I posted last week about avoiding an induction due to high blood pressure. I actually just entered a post I found I had left on my computer the night my water broke on that thread, and I should post my unexpected birth story here.
Our baby was born on Wednesday, March 29th at 8:18 pm. SHE is Violet
Elizabeth, and was 7 pounds 3 oz and was 20 inches long
(people always ask for some reason!). She has a ton of dark
blonde/light brown hair. She totally and completely rules.
This week was, well, other than the baby, truly horrific. After a
sleepless night Monday (maybe 2 hours of sleep), our midwife appt
Tuesday showed high blood pressure. All tests for pre-e were negative,
and a stress test was perfect. However, the miwife wanted to get me
induced THAT DAY. I refused, knowing that my just-over-the-borderline
high blood pressure was due to my rather miserable sleep situation. We
promised to go home, rest, and go back in that evening to labor and
delivery to be checked. "Rest" meaning, of course, frantically looking
on the net for ways to lower blood pressure so I would not be induced.
My husband and I have a nice, comprehensive natural birth plan all printed
out, and this was just not on it, and I thought it unnecessary. That
night my blood pressure was way down, and while till not perfect, not
at induction level. We dodged a bullet!
That night, I could not sleep again, but when my water BROKE (blammo
explosion) at 2am, I realized why. I immediately started having
contractions. We wanted to labor at home as long as possible... by
5am, though, they were rapidly increasing in speed and frequency. By 7
we knew we had to go immediately or I would not be able to bear the
car ride. They were 4 minutes apart then and were rather strong. We
called our doula and met in labor and delivery.
Labor got... worse and worse. Everyone was asking if I was having back
labor- I was unable to tell, as, well, it all hurt terribly. I was
also incredibly tired from my now two nights of no sleep. Eventually I
couldn't stand anymore and had to lie on the bed. I was only 4cm at
this point, after *over 13 hours* of labor. I decided an epidural was
a good idea by that point, as it helps dilation, and I simply couldn't
physically try any of the natural birthing positions anymore since I
could not move. I was really starting to freak out. I got one, which
was SO not in my birth plan, but we really tried all other options by
then. Everything seemed to have really stalled and I was in total
misery. It would also lower my blood pressure, which we needed by that
point.
It helped, although of course they needed to add pitocin to make the
contractions I was having stronger because nothing was progressing.
After a few hours I was ready to push. The epidural slowly wore off
as I pushed. The first hour was very hard work but dooable. There was
-no- progress. The second hour of, honestly, soul-killing pushing, was
one of the worst experiences of my life. The epidural no longer
worked, and they had the pitocin turned up to try to get
anything to progress. I'm not really some whiny screamer.
Well, I was screaming literally like someone was killing me. It was totally
out of control. I must have scared the crap out of the other women in
that overcrowded labor ward! When we started and began to work though
the third hour with, again, NO progress- the baby was still far too high to even attempt any sort of help with a vacuum, etc- I had to make the
decision to have c-secton. It was now around 7:30 pm.
I had emergency c-section, and I found I was very happy with my
decision, as the baby was completely stuck with her head against my
pubic bone, face up instead of down (so I guess it was back labor).
The midwife could not tell that the baby was head up, or we might have
made this call earlier. The baby would have never come out, despite
her smaller size. They even had a hard time getting her out.
So we were all happy, although I was not able to have access to the
baby for about an hour, which can really screw up breastfeeding .My husband
completely ruled and was so amazing throughout this. Also, her 1 and 10 minute apgar scores were great- 9 and 10! - so we knew we did the right thing. If we had waited (if I had been able), basically I would have ended up having a c-section after fetal distress was noted.
That night, we then went to a recovery room (after calling some family
members really quickly from the labor room). Since the hospital here
sucks, (I am in IL where birthing centers and homebirth are illegal) we had
a room mate. Well, we had what we found were infamous,
horrible, crack whore and scary husband roommates. So, that night, we
did not sleep AT ALL, just trying to calm and feed the baby, and try
to tune out the awful TV the roommates had on all, night, long. (day
three of no sleep, after major surgery now, if you're counting. I
was.)
