I had my 37 week check on June 5. My blood pressure was too high for my doctor’s comfort. Plus I was having lots of painful swelling. I was sent to L&D to be monitored. The baby looked good, but my blood pressure only came down when I was laying on my left side. I was then put on strict bed rest. We set up an induction date of June 12.
We arrived at the hospital at 7am on June 12. I was already 3cm/80% effaced. It took about an hour to get everything started. At 8 I had the pitocin going. The contractions were about 5 minutes apart and not very strong. At 10:10 they broke my water. That was one of the weirdest feelings I’ve had. That was when things really started to move. The contractions moved to 3 minutes apart and definitely getting stronger. At 1:00 I was at 5 cm. I was doing well visualizing and breathing through the contractions. At 4:00, my body was getting very tired. I hit transition and I still wasn’t going as fast as they would have liked. I told my husband that I just couldn’t do it anymore. That was when I got the intrathecal. Instantly I had no pain. It was wonderful. The downside was that the baby’s heart rate plummeted. We finally got the hear rate back up to a good range. I was fully dilated at 6:00. I started pushing, and started out great. I was pushing strong through each contraction, but the baby still did not move very far. My doctor was saying it was only 1-2 millimeters with each contraction. I was getting very tired after an hour. They got out the vacuum to help me. They did an episiotomy, but I still had a third degree tear and tore my sphincter muscle. Laura Kay was born at 7:16 pm. She weighed 7 pounds, 12 ounces and was 19.5 inches long. Her head was 35 cm around. It took close to 45 minutes to get me all stitched up. While talking to my parents on the phone to let them know they were grandparents, my mom noticed that the time Laura was born is my wedding anniversary (July 16). She is a very special girl. My doctor has already said that with any future pregnancies we are going to watch me closer and most likely induce early again since I had such a difficult delivery.
We are now home and things are going pretty well. We are having some difficulties with breastfeeding, but I am working on getting some help with it.
June 19th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
You did an excellent job. She was strong and acknowledged her body’s limits (which made life easier for me). You’re doing an awesome job as a new mommy (not that I can be an authority on such things, but I think my opinion matters). Of course there’s a learning curve because every baby and mommy is different.
June 27th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Wow! Congratulations!!! How exciting that you have a family now
I actually came to see if you could email me at ropellaj at gmail dot com. The only email I had for you is your old UWRF email.
My roommate was recently diagnosed with Hodgkin’s and I have a few questions I thought you might be able to answer.