Birth Story

Hopefully I can remember it all, and get it all typed out. We will see....

After all of the confusion with the scheduling, we were set up to induce on Monday the 5th. Well, of course, the night before, I got NO sleep. Dh came down with a cold, and then my alarm didn't go off, and instead of waking up at 5am, I woke up at 6am. I ran to the bathroom, jumped in the shower, and dh loaded the car. We were out of the house by 6:30. Got to the hospital, and they were waiting for us. I was taken to a room, and the terror almost took over. I was sure that I hadn't felt Lauren move that morning. Absolutely convinced she was dead. Thankfully, the nurse got me hooked on the monitors almost immediately. By 7:30, the nurse was paging the dr to see if I was supposed to be started on pitocin. I told her that was what I was told in the office, but that I had not actually spoken to the dr that was supposed to actually be at the hospital for the induction. By 8:30, the nurse came back in and said she was STILL waiting for the dr to call back, and that she would call the office when they opened to see if they knew what was going on. Dh and I were beyond annoyed at this point. I told the nurse that they were open already because my appointments were usually at 8:30am. She went to call the office and came back in a few minutes with the pitocin. The reason the dr hadn't called back? There was apparently a different dr on call that morning. It ended up being a dr I had never met. After all of the crap we went through with the scheduling, to try to AVOID a dr I had never met, we ended up in that exact situation.
At about 9am, the nurse started the pitocin, and by 9:30am the dr came in to check me. I was already at 4cm, so she decided to break my water. It didn't take much time at all for a nice strong labor pattern to start, and with that, the pain. I dealt with it for awhile, but the anesthesiologist was busy with a c-section, and then another epidural in front of me so I decided I needed to do SOMETHING quick. The nurse gave me some stadol, so things get a little hazy at that point. My time line gets totally screwed up. Not long after the stadol, I got my epidural. They tried a walking epi with me, so I was not totally numb. At first it wasn't bad, but I would regret not being numb soon enough. I tried to take a nap, but it seemed like in no time at all, Laurens heart rate started dropping. We had the same thing happen with Evan, and it was because of a nuchal cord, so we suspected the same thing again. The nurse gave me oxygen, and had me lay on my side, but it didn't do much to help. I was terrified, and pretty sure I would be taken for a c-section at any given moment. The nurse got on the phone with my dr and made sure she was aware of what was happening. I was about 7cm at that point. The nurse got an internal monitor for Lauren, and when she went to put it on her, I was at 8cm. Another nurse came in and had me adjust my position, and it seemed to help Lauren's heart rate. Within about 30 minutes, I was fully dialated and feeling extreme pressure. With both boys, I had epidurals that TOTALLY numbed me, so this was the first time I had ever felt the pressure, and it was horrible. I started getting really freaked out and panicky (probably because of the heart rate variabilites, and just wanting it over at that point so I could see if she was ok). The dr came in, took one look, and said the baby wanted out NOW. I started having severe pain, feeling every contraction (like I had not had an epidural at all). Within about 4 contractions, Lauren came screaming into the world. They did not even have time to break down the bed and get me into stirrups.