Cailin Bonnie entered the world on June 18 at 8:50 am. She was 8lbs 14oz and 22 inches long!
Here is her amazing birth story! (with some gory details, the weak need not read on).
So I went to the doctor last week and she has checked my cervix and I was at 2cm and 75% effaced. No big deal, but it was enough reassurance for me that I needed to get my labor going!
Wednesday at work I lost my mucus plug (yuck!) during 3rd period and toughed out the rest of the day with some cramps and mild contractions. I contacted the HR person and she said I had enough time off to take the remaining 3.5 days off. So I did! Thursday and Friday passed and I did everything possible to get labor started! Cumin tea, pineapple, walking, etc. wink! ;) and still nothing.
Friday I had a regular appointment with my OB and they did a BPP and NST on the baby since my due date was fast approaching and everything was fine! She had a perfect amount of amniotic fluid! My blood pressure was a bit high for the first time so she scheduled a visit for Monday to recheck my bp and scheduled an appointment for my regular visit for Wednesday where we would talk induction. (clearly she thought baby M was NOT on her way out and neither did I!) Due to the slightly elevated bp she told me to take it easy over the weekend and not do anything too strenuous.
Saturday I sat around, SO boring! Later when it was near bedtime I started having some really mild contractions. I didn't think anything of them since I could barely feel them.
Sunday morning came and I was having the same contractions. They were not painful and I could even ignore them even though they were 20 minutes apart. I decided I wanted to jump start things and me and Dan decided to take a looooooong walk. We went to Fresh Pond in Cambridge and walked the entire thing. My contractions started coming every 10 minutes or so but were still very mild.
We got home and Dan left to take a short ride on his motorcycle. 10 Minutes after he left I was walking around the house and felt a little tiny trickle. I checked, nothing. I sat down and watched a little tv and maybe 10 minutes after that I decided I wanted to get dinner ready. I got up walked to the kitchen and felt another trickle then a bit of a gush. Bingo. I KNEW my water broke! I went to the bathroom and checked and my panty liner and pants were soaked with clear fluid. Time to call the dr!!!
I called the office and they had the on-call dr call me back, and I was relieved to find out that it was my OB who was on call!!! She asked about the contractions and more about my water breaking and she said come on in to L&D! I called Dan and told him to come back asap since I thought my water had broken and that I had already called the dr and that they had told me to come in. He was only 10 minutes away so I packed the rest of my bag and organized the rest of the stuff that we might need. By the time I was finishing up, Dan walked through the door and we were on our way!
I walked up to the 5th floor at Mt. Auburn and was created by a nurse who showed me to a little exam room. They asked some questions and about half an hour later my OB came in and said she asked some more questions. They had 3 possible tests to run to determine if my wear had indeed broken. The first was a ph test: negative. The second much more invasive test involved taking a fluid sample from inside my cervix and looking at it on a slide under a microscope. Again: negative. At this point I was so frustrated because even though my dr said it is really common to leak urine, I KNEW that was not the case! The third test involved the dr twirling a really long q-tip in my cervix for one solid minute. Fun. She took that sample and came back 10 minutes later and it was positive!! I think at that point I was more happy to hear that I did not pee myself than to hear that I was in labor!! They then checked my cervix and I was still 2cm and about 80% effaced.
The dr suggested starting pitocin since I was already having mild contractions. We were showed to a l&d room and I was hooked up to a monitor and an IV. I got fluids to start then came the pitocin, dun dun dun!! It was NOT bad at all. I started that around 9pm, and my contractions immediately got worse but were tolerable. Around 1am the real pain set in and I asked for some pain meds. My dr, being amazing, said I could get the epidural if I wanted. Obviously I said yes! Within a half an hour or less, anesthesia came and put the epidural in. Within 30 minutes I was pain free. The idea was for me to get some sleep, but that didn't really work. They checked my cervix again and I was 4 cm dilated and 100% effaced at that point. I "slept" until around 7 when the new nurses came in. They told me to let them know when I felt pressure. About 30 minutes later I really just wanted to see what my progress was, and I thought I was feeling a little bit of pressure so I called them back in. They checked me and I was ready to go! WHAT?!?!? I was shocked, and Dan was still resting on the couch next to me when they came in thinking that nothing was going to be happening. He got up from the couch, practically in shock, and the nurse started coaching me to push. So at 7:45 am I started the pushing process.
Nurses came in and out during this time and had me pushing laying on my left side, then on my right, then on my back. Baby's head was coming down slowly. Suddenly they said to go get the dr. My OB was tied up in another delivery. It was around 8:30 when Dr. Cook came in. There were so many deliveries happening and she was literally putting her scrubs on when the nurses ran and got her.
She came in and coached me to push a few times. Baby was having trouble crowning and she noticed that her heart rate was dropping after each contraction. It was becoming a dangerous situation and Dr. Cook told me I either needed an emergency c-section if they tried the vacuum and it failed. AT this point I began crying. I was so scared something was wrong with precious M and I might need a c section.
Something went wrong with my epidural because I literally felt everything from here on out. She got the vacuum and put it inside. I have no idea how many times she tried getting her out but it was painful! I needed an episiotomy because of the vacuum and I felt every piercing bit of that. She instructed me to push some more and baby was making her way out. Finally they got her head out. She noticed that the cord was wrapped so tight around her neck that it was cutting off her circulation and made the rest of the cord so short she couldn't crown. She pulled her from me and then her right shoulder got stuck on my pelvis. Dr. Cook pushed her halfway back inside me and yanked her out. She was quickly rushed over to the waiting neonatal team over by the bassinet. She was not crying. I asked if she was ok and why she wasn't crying. I heard three little slaps and then she finally let out a few good cries! THANK GOD!! I was too busy asking about the baby to notice that I was hemorrhaging. Dr. Cook quickly got the situation under control. One of my nurses who was coaching me to push came to my side and explained everything to me. Dan went over to make sure she was ok, and they were in such a rush that one of the doctors cut the cord and forgot to ask Dan. He wasn't too upset because he knew the situation was serious. The nurse said she was going to be ok but they had to check to see if she had any broken bones and that her right arm was ok since she had to be ripped out of my uterus.
It took about 45 minutes to stitch me up and stop the bleeding. Pretty Cailin and I had some good bonding time . Dr. MacDonald, my OB came and to see what happened and she was in shock! The room looked like Rob Zombie had just filmed a scene from a horror movie in there. There was blood everywhere, even on the dr.'s face and all over her scrubs and gown.
She came up to me and congratulated me and couldn't believe that I had progressed so quickly. Earlier she thought I wouldn't deliver until that night!
Later the nurse came to me and said I was really lucky that Dr. Cook was there because she was very good at dealing with complicated births and mine was as complicated as possible without having a c section.
They took Cailin away to the nursery to be checked out and get a bath. Dan went with her to make sure she was ok. I was still being worked on. The nurses had me get up and walk a little and then I eventually got moved to a postpartum room.
I was beyond exhausted and in lots of pain so we limited the visitors to my Dad, Dan's Mom, and later on in the day Aaron and Kristine came. By that point I was feeling a little better.
The next day we had lots more visitors: Mike and Rhonda, My Dad, Dan's mom, Dan's Dad, Nan and Pa, Averil, Caitlin, Dana, Diane, Rita and Pheonix all stopped by to meet Pretty Cailin!
More on our hospital stay later, but today we are proud to be at home and doing well!
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