Alexandra Rae's amazing hospital birth

TaraRae82 Tue Dec 02, 2008 5:21 pm

I posted this already on MDC but thought I'd put it here too since we'll be leaving MDC soon. Smile

The players:

Ryan- Daddy
Am- BFF/Doula
Dr. Michele- OB
Anyone else mentioned is family I'm sure.

I went to the gym to take an aerobics class on Monday night (10-6) and then went to Grandma Yocum’s to spend time with her after her knee surgery. Ryan, Nancy, & Kellen were there too. I was having my normal Braxton Hicks that were no more than my tummy getting really tight but they never ended up going away really. I was up about 6x overnight to pee because they were so tight but still causing me absolutely no pain or discomfort so I didn't think anything of them. Ryan got up at about 6:15am Tues morning (10-7) and I couldn't get back to sleep so I just watched TV in our room while he got ready. He left at about 7:15am and I noticed my back started hurting but again didn't think anything of it because I'd been adjusted the day before and it's normal for me to be sore. I did start seeing a pattern that my back hurt with the Braxton Hicks and felt better if I put my fist on it. This was my first clue that something might be happening. It still wasn't painful really just kind of annoying because I really wanted to sleep some more. I finally got frustrated and got up at about 7:45am to see if I could get the Braxton Hicks to calm down. I cleaned the house, ate breakfast, and drank a bunch of water and nothing changed. So, I texted my Am to see how long it should take for them to calm down or go away if you change what you're doing. She said an hour probably and it had been about an hour and half and nothing was any different. I had texted Ryan earlier to let him know I’d been losing pieces of my plug since last night. I decided to email him now to let him know that maybe something was happening since my ctx were 3-4 min apart and lasting about 1:15 min but there was no need for him to come home or anything since I still just wasn't sure. He texted me an hour later to see if anything had changed and I let him know that things definitely weren't stopping but I was still find and I'd update him in another hour. I’d been talking to Am all morning and she couldn’t tell that I was having any contractions at all but they were so minor this didn’t surprise me. It was maybe a 3 on a pain scale of 1-10. I decided at about 11:30am that I was going to take a shower and do my hair and makeup just to kill time and see if that made a difference in the "contractions". While I was in the shower I noticed that I couldn't stay totally upright during a one and leaned up against the shower wall. It still wasn't painful but it was getting more uncomfortable and my legs felt a little weak. I called my Am after I got done getting ready and she was shocked that she couldn't tell when I was having a contraction but said I definitely sounded different in general and she wasn't surprised that the shower seemed to help things progress. I finally texted Ryan again and said he should probably start wrapping things up at work and come home when he could but I was still fine and there was no need to hurry or get excited. He got home about an hour and a half later (about 1:45pm) to find me watching Across the Universe (for the music and distraction) and had just gotten to the point where I was working through the contractions by either leaning on the counter or rocking on my hands and knees. We walked circles around the house and things were really beginning to change and intensify. Am left her house at about 2pm and lives 2 hours away so we just labored at home waiting for her. By 3pm I was becoming vocal with the contractions, using the low moan with a deep breath to encourage things to open. Am arrived at about 4:15pm and I was really having to work by then. I was SOO happy to see her! I really needed her help and Ryan needed her to help too because he couldn't think of any ways to help me as we tried it all by then (position changes, back rub, hip squeeze, etc). At 5pm I said, "I think we need to go" and Ryan had already loaded the car and such and we headed out. The hospital is about a 45 min drive from us which was torture but we made it in 30 min because Ryan was driving like 90. Ha! Unfortunately we got caught in rush hour traffic and that delayed us just a bit. I remember saying, "Come on people! Get out of my way! Don't you know what I'm trying to do here?!" Yeah, like that worked...haha! Am and I worked through a few contractions in the main hospital entrance while Ryan parked the car and brought in a few things. We went to the maternity ward and got in a room (stopped in a hallway and again just inside the ward for a contraction), declined the admission blood work and got an initial monitor reading. Am held it on my tummy so I could be on my hands and knees, and the nurse checked me (my request). I was 4-5cm and 100% effaced. This was at about 6:15pm. After the initial strip was done the nurse ok'd me to get in the tub. It didn't seem to help during the contractions since they were SOO intense by then and not really stopping but it did help me relax a little more in between the peaks. I think this was when transition started. An hour after the first check I requested another check and I was 6cm. This really worried me because I totally felt like I was at the end and I still had 4cm to go! Shortly after that things seemed to change again and I swore my body had to be close because the pressure was ridiculously intense and I could feel my bottom bulging. My water broke sometime around here but we don’t know for sure since I never felt it or anything. The nurse overheard