Sunday, April 12, 2009

adjusting to motherhood

I have now been home for two days and I am slowly adjusting to motherhood. Lets catch you up on the last few days:

Induction day:
As my husband posted, we checked in at 5:30 am, and nothing really got rolling until 8am. The resident checked me and told me that I was 2cm dilated and 50% effaced at check in. This really upset me because I was told that I was 2cm and totally effaced the day before. She also talked over some options for induction, mainly breaking my water and letting it naturally happen or using pitocin to help things out. When the on Call doctor came in, he examined me and told me that I was 3 cm and totally effaced-you can't tell me that I changed in a half hour of sitting there. Anyway, he made the decision to start pitocin and break my water all right away. So the next thing I new my water was broke and my iv was started at the lowest level. This was all started about 8am. So I hung out for a while and did some paperwork that they needed for me while I waited for the contractions to start. I really wasn't feeling much, so I decided I was going to walk the halls. So at that time my nurse increased my pitocin my one level. So I walked, and the contractions started to pick up. After a while of walking I went back to the room and sat on a birthing ball for about a half hour and them just stood swaying on the end of my bed for contractions. I knew I only had to get to 4 cm dialation for me to get the epidural, so at this point I wanted to get checked, it was about 11 am. I was checked and was 4 cm so I asked for my epidural. I had to have a full back of electrolytes before they would call for it, which took about 20-25 minuted by the time they got it and it was through my system. At this time they called for the anasteciologist to come, and they were in with someone else, so they said about 15-20 minutes. So I opted to wait for it and not take a narcotic. Needless to say that epidural never got there because I dilated so fast (4 cm-10 cm in 58 minutes.)

I pushed for a hour and ten minutes, it was hard but definitely not as bad as I thought. It makes such a difference once you can push, they just don't hurt as bad. I had some bleeding problems after the birth. Because I delivered so fast, my uterus wasn't contracting down. My uterus had to be massaged for along time, which I think was worse then the labor. They took my husband and mom out of the room into a room that was attached to do baby stuff, and so they didn't see the blood. I also had to be put back on pitocin and have some other meds administered-I was really out of it at this time because of blood loss that I really don't remember. I did have to keep my IV just in case I needed a blood transfusion, but thankfully I didn't.

I can't believe I had a baby that is 7lbs 12 oz. I was not expecting him to even hit 7lbs. Yikes. I was obviously fairly sore and still am, but I only used ibuprofen for pain. We had tons of family and friends visit. My mom was there for the birth, and was joined by my dad, sister and her boyfriend later that evening. My in laws were there just shortly after I delivered. They were actually there while I was in labor, but waiting in a waiting room. Later that night we were visited my my cousin and her husband as well. On Thursday, we had tons of visitors. At one point we had 20, yes 20 people in the room. I was a little overwhelmed at that point.

More to come...............

2 comments:

Stacie said...

CONGRATULATIONS! Sounds like you did fantastic. I am glad to hear that things went well, except for the unexpected bleeding post-delivery.

Look forward to reading more.

CJ said...

Congrats!! What a story! Cant' wait to see pictures!