Next day, finally, the freaks leave. We have some moments of peace. We
get new white trash roommates, but better than the last ones. Feeding
is difficult! Every hour someone is taking my vitals, the baby gets
tests, they make me get out of bed (okay, that is terrible), etc. That
night, poor Violet cries ALL NIGHT LONG. It is so difficult to get her
to eat. Day four of no sleep.
Next day, Friday, the pediatrician decides she has jaundice and wants
us to suppliment her feeding with formula. At this point, I slowly go
insane. I explain very calmly that we really don't want to do this, as
early exposure to formula proteins is bad especially for food
allergies, which we have on both sides of the family. I'm adamant
about breastfeeding, and admit at that point at I was getting cynical,
since the hospital not only gives out formula samples, but they used a
pacifier on violet when she went to the nursery despite our VERY
EXPRESSED WISH that absolutely none of these be given (in writing). It
was ignored, obviously. The baby also had the right amount of
wet/dirty diapers, and jaundice is expected and normal in breastfed
newborns. It is a common, annoying tactic to overreact to this with
respect to breastfeeding. I was like, "I knew it. I knew they would do
this". Anyway, the ped agreed to let us try overnight to feed as much
as we can, and revisit the issue the next day.
What was really not well told to me, at all, was that the ped really
wasn't super worried about the jaundice. What she was super worried
about was the level of weight loss and dehydration. This is normal,
but violet's was worse. There is also disagreement as to how much of
this is truly bad. The ped worries at 7 percent body weight, and is
seriously concerned at 10 percent. We were at something like 8 percent
at that time. Again, this is normal for breastfeed babies, but only to a certain point. But that, we didn't really understand. By the next
morning she had lost over 11 percent of her body weight.
Later that night, she was reweighed and lost four more oz just during
the day. The nurse, that I hated, bugged us about it even though the
plan with the pediatrician had been established. That night- number
five, people, of sleepless nights- was spent alternating between
nursing and using our wonderful breastpump. It is almost impossible to keep the baby awake enough to eat, which she was had always tended toward, but jaundice makes this much worse.
We're doing everything. When diaper wipes moistened with ICE WATER
with ice still on them doesn't even make her flinch during a diaper
change.. what do you do?! It was heartbreaking. Her mouth was dry, her
lips were really chapped, and she was becoming nonresponsive. It is difficult to convey just how emotionally upsetting this situation was/is. I can't talk
about it without totally losing my composure.
The next day- yesterday morning- the awful nurse wheels violet back to
us and snippily says "did you know she lost weight last night? Do you
know she has a fever now?!" Noone said anything about this to us. We
asked, "what was her temp? What were the lab results?!" she had no
idea. So we talked to the ped, who was like, "oh, she didn't have a
high temp, it was really not bad. But she did lose even more weight
this morning, and I personally weighed her. So here is what we need to
do...". So we're supplimenting with formula every single two hours,
after trying to aggressively breastfeed each time, and continue to use
the pump as well. We, finally, were discharged from the hospital
yesterday afternoon.
We have been feeding her every 2-3 hours, which means that we are
still scary loopy on no sleep, but we had some naps. Today, we had to
go get another bilirubin level taken at 8am, and see a ped. It's still
very high, and they thought they would admit her to the hospital. They
will wait until tomorrow, when we will get another level taken and see
another ped. UPDATE: the supplimentation worked, and her bili is down and weight is way up. Sometime during the night of the first day of supplimentation she.. just sort of woke up. Opened her eyes, and became a normal baby. We've been doing this for a few days as we've established a BF relationship, which was very very difficult. It gets better and I'm pumping more and more- we hope to stop supplimenting by the end of the week if these boobs behave.
SO, that is how things are at the moment. It has been a very trying
time and we really hope she will be OK. The baby has also a slight heart
murmur, which is probably not a big deal, and I have a significant complication
of severe water retention in my lower abdomen and a very weird rash. The dr
thinks that maybe I was allergic to the adhesive used for some of the drapes
or something, so I'm hitting benadryl and waiting carefully to see if it turns
into an infection, which it may do.