me telling this to Am and said she was going to go ahead and page Dr. Michele to get on property and have her check me when she got there. Dr. Michele got there at about 8pm and checked me to find that I had dilated fully on my left side but had a tiny piece left on the right but it was so tiny that she was confident I was ready to push and could push through it easily. Apparently, I'd gone from 6cm to complete in about 45 min! No wonder I thought the end had to be near...my body had gone into warp mode! We think I must've hit transition about the time we got to the hospital and things just flew from there. So they got me out of the tub (no hospital will allow a water birth) and dried off, I got to the bed, and they got a better feel for the baby, listening for the heart rate and Dr. Michele felt for her head. I was on my back at this point but my Dr. Michele said I could turn over after this if I wanted to push on my hands and knees. She then suddenly asked for an ultrasound machine and I quickly asked what she was worried about. I was pushing through contractions by now, still on my back; did about 2 or 3. She said she wasn't sure baby was head down. I said, "You've got to be kidding! Baby has been head down this whole pregnancy!" She couldn't get a good view on the ultrasound and practically threw the wand and told the nurse to get it out the room and decided to go by what it looked and felt like instead. She said, "Nope, it's a head...there's hair!" PHEW! So, I turned over to my elbows and knees so I could get better leverage to push backwards since I knew that's how I felt the strongest. I remember saying “I don’t know how to push.” It took a few contractions to figure out how but after that Dr. Michele kept saying how strongly I was pushing and how well the baby was moving down. I was able to see the head on the next contractions and just a few contractions later, her head was out! She never really crowned, just went from head in to head out! I of course had a big mirror and watched the whole thing. Dr. Michele asked me to stop pushing so I did and then she told me to go ahead and push again. The shoulders came out super easy and I felt such a relief by this time that I really thought she was out. My OB said to give her one more push because apparently her tummy and legs weren't out. I barely pushed and out she came! I pushed for a total of about 20 min and ended up with a 1st degree tear, requiring only 2 small stitches that I didn't even know she'd done until after I delivered the placenta when she told me. I turned over to pull her to me and was met by Ryan right in my face and he said, "It's a girl!" I said, "You're kidding?!!!!" We were both shocked and couldn't stop giggling. We of course exchanged "I love you's”, kisses, and he told me how proud he was of me and awesome I'd done. I nursed immediately while we waited for the cord to go limp and to get a feeling that the placenta was ready to come out which I never got. She got a cord blood sample after the majority of the blood had gotten to my little girl and sent it to the lab for a typing. We needed to know whether Rhogam was necessary. The cord wasn't very long. It was long enough that she rested comfortably on my chest but that's it. My Dr. Michele checked to see where the placenta was after a bit because I hadn’t had any crampy feelings and to her surprise said, "Oh! It's just sitting here waiting! Go ahead and give a little push." It turns out, my placenta had detached already and I just didn't ever feel the contractions that signaled to push it out. I gave one little push and it was out. She showed it to me and explained everything about it which was really neat. Even Ryan thought it was fascinating. They took Ally Rae at this time to get a weight and length. She weighed 6lbs 13.2oz and was 18.5” long, just a tiny squirt! Nikki, the nursery nurse, put her under the warmer for a bit to get her body temp up where it need to be, my nurse got me cleaned up just a bit and then we welcomed our family in at about 10:15pm. Kellen took one look at her and said, “She looks just like Ryan; it’s kinda freakin’ me out!” Ha! My Mom of course thinks she looks just like I did at birth. Everyone left at 10:45pm and my nurse helped get me up and to the bathroom to pee and show me how to use the peri bottle, pads, Tucks, etc. While I was in the bathroom they took out the hospital/delivery bed and folded the family queen sized bed down from the wall (Murphy Bed) and got it ready for us all to sleep in. I got comfy in bed and Ryan gave Ally Rae her fist bath with some guidance from Nikki. We didn't get much sleep of course with the nurse coming in all night for vitals and learning to breastfeed. Dr. Brooks got there at about 10 til 6 the next morning and released Ally Rae to go home whenever we were ready. We declined everything except the hearing test and got those waiver papers signed and no one gave us a hard time at all. Dr. Michele came at about 8am and said I was good to go anytime we were ready. We decided to stay through the majority of the day and go home that evening. Ally Rae was 6lbs 10oz at the time of discharge which is good. She only lost about 3oz. We got home at about 6:45pm (10-8-08) and my Mom, Kathleen, and Bobby had made us dinner which was so nice to come home to. Rhett and Gus are still trying to figure out what the heck is going on in their house but they've sniffed her a few times. They don’t seem upset at all, just unsure. We all doing great, breastfeeding has been successful and I'm just waiting for my milk to come in. She's nursing about every 3 hours (have to undress her to wake her up) and is taking both sides for about 15 min each.