in my room) There was nothing set up -- no bulb suction, no cord clamps, no scissors, NOTHING!!! I was drying him off with the blanket on the bed and the nurses were ripping open sterile packages to they could clamp and cut the cord. He was screaming his head off.

They gave him Apgars of 9 and 10 and guessed that his birth time was 3:17 p.m. because that was when he came off of the fetal monitor. LOL.

They paged my doctor and snatched the baby to the radiant warmer (but of course it wasn't actually on!). He arrived and ended up delivering the 
placenta and stitching me up, because the baby did some minor damage on the way out! (What do you expect with that kind of speed?)

He's doing great; his weight was 7 lbs. 7 oz., after all the stress of his weight issues, and he's breastfeeding well. I was super tired after the birth but otherwise did well, and we came home on Thursday, December 4. Oh, and by the way, I told my OB he owes me a refund:)

> Read more about makclair!

> Want to share your birth story? Email it to kstanford@theknot.com.