This has been a pretty emotional and miserable time, mixed with the total joy
and fun of this awesome little baby who is hilarious.
Having a c-section totally sucks. Now I understand!
Remember that comprehensive natural birth plan we wrote? Every single
freaking line- didn't happen. I joked that I should have included "do
NOT win a million dollars". The only thing we won on was no eye ointment, and that only because the midwife personally went to the nursery for us, ,with our birth plan in hand. Too bad they didn't listen about the pacifiers. Bitches. (sorry, but that makes me SO mad. We kept her with us the whole time, but for the checkups and tests they had to take her for a short time.)
One of my favorite moments: when she was born (i.e. pulled out of my
abdomen as my husband WATCHED, my god), she cried and sounded exactly like a kitten. EXACTLY. It was so a freaky. She bit the finger of the doctor
who pulled her out, too. Feeding her with syringes (which is how you
suppliment with formula if trying to also breastfeed) is like feeding a kitten! very freaky.
So that's it. It sucked, but was necessary. Our doula ended up being the MOST IMPORTANT person we had there. She helped so much with every single step. I am not dissapointed mostly, because I called the shots- I called when it was time for an epi, it was not offered to me, and I called when it was time for a c-section. The c-section being necessary, and the baby coming out totally healthy- these things ease my mind. But it was SO UNEXPECTED.
It took me a long time to write about this, and we have not seen any of our friends and family (almost all are far away). I didn't call many
people either, becuase I was so distraught and bitterly upset about the breastfeeding problems, and the completely terrible room we were stuck in, unable to get any rest. It's good to be home, and as soon as they figure out why I am retaining 10 pounds of water below my navel, and fix it, I"ll be much better too.
The child, but she is adorable, it's just too crazy.
I hope everyone else has a better birth story than this one! I was due april 5th, btw.
Our baby was born on Wednesday, March 29th at 8:18 pm. SHE is Violet
Elizabeth, and was 7 pounds 3 oz and was 20 inches long
(people always ask for some reason!). She has a ton of dark
blonde/light brown hair. She totally and completely rules.
This week was, well, other than the baby, truly horrific. After a
sleepless night Monday (maybe 2 hours of sleep), our midwife appt
Tuesday showed high blood pressure. All tests for pre-e were negative,
and a stress test was perfect. However, the miwife wanted to get me
induced THAT DAY. I refused, knowing that my just-over-the-borderline
high blood pressure was due to my rather miserable sleep situation. We
promised to go home, rest, and go back in that evening to labor and
delivery to be checked. "Rest" meaning, of course, frantically looking
on the net for ways to lower blood pressure so I would not be induced.
My husband and I have a nice, comprehensive natural birth plan all printed
out, and this was just not on it, and I thought it unnecessary. That
night my blood pressure was way down, and while till not perfect, not
at induction level. We dodged a bullet!
That night, I could not sleep again, but when my water BROKE (blammo
explosion) at 2am, I realized why. I immediately started having
contractions. We wanted to labor at home as long as possible... by
5am, though, they were rapidly increasing in speed and frequency. By 7
we knew we had to go immediately or I would not be able to bear the
car ride. They were 4 minutes apart then and were rather strong. We
called our doula and met in labor and delivery.
Labor got... worse and worse. Everyone was asking if I was having back
labor- I was unable to tell, as, well, it all hurt terribly. I was
also incredibly tired from my now two nights of no sleep. Eventually I
couldn't stand anymore and had to lie on the bed. I was only 4cm at
this point, after *over 13 hours* of labor. I decided an epidural was
a good idea by that point, as it helps dilation, and I simply couldn't
physically try any of the natural birthing positions anymore since I
could not move. I was really starting to freak out. I got one, which
was SO not in my birth plan, but we really tried all other options by
then. Everything seemed to have really stalled and I was in total
misery. It would also lower my blood pressure, which we needed by that
point.
It helped, although of course they needed to add pitocin to make the
contractions I was having stronger because nothing was progressing.
After a few hours I was ready to push. The epidural slowly wore off
as I pushed. The first hour was very hard work but dooable. There was
-no- progress. The second hour of, honestly, soul-killing pushing, was
one of the worst experiences of my life. The epidural no longer
worked, and they had the pitocin turned up to try to get
anything to progress. I'm not really some whiny screamer.
