E's birth story

With this whole issue of preterm labor, I realized that I haven't shared my daughter's birth story. I thought it would be a great idea to remember that day in May 2011 when we welcomed her with open arms into the World! So here it is: 

My labor story is long since I was in pain, having contractions (in the early stages of labor for over two weeks). On my 37th week checkup, I was 1cm dilated so we knew that the contractions I had been having were doing something. The next week I had progressed to 3cm and 80% effaced. At that point the Dr. told me you are in labor so you should go into active labor anytime now. Guess what? I didn't! I kept having on and off contractions, but no more progress. I went to my 39th week checkup and still no change, but contractions had been getting stronger at times. (Also, I had been to the hospital a couple of times for decreased movement and contractions getting closer, but they sent me home). That day the Dr. told me that I would be able to go into labor within 24-48 hours, but that didn't happen either. Full term rolled by and still no baby! I should mention that I went in on Sunday (39wks6d) for decreased movement and everything looked good except for the fact that I was having contractions every 2-4 mins and they still sent me home as I was not progressing.

On Monday, when I turned 40 weeks, I started having really strong headaches, my lower back aches were getting stronger and I was feeling really nauseous. The Dr. called me checking up on my visit to the hospital the day before. I told him everything and told me to go to the office the next day. On Tuesday went to the office and was still 3-4 cm and 80% effaced. He was baffled as to why I hadn't gone into labor yet. We talked about induction and c-section and the risks since I was overdue. Well, Tuesday and Wednesday I still felt sick (headaches, nausea and pain plus on and off contractions). On Thursday, while Egy was on a conference call for a project due on his class, my parents and I decided to go for a walk to see if more walking (yeah, I basically had walked all of Manhattan already, even taking subways!) would do the trick. We sat at a Dunkin Donuts and then I realized that I hadn't felt baby E move all day. So I called the office and told me to go in to the hospital because I needed to be monitored. 

At the hospital, they hooked me up and they noticed that her heartbeat was very high (over 170) and wouldn't calm down. In addition, her heat beat stopped at times that even the nurses looked worried. They were doing a sonogram to test for fluid levels (which were normal) and measuring. When it got to finding her breathing score, they were there a while. I could see something in their faces. After a while and many glasses of water later, her heat beat went back to normal. Then one of the nurses came and said that I was going to be discharged. My mom, worried, went to the nurses and said that she wanted to talk to my doctor (his partner was the doctor on call, who kept saying that supposedly my body was not ready). After saying that they had spoken to the doctor (the other one) when they had not (I had called the office and  no one was there and the nurse later confirmed that they had not called yet) and some more time passed, they finally got hold of my doctor. He said that I should be admitted for induction. The nurse went to me to ask me what I wanted to do. I of course said that I wanted to have the baby at that moment as I couldn't handle anymore of the pain and I was worried about the baby's condition.

So that's when the real labor story began! At 8:30pm they started pitocin. At that point I could handle contractions without pain meds. (I even worked on a paper due the week after). At 12am, I was checked and was basically the same. Soon after, I started having cramping like if I needed to use the bathroom so they checked again at 3:00am and I was at 4cm. After 3am, contractions were back to back and pain was awful because I felt everything on my back, nothing on my abdomen. I suffer from sacroilial joint sclerosis (condition in the coccyx) which made the pain worse. At that time I asked for an epidural which I had in by 4:15am. The nurse said that we should get some sleep so that's what we did. At 5:30am the nurse comes in and says that they will put me an oxygen mask. I knew that something was not right with baby's heart beat because that's what O2 is for. She said that hb was decreasing after contractions. Right at that moment I felt a big gush and I asked if my water had broken (thought for a moment that I peed myself b/c the foley had come out) She checked, it was my water and a resident came saying that I was 9-10 and 100% effaced. Her next sentence: "We better call Dr. Gardner now". 

They were impressed that I had progressed that fast in a little over an hour. My doctor came around 6am. Checked me and asked if I felt anything and I said no. The baby was +2 station, so basically coming out and about to crown. He had to take me off the epidural so I could feel contractions and the need to push. I started feeling some of them and at certain points need to push. The worse part was the shakes; I could barely concentrate because of how bad I was shaking after the epidural. So I would say I started pushing at about 6:30am (didn't take that many pushes) and our baby made her debut at 7:13am!! The labor part was not that bad at all...much better than I expected!