« The Road to Sienna... | Main | What's a plastic nipple got that I don't? »

March 16, 2007

The day Sienna was born...

So where I last left off, they were going to induce me on Friday. At least I was able to go back over to the labor and delivery side and the luxury of a spacious room by myself and much nicer nurses. Friday nite at around 11, the doctor gave me the first dose of medication to help soften the cervix and open it up a bit. I forgot what it was called but it looked like a shoelace and gets administered every 12 hours. I had cramping all night, nothing major. Yves felt bad leaving me alone that night but since this was so unexpected, there were things that needed to be done at home. Yves' sister Liz was going to take care of Skippy, he had to arrange Neo's feeder and get some other things settled. He came back early Saturday morning and Tammy came in the afternoon.

And speaking of Tammy. My dear, dear Tammy. I cannot begin to give enough props to this woman. I'm still getting teary eyed just thinking about it. She was there for the majority of the time (minus a few hours which I'll get to later) and was there for the birth of Sienna. She is an amazing person. Her energetic, upbeat, positive persona helped me tremendously throughout all this and I can't even imagine having to go through it without her there. She even made a big impression on my mother!!

Joy also came by and helped passed the time with good conversation and food. My parents also got them noodles from Chinatown so the room was filled with talking, laughing and eating. One of the nurses even called our room the happy room! I got another dose of meds at 11 am but as far as any contractions, it was pretty uneventful, just cramping. Later on that night, it was time to try different meds, I remember the name of this one! It's called Miso (not sure if it's spelled correctly) and that needs to be administered every 3-4 hours. Well, that did even less than the other stuff! I was barely even getting cramps and it helped soften up the cervix a little but not much. I must have gotten about 4 doses of that throughout Saturday and Sunday. The Sunday night nurse, Jackie, came in to introduce herself (I like when they do that!) and she even took a step further by sitting us all down and explaining everything that was going to happen to us during labor. Everything! Much to Joy's chagrin. LOL. She really didn't want to hear any of it. Tammy loved it and mopped it all up. I pretty much already knew most of everything she told us because of the childbirthing classes but it was nice to get a refresher course. Jackie was extremely nice albeit a bit gruff but the fact that she took the time out to do all that explaining AND set up the couch bed with sheets and gave Tammy a pillow and more sheets for the extra bed and gave everyone slipper socks.

That night the doctor said we might have to reconsider what to do next since the meds weren't really doing anything. He wanted me to get another sonogram Monday to check on my fluids again and he wasn't going to give me any more meds that night so I can get some rest and sleep. He was going to consult with the high risk OB to see what he says about it. I asked him if having a C-section was in the equation and he said no, everything looks ok to still have a natural vaginal birth. I also asked him if there was any other reason why he wouldn't give me another dose of meds that night. He said no, he would if I wanted him to and I did. I wanted to be proactive with this! When we first agreed to get induced, we (as in me, Yves and Tammy) were thinking it would be no time before I was in labor! None of this 2+ days shit! So he gave me another dose of miso at probably around 10:30ish. We were all kinda bummed that nothing was really happening. It felt like 'gee, all this for nothing?' I had a feeling I wasn't going to leave the hospital without a baby in my hands but how long was that going to be? I longed for home and my own comfortable bed and not to be constantly hooked up to a monitor and blood pressure cuff.

So Tammy was considering going home for a few hours to spend some time with Mark and get some rest to come back tomorrow. She was conflicted because she didn't want to leave and I felt bad that she spent so much time with us without anything happening but I wanted her to come up with the decision on her own and didn't want to persuade her either way. She decided to head home around 11:15.

Ok, so if you are still reading down to this, get ready for some action finally!

My water ended up breaking at around 2:20 am Monday morning. I wasn't quite positive it was my water breaking, it just felt like I peed in the bed. When the nurse came she told me it was my water breaking and I was still in disbelief. Something was finally happening! I wasn't allowed to get out of bed so I had to use a bed pan. Er, yuck! For some reason a nurse told me I had to stay in bed until the doctor came and checked me out to make sure the umbilical cord wasn't hanging down to choke the baby because we weren't sure where the baby's head was. I later found out that that was wrong. Hmmm. Anyway, it felt really weird peeing into a bed pan but relieving at the same time.

Oh, the pain!

My doctor came by in the morning to check on me and I think I was barely .5 centimeters dilated, I can't remember now. He let me get up and eat a little bit, take a shower and walk around the room a little bit before putting me on the Pitocin. The Pitocin is what will jump start my labor and move it into the active phase. I believe it was started by 9:30 am. And now things start moving!! I can't remember how long it took but the labor pains were definitely increasing. Before I knew it, I was really in excruciating pain and the nurses said they would ask the doctor to give me drugs if I was in that much pain. I refused it at very first but then after awhile I said to hell with it! GIMME!!

When the doctor showed up, he asked if I could hold out for a little longer. He felt it was still too early to give me any drugs and I begrudgingly complied. He told me to just continue breathing through the contractions. Yves and Tammy helped me breath through the pain. Jackie had given me a little tip about breathing through the pain. Inhale through nose (smell the roses) and breath out through the mouth (blow out the candles). Tammy gave me a better analogy for it since the blowing out the candles part wasn't really accurate. Inhale (take a toke) and exhale (release the toke) and that worked out well for all of us.

It felt like within a matter of minutes of the doctor leaving, the pain was just one on top of the other and it felt like the baby wanted to come out. I was told not to push and I wasn't and it still felt like she wanted to come out. They brought the doc back and we told him it wasn't this bad before so he decided to check me out. Guess what?! I was fully dilated!!! Therefore there wasn't any time for any narcotics or an epidural at all!!! The doc went to change into his scrubs and the nurse got everything ready and here we gooooooooo!!!!!!

According to the doctor, the pushing part only took about an hour!! I had Yves on my left holding up my leg doing the counting, Tammy on my right holding up that leg and then everytime there was a contraction, I was to push one long push for 10 counts really hard and they had to hold up my legs. The first series of pushes I did, I grunted. The doctor told me not to do that and save my energy for the pushing. Then he realized that the 2nd series of pushes were kinda wimpy and told me to go back to grunting! Well, before you know it, our little baby girl comes out!! OH MY GOODNESS how good it felt to have it all over with and to learn she's got all her parts and everything was fine with her!!

Unfortunately I didn't get to stay very long in the L&D room because they needed it! So many babies being born!! So I had to go back over to the other side. UGH. I had a bunch of visitors come by tho. Yves' sister Liz, the bumblebees Ruthie and Denise, Joy and Nuno, who also bought me beautiful pink tulips! I was completely exhausted but got to go home on Wednesday! YAY!!!!!

Now a new journey begins...

Posted by luluvision at March 16, 2007 01:49 PM

Comments

Post a comment