Well, I was screaming literally like someone was killing me. It was totally
out of control. I must have scared the crap out of the other women in
that overcrowded labor ward! When we started and began to work though
the third hour with, again, NO progress- the baby was still far too high to even attempt any sort of help with a vacuum, etc- I had to make the
decision to have c-secton. It was now around 7:30 pm.
I had emergency c-section, and I found I was very happy with my
decision, as the baby was completely stuck with her head against my
pubic bone, face up instead of down (so I guess it was back labor).
The midwife could not tell that the baby was head up, or we might have
made this call earlier. The baby would have never come out, despite
her smaller size. They even had a hard time getting her out.
So we were all happy, although I was not able to have access to the
baby for about an hour, which can really screw up breastfeeding .My husband
completely ruled and was so amazing throughout this. Also, her 1 and 10 minute apgar scores were great- 9 and 10! - so we knew we did the right thing. If we had waited (if I had been able), basically I would have ended up having a c-section after fetal distress was noted.
That night, we then went to a recovery room (after calling some family
members really quickly from the labor room). Since the hospital here
sucks, (I am in IL where birthing centers and homebirth are illegal) we had
a room mate. Well, we had what we found were infamous,
horrible, crack whore and scary husband roommates. So, that night, we
did not sleep AT ALL, just trying to calm and feed the baby, and try
to tune out the awful TV the roommates had on all, night, long. (day
three of no sleep, after major surgery now, if you're counting. I
was.)
Next day, finally, the freaks leave. We have some moments of peace. We
get new white trash roommates, but better than the last ones. Feeding
is difficult! Every hour someone is taking my vitals, the baby gets
tests, they make me get out of bed (okay, that is terrible), etc. That
night, poor Violet cries ALL NIGHT LONG. It is so difficult to get her
to eat. Day four of no sleep.
Next day, Friday, the pediatrician decides she has jaundice and wants
us to suppliment her feeding with formula. At this point, I slowly go
insane. I explain very calmly that we really don't want to do this, as
early exposure to formula proteins is bad especially for food
allergies, which we have on both sides of the family. I'm adamant
about breastfeeding, and admit at that point at I was getting cynical,
since the hospital not only gives out formula samples, but they used a
pacifier on violet when she went to the nursery despite our VERY
EXPRESSED WISH that absolutely none of these be given (in writing). It
was ignored, obviously. The baby also had the right amount of
wet/dirty diapers, and jaundice is expected and normal in breastfed
newborns. It is a common, annoying tactic to overreact to this with
respect to breastfeeding. I was like, "I knew it. I knew they would do
this". Anyway, the ped agreed to let us try overnight to feed as much
as we can, and revisit the issue the next day.
What was really not well told to me, at all, was that the ped really
wasn't super worried about the jaundice. What she was super worried
about was the level of weight loss and dehydration. This is normal,
but violet's was worse. There is also disagreement as to how much of
this is truly bad. The ped worries at 7 percent body weight, and is
seriously concerned at 10 percent. We were at something like 8 percent
at that time. Again, this is normal for breastfeed babies, but only to a certain point. But that, we didn't really understand. By the next
morning she had lost over 11 percent of her body weight.
Later that night, she was reweighed and lost four more oz just during
the day. The nurse, that I hated, bugged us about it even though the
plan with the pediatrician had been established. That night- number
five, people, of sleepless nights- was spent alternating between
nursing and using our wonderful breastpump. It is almost impossible to keep the baby awake enough to eat, which she was had always tended toward, but jaundice makes this much worse.
We're doing everything. When diaper wipes moistened with ICE WATER
with ice still on them doesn't even make her flinch during a diaper
change.. what do you do?! It was heartbreaking. Her mouth was dry, her
lips were really chapped, and she was becoming nonresponsive. It is difficult to convey just how emotionally upsetting this situation was/is. I can't talk
about it without totally losing my composure.
