DD2 was born at 5-ish in the morning on Sunday, September 18. She is doing very well, nursing well, and is a joy to all of us.
The birth was rough. My water broke at 8 a.m. Saturday morning. The midwives came over at about 11 or noon. I dilated with intense contractions until about 3, when I hit transition. I had a stubborn lip that took over 3 hours to get rid of -- it was a very looong hard transition.
So, transitioned from 3 to 6:30 (!), started pushing. I could move her down a bit with some, but not all of the pushing I was doing. It was going very slow. Midwives had me in a lot of different positions, etc. Nothing was making a huge difference -- she was not crowning. Her heart tones were rock solid the whole time. Got her to about +2, at midnight, when my head MW said it's time to think about a transfer.
I was exhausted and had been in excruciating pain for a long time -- pushing hard for 5 hours -- it did not take me long to make up my mind that I wanted to transfer and get some pain relief. So off we went to the hospital, which is blessedly 7 blocks from my house.
The transfer was so smooth, the hospital staff was so friendly and professional. I was so, so happy with all of them. At triage the OB checked me and said she was at +3 station, so let's go have a baby. I got an epidural and rested for a couple of hours. DD2's heart tones were perfect, my vitals were great.
This last round of pushing started to give us some clues as to what was going on in there. Even though I had a very strong epidural (which I insisted on
), I could still feel a very sharp breakthrough pain in my right pelvis. Every time my leg was lifted for pushing, and even in between ctx, it was sooo painful. I pushed into and through that pain for over an hour, and suddenly I felt her head clear it. She crowned and rocketed out of me in one push. I was pushing soooo hard to get her past the stuck place -- way harder than it usually takes to get a baby out, so she popped out like a cork.
I did not know I'd had a baby because I was so delirious and it all happened so fast at the very end. But they put her on me and I was overwhelmed. I cannot believe I did it. Cannot, cannot.
Her head was molded in an extreme sideways cone, sticking off to the right. She also has some scrapes on her scalp where the cone was. Soooo, she was asynclitic. I pushed out a 9 lb asynclitic baby in a VBA2C.
She is healthy as a horse. I am somewhat torn up from all that insane pushing but I will heal. I really can't believe I got that baby out of me. It was a wild birth that took just the right combination of luck, hard work, a great supportive team (both home & hospital), midwifery skills, and modern medicine. I am one very, very lucky mama.
The birth was rough. My water broke at 8 a.m. Saturday morning. The midwives came over at about 11 or noon. I dilated with intense contractions until about 3, when I hit transition. I had a stubborn lip that took over 3 hours to get rid of -- it was a very looong hard transition.
So, transitioned from 3 to 6:30 (!), started pushing. I could move her down a bit with some, but not all of the pushing I was doing. It was going very slow. Midwives had me in a lot of different positions, etc. Nothing was making a huge difference -- she was not crowning. Her heart tones were rock solid the whole time. Got her to about +2, at midnight, when my head MW said it's time to think about a transfer.
I was exhausted and had been in excruciating pain for a long time -- pushing hard for 5 hours -- it did not take me long to make up my mind that I wanted to transfer and get some pain relief. So off we went to the hospital, which is blessedly 7 blocks from my house.
The transfer was so smooth, the hospital staff was so friendly and professional. I was so, so happy with all of them. At triage the OB checked me and said she was at +3 station, so let's go have a baby. I got an epidural and rested for a couple of hours. DD2's heart tones were perfect, my vitals were great.
This last round of pushing started to give us some clues as to what was going on in there. Even though I had a very strong epidural (which I insisted on
I did not know I'd had a baby because I was so delirious and it all happened so fast at the very end. But they put her on me and I was overwhelmed. I cannot believe I did it. Cannot, cannot.
Her head was molded in an extreme sideways cone, sticking off to the right. She also has some scrapes on her scalp where the cone was. Soooo, she was asynclitic. I pushed out a 9 lb asynclitic baby in a VBA2C.
She is healthy as a horse. I am somewhat torn up from all that insane pushing but I will heal. I really can't believe I got that baby out of me. It was a wild birth that took just the right combination of luck, hard work, a great supportive team (both home & hospital), midwifery skills, and modern medicine. I am one very, very lucky mama.