The Planned Natural Birth turned C section of Karen Joi Sarah C.
Yesterday Karen Joi as I like to call her turned 2 weeks 1 day old. She was born January 25th, 2008, weighed 6lbs 6 ozs and was 19 1/2 inches long. I thought I better get to writing her birth story out as so much happened and I don’t want my memories to blur of it.
The Thursday before the 25th I had my weekly scheduled midwife visit. At this point I had decided to get vaginally checked to see if I had dilated any. Because to me it didn’t feel if anything was happening now that I was days away from my due date. But joy, I was 2 cm 60 % effaced, however the exam was really painful. I later found out she also stripped my membranes, but she did not tell me she was going to do that. I was kind of PO’d about that. But I guess it turned out to be what it was supposed to be. After that my sister who was my birth coach, and had came to the appointment with me, walked about 10 blocks to get lunch before she was off to lunch. Lunch was good! Yum! I don’t know exactly what type of food it was but it was great. So after that I made my way home to just relax and await the baby.
But then, when I got home, i decided that I needed to go to babies r us and get a few things that i still needed. So off I went with my mom in tow. Now my mom is 60+ years old and I am 30 years old. But here I was telling her she was walking to fast, as we walked through Babies R US, Target and BJ’s. I guess my ctx had started then but I was totally ignoring them and saying to my sell that they were probably BH ctx. Nothing to worry about. Well that continued well into the evening, it finally got to a a point where I said to myself I better call my midwife and we talked. It was then I finally started timing them and knew that my baby was going to come soon.
At this point my sister (my birth coach) and boyfriend were here at home with me, although I hadn’t fully told them what was going. My boyfriend knew something was going on because I was bouncing on the birthing ball and making noises. Well after timing the contractions, bouncing on the birthing ball and even getting in the shower we decided it was time to head to the hospital. So off we went to get ready. I dried off, got dressed, on the way out the door I let my parents know we were on our way to the hospital. They were dead asleep, but scrambled out of bed to pray over me and my sister. Then off we went.
Boy was the ride to hospital painful. I live a fair distance from the hospital. All I can say is thank goodness it was 6 o'clock in the morning (no traffic). Now here is something ridiculous. There is no parking where the hospital is located, except for the public parking. I know he didn't expect me to walk fro the garage to the ER entrance. I looked at him like he was crazy. Luckily he wised up and let me and my sister off in front of the ER entrance. We headed straight up to the L& D floor, my midwife was already there, Yes! So they did all there little checks that they had to do before I could get to my room. So we get there and they try to monitor Karen Joi, but the machine was broke. My boyfriend took it upon himself to be Mr. Fix and try and fix the machine, when he is supposed to be there for me. He pissed me off.
Anyway my midwife decided that since the machine was broken, I could go ahead and get in the hot tub, I was so relieved to find out that I could labor in the hot tub. It felt so good. The only thing I would have to periodically stand up to have Karen monitored. So I stayed i the tub just about the whole day. My memory is kind of fuzzy now. But i know I was eventually checked to see if I had dilated more, but no progress was made, damn. Then they broke my water to see if that would help. By this time the contractions had gotten worse and I was not handling the pain well, so we discussed the options available to me. I decided to use stadol because I wanted to be able to push Karen out. So this went on for a while, and I just labored some more. Eventually my midwife decided I was not progressing at all and said we should try pitocin, which I was okay with but Iwanted a epidural because the contractions were no joke. I got to say don't ever decide to get an epidural during shift change because then you have to wait until the new anesthesiologist comes on the floor. That was a bitch! It hurt so bad. I was feeling so good after they put in the epidural, I was able to rest some. Much of what happened at this pint is woozy to me but I know that in the end I still had not dilated at all, the baby at this pint was not reacting well and her heart rate was decreasing, I think it happened four times in a row, My midwife stopped the pitocin to see if her heart rate would go back up but it didn't so at this point she talked to me and my boyfriend about a C-section. I was okay with this too, because I know she would never bring this up if she wasn't really concerned for the baby. So I ended up with a c-section.
Unfortunately my recovery has not been so easy. The first time I went to get the staples taken out at the doctor, he said I had a hematoma/blood clot and that the wound had to be reopened and drained. In fact it would be an open wound and would have to close on its own. So I now have a visiting nurse come every day to clean and change the dressing. I am not allowed to pick up anything other than KJ. It is definitely not how I expected my maternity leave to go but I am dealing with it and it is getting better day by day.
KJ is now 2 weeks 1 day old and I am just amazed that this beautiful little human being was inside me for nine months. I look forward to learning more about her as time goes on.
Pictures to come......
