Bride_Best: Chase's Birth Story

Posted Wednesday, April 23, 2008 12:01 PM

"I was experiencing a lot of pressure and was having chest pains... they had just about every doctor rushing in to try and figure out what was going on."

The Beginning

We arrived at the hospital for our induction on Monday, March 24th, at 8 p.m. I was examined to find that I was around 50% effaced and 2 cm dilated. They began a slow drip of Pitocin to start contractions, and at 4p.m., they began increasing the dosage. The contractions became stronger and stronger and I was given pain medication at 8 p.m. This really relaxed me and gave me a window of great rest. The doctor called to see how I was progressing and at 9 a.m., he wanted to have them proceed with the epidural so that they could break my water. The doctor-in-house had a hard time finding my bag of water, but finally, he was successful! The epidural wasn't bad at all and I'm very thankful that I had it! I'm not sure how women do a drug-free birth! I was completely numb from the waist down...yahoo!

Chest pains

Around noon, I was experiencing a lot of pressure and when I took a deep breath, I was having chest pains. They had just about every doctor rushing into my room to try and figure out what was going on. My heart rate was fine, Chase was fine, and even my oxygen level was fine. The only thing that they could think of was that it was something to do with the epidural, so they shut it off for a bit and then resumed at a lower level once the chest pains went away.

Pushing Like a Champ! 

At 3 p.m., I was completely dilated and ready to start pushing! I was getting nervous as I watched the nurses bring in the warming station and all of the prep stuff for delivery. The nurses contacted my doctors and in the meantime, I was doing practice pushes. Well, she said that I was doing an excellent job with pushing and needed to stop, because we wanted to wait for the doctor to arrive.  By now I was having a lot of pressure on my right pubic area as well as pain on the right side of my lower back. They figured it was just that the epidural wasn't getting into that "pocket." When they topped off the epidural, it made things oh-so-much better.

An Unexpected Setback 

The doctor arrived around 3:45 p.m. and was impressed to see all of the progress I had made. When I did the first push for him, he was very concerned because he could see that part of my hymen was still partially covering my vaginal opening. It was a diagonal area, so he had to do some surgery, because I was beginning to tear with the practice pushes. If he didn't do it before we continued pushing, I would be in a lot of trouble. So with that out of the way, I pushed a few more times...

Here Comes Baby Chase! 

Chase William was born at 4:28 p.m. and weighed a healthy 6 lbs. 10 oz. and was 20.5 ins. We were all shocked at this last growth spurt of a pound, as he had measured on the small side of the scale from week 30 on. While it was a truly wonderful labor and delivery experience, the recovery has been tough. I had a second degree tear along with internal tearing due to the problems with the hymen. He ended up removing a portion of the hymen and then had to stitch up the tear along with reconstructing the muscle down there. I had to have vertical and horizontal stitches -- a total of over 100! (Ouchy!) Thankfully I was numb during some of this repair!

Life After Labor

I attempted to nurse right away; however, my heart and soul just wasn't into it. I followed my heart and am formula feeding. The amount of pain I experienced with the tearing and all unfortunately helped me make this quick decision. I tried to nurse, but nothing was happening and my inverted nipples didn't make it any easier! Chase sleeps all the time and only cries when he is ready to eat. We are usually up two times each night and then he allows us to sleep for about five hours straight. Hopefully he'll continue to be a happy and content baby for his mommy and daddy!
 

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