The next day- yesterday morning- the awful nurse wheels violet back to
us and snippily says "did you know she lost weight last night? Do you
know she has a fever now?!" Noone said anything about this to us. We
asked, "what was her temp? What were the lab results?!" she had no
idea. So we talked to the ped, who was like, "oh, she didn't have a
high temp, it was really not bad. But she did lose even more weight
this morning, and I personally weighed her. So here is what we need to
do...". So we're supplimenting with formula every single two hours,
after trying to aggressively breastfeed each time, and continue to use
the pump as well. We, finally, were discharged from the hospital
yesterday afternoon.
We have been feeding her every 2-3 hours, which means that we are
still scary loopy on no sleep, but we had some naps. Today, we had to
go get another bilirubin level taken at 8am, and see a ped. It's still
very high, and they thought they would admit her to the hospital. They
will wait until tomorrow, when we will get another level taken and see
another ped. UPDATE: the supplimentation worked, and her bili is down and weight is way up. Sometime during the night of the first day of supplimentation she.. just sort of woke up. Opened her eyes, and became a normal baby. We've been doing this for a few days as we've established a BF relationship, which was very very difficult. It gets better and I'm pumping more and more- we hope to stop supplimenting by the end of the week if these boobs behave.
SO, that is how things are at the moment. It has been a very trying
time and we really hope she will be OK. The baby has also a slight heart
murmur, which is probably not a big deal, and I have a significant complication
of severe water retention in my lower abdomen and a very weird rash. The dr
thinks that maybe I was allergic to the adhesive used for some of the drapes
or something, so I'm hitting benadryl and waiting carefully to see if it turns
into an infection, which it may do.
This has been a pretty emotional and miserable time, mixed with the total joy
and fun of this awesome little baby who is hilarious.
Having a c-section totally sucks. Now I understand!
Remember that comprehensive natural birth plan we wrote? Every single
freaking line- didn't happen. I joked that I should have included "do
NOT win a million dollars". The only thing we won on was no eye ointment, and that only because the midwife personally went to the nursery for us, ,with our birth plan in hand. Too bad they didn't listen about the pacifiers. Bitches. (sorry, but that makes me SO mad. We kept her with us the whole time, but for the checkups and tests they had to take her for a short time.)
One of my favorite moments: when she was born (i.e. pulled out of my
abdomen as my husband WATCHED, my god), she cried and sounded exactly like a kitten. EXACTLY. It was so a freaky. She bit the finger of the doctor
who pulled her out, too. Feeding her with syringes (which is how you
suppliment with formula if trying to also breastfeed) is like feeding a kitten! very freaky.
So that's it. It sucked, but was necessary. Our doula ended up being the MOST IMPORTANT person we had there. She helped so much with every single step. I am not dissapointed mostly, because I called the shots- I called when it was time for an epi, it was not offered to me, and I called when it was time for a c-section. The c-section being necessary, and the baby coming out totally healthy- these things ease my mind. But it was SO UNEXPECTED.
It took me a long time to write about this, and we have not seen any of our friends and family (almost all are far away). I didn't call many
people either, becuase I was so distraught and bitterly upset about the breastfeeding problems, and the completely terrible room we were stuck in, unable to get any rest. It's good to be home, and as soon as they figure out why I am retaining 10 pounds of water below my navel, and fix it, I"ll be much better too.
The child, but she is adorable, it's just too crazy.
I hope everyone else has a better birth story than this one! I was due april 5th, btw.
I had an unexpected C with my first and an unpleasant hospital experience (not as awful as yours though). All I can say is that things *will* gradually get better. Get as much rest as you can in the next few weeks--I really hope your dh and/or friends and/or relatives are helping you out so you can rest and focus on breastfeeding. And even though things got off to a rough start with the bf'ing, I'm sure you'll get things back on track--it sounds like you're pretty dedicated and that you're getting good support now. If you're worried about supply, talk to a LC or LLL leader about fenugreek. Try not to worry about the slight heart murmur. Apparently, it's pretty darned common in newborns and usually either resolves itself or doesn't cause problems (I know this because my first had one, too).
Welcome Violet!!!
If you have ANY questions or need someone to talk to, please PM or email me. Big 
s!