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2014/...7ae61cfeb5.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/...929e5df3_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2288/...f54c6d1e_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/...bcb24e12_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2144/...712a599b_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2338/...9a3c50d2_b.jpg
Yesterday Karen Joi as I like to call her turned 2 weeks 1 day old. She was born January 25th, 2008, weighed 6lbs 6 ozs and was 19 1/2 inches long. I thought I better get to writing her birth story out as so much happened and I don’t want my memories to blur of it.
The Thursday before the 25th I had my weekly scheduled midwife visit. At this point I had decided to get vaginally checked to see if I had dilated any. Because to me it didn’t feel if anything was happening now that I was days away from my due date. But joy, I was 2 cm 60 % effaced, however the exam was really painful. I later found out she also stripped my membranes, but she did not tell me she was going to do that. I was kind of PO’d about that. But I guess it turned out to be what it was supposed to be. After that my sister who was my birth coach, and had came to the appointment with me, walked about 10 blocks to get lunch before she was off to lunch. Lunch was good! Yum! I don’t know exactly what type of food it was but it was great. So after that I made my way home to just relax and await the baby.
But then, when I got home, i decided that I needed to go to babies r us and get a few things that i still needed. So off I went with my mom in tow. Now my mom is 60+ years old and I am 30 years old. But here I was telling her she was walking to fast, as we walked through Babies R US, Target and BJ’s. I guess my ctx had started then but I was totally ignoring them and saying to my sell that they were probably BH ctx. Nothing to worry about. Well that continued well into the evening, it finally got to a a point where I said to myself I better call my midwife and we talked. It was then I finally started timing them and knew that my baby was going to come soon.
At this point my sister (my birth coach) and boyfriend were here at home with me, although I hadn’t fully told them what was going. My boyfriend knew something was going on because I was bouncing on the birthing ball and making noises. Well after timing the contractions, bouncing on the birthing ball and even getting in the shower we decided it was time to head to the hospital. So off we went to get ready. I dried off, got dressed, on the way out the door I let my parents know we were on our way to the hospital. They were dead asleep, but scrambled out of bed to pray over me and my sister. Then off we went.
Boy was the ride to hospital painful. I live a fair distance from the hospital. All I can say is thank goodness it was 6 o'clock in the morning (no traffic). Now here is something ridiculous. There is no parking where the hospital is located, except for the public parking. I know he didn't expect me to walk fro the garage to the ER entrance. I looked at him like he was crazy. Luckily he wised up and let me and my sister off in front of the ER entrance. We headed straight up to the L& D floor, my midwife was already there, Yes! So they did all there little checks that they had to do before I could get to my room. So we get there and they try to monitor Karen Joi, but the machine was broke. My boyfriend took it upon himself to be Mr. Fix and try and fix the machine, when he is supposed to be there for me. He pissed me off.
Anyway my midwife decided that since the machine was broken, I could go ahead and get in the hot tub, I was so relieved to find out that I could labor in the hot tub. It felt so good. The only thing I would have to periodically stand up to have Karen monitored. So I stayed i the tub just about the whole day. My memory is kind of fuzzy now. But i know I was eventually checked to see if I had dilated more, but no progress was made, damn. Then they broke my water to see if that would help. By this time the contractions had gotten worse and I was not handling the pain well, so we discussed the options available to me. I decided to use stadol because I wanted to be able to push Karen out. So this went on for a while, and I just labored some more. Eventually my midwife decided I was not progressing at all and said we should try pitocin, which I was okay with but Iwanted a epidural because the contractions were no joke. I got to say don't ever decide to get an epidural during shift change because then you have to wait until the new anesthesiologist comes on the floor. That was a bitch! It hurt so bad. I was feeling so good after they put in the epidural, I was able to rest some. Much of what happened at this pint is woozy to me but I know that in the end I still had not dilated at all, the baby at this pint was not reacting well and her heart rate was decreasing, I think it happened four times in a row, My midwife stopped the pitocin to see if her heart rate would go back up but it didn't so at this point she talked to me and my boyfriend about a C-section. I was okay with this too, because I know she would never bring this up if she wasn't really concerned for the baby. So I ended up with a c-section.
Unfortunately my recovery has not been so easy. The first time I went to get the staples taken out at the doctor, he said I had a hematoma/blood clot and that the wound had to be reopened and drained. In fact it would be an open wound and would have to close on its own. So I now have a visiting nurse come every day to clean and change the dressing. I am not allowed to pick up anything other than KJ. It is definitely not how I expected my maternity leave to go but I am dealing with it and it is getting better day by day.
KJ is now 2 weeks 1 day old and I am just amazed that this beautiful little human being was inside me for nine months. I look forward to learning more about her as time goes on.
Pictures to come......
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2014/...7ae61cfeb5.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2354/...929e5df3_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2288/...f54c6d1e_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2092/...bcb24e12_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2144/...712a599b_b.jpg
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2338/...9a3c50d2_b.jpg
Congratulations!! I hope you heal soon.
