Birth Story TL;DR: everything that I didn’t want to have happen, happened: 26 hour labor, vacuum assist, shoulder dystocia, cord wrapped around baby, episiotomy, had to resuscitate baby, forced placenta removal, hemorrhage. But no one needed emergency surgery and I got a cute baby :)
I was due February 13, but my little guy decided to arrive in January! Funny because I was mentally preparing myself to go late. I'm in California and took advantage of the 4 week prepartum nesting period, so fortunately I had a good two weeks at home prepping before I went into labor.
Thursday, January 26 DH and I went to a 4 hour(!) L&D class at Kaiser. We went to dinner and got home late and had sex a little after midnight right before we went to sleep. Around 1ish I felt a distinct pop. At this point I was already half asleep but definitely wondered if my water had just broken. Around 1:30 I woke up to contractions and when I got up to go to the bathroom there was a gush. It continued in the toilet and it was pink. This was concerning because at the l&d class she distinctly said the fluid should be clear, however it also made it easy to tell it wasn't pee. I was scared, nervous, and excited and woke up DH to tell him. He didn't believe me! I told him to go back to sleep. I immediately started panic nesting (doing laundry, stuff around the house, and homework for a grad class I'm taking) while timing contractions with the Contractions app on iOS. They were strong and fairly quick right from the start (about 7 mins apart). I labored for about 3 hours until I woke up my husband and told him to get ready to leave. He packed the car with the bags I had ready and ran out to grab breakfast (bagels because that's all that was open at 5am.) by the time he got back my contractions were 1-3 mins apart and I started panicking and said we need to leave NOW.
By the time we got to the hospital the contractions were very painful and still very close together. They checked me when I got in and I was only 3cm dilated and -2 station. I was in so much pain they immediately started talking epidural. I was all for pain management, but I felt like it was too early. However, an older Chinese nurse started wheeling me to a room and arguing with the other nurses and telling them I was an “early epidural”… then I found out I got the very last room before they started turning people away! So it worked out. I ended up taking Fentanyl for a couple hours and going in to the epidural around 11AM. So I held out for about 9 hours before I finally gave in. Advice: if you’re going to get the epidural, just get the epidural. It felt so weird and evolved over the course of labor… At the beginning I could feel my legs but no pain, then for many hours I couldn’t feel my legs AT ALL and I was very nervous about it. The nurses came in and would turn me onto my opposite side every hour or so and I was dead weight. But by the time I started pushing ~12 hours after getting the epidural, I could feel everything again but there was no pain.
Since my water had broken, they didn’t check me again until about 10PM. I was 10cm! Time to start pushing. I pushed for 2 hours. The doctor on call started talking about vacuum assist. I really did not want this, but after 2 hours of pushing I said let’s do it. The mom team and baby team came in and I realized this was it! Once a good contraction started, the doctor did the assist and baby’s head came out, but then he got stuck. His shoulders wouldn’t come out, plus his umbilical cord was wrapped up over his shoulder, essentially holding him in even more tightly. I think someone called a code of some kind because a rush of people poured into the room and they made my husband move way back to the corner of the room out of the way. They had a timer start and cut the cord and there was a moment where it was like time stopped… They had to get him out within minutes before… I’m not sure what would have happened! The nurses told me I had to do one more big push. I don’t even know when the doctor did the episiotomy but I’m pretty sure it was right before that. One more big push and he was out.
The worst part was they rushed him away from me to work on him, and they were trying to figure out what was going on with me. The placenta wouldn’t come out. Once they finally got it out, I started to hemorrhage. I don’t even KNOW what they stuck up there, but to make sure they got all the placenta and figure out the bleeding hands or tools of some kind went up there. It hurt worse than giving birth and felt so weird. All in all they said I lost over a pint of blood. They told me they had to resuscitate him but he finally cried, my husband went over to see him. We have the sweetest picture of the he opened his eyes for the first time… he wouldn’t open them under the super bright lights, so my husband got in between him and the lights and he opened his eyes. It melts my heart that my husbands face was the first thing he saw. After what seemed like forever, I finally got to do skin to skin with my baby.
Even though it was pretty traumatic, looking back my fears were worse than reality. It was a 26 hour labor but it went by so fast. We were in the hospital one more full day. So we checked in Friday 5:30AM and checked out Sunday around 1PM. I have nothing but amazing things to say about Kaiser. It was a very good labor & delivery experience: I felt well informed, safe, and in control, even though things didn’t go as planned.
Product Recommendations and Advice, 4 weeks later:
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Get some of those cute newborn clothes. We had NONE because everything I read here said I wouldn’t need them. Drew was almost 8 lbs but he was swimming 0-3 size and I needed my mom to run out and buy some sleepers when we got home.
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Get a tracker app and start using it in the hospital. It’s easy to rely on the nurses for things when you’re there, but get into the habit! I use Baby Tracker on iOS and I love it. Get the Pro version if you want to share data with other caregivers.
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Speaking of getting in the habit, if you’re breastfeeding, get into the habit of pumping after feeding when you’re in the hospital. Take advantage of the lactation consultants and any resources you have available.
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We have all the things for places to put baby, but I know some people don’t like clutter. We also fortunately have a baby that sleeps well. He sleeps in the Bugaboo Bee3 bassinet (on the Jolly Jumper) at night, and during the day is in the rock n play basically all day. He also has a swing someone gave me that I loathe, but DH won’t let me throw away yet. LO will probably use it when he gets a bit older. Day 4 I made DH run to buy the Snuggle Nest cosleeper 20 minutes before the store closed, but we quickly figured out his cues and stopped using the cosleeper at about 2 weeks. I still use it if I have him on the bed when I’m pumping or getting ready in the morning.
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Wipe warmer. I ended up buying one when I realized the Amazon subscription I have for wipes was sending refill packs of wipes and I don’t want them to dry out. The warmer was only $15… I don’t think my baby cares one way or the other that they’re warm, and I just needed a place to put the wipes!
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Bottle warmer. So great. I store breast milk in the full 6oz portions in the refrigerator, and ATM only give maybe one 2-4oz bottle a day when he’s cluster feeding at night, so I don’t want to warm the entire bag. It took many awkward trial runs and wasting of milk before I realized $16 was worth every drop of wasted breastmilk.
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Electric Steam Sterilizer I pump after every feeding, so that adds up to about 6-8x per day. I know you can store pump parts in the refrigerator to avoid cleaning after every use, but I have everything set up upstairs in my master bedroom and bathroom so I don't have to walk all the way downstairs at night, so it's easier for me to clean after every use. I sterilize the pump parts after every pumping! Once you getinto a routine, it's not bad at all! Love this sterilizer because it fits all types of bottles, plus pump parts, toys, pacifiers, etc.
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Even though we've only used it a handful of times so far, the Bugaboo Bee3 stroller system is freaking awesome. I found the Van Gogh edition and the bassinet on Craigslist and got the Maxi Cosi Mico 30 infant carseat and the system is so easy to convert to the different configurations with the adapters. Plus it's small, easy to transport, has a goaod feel and great fit and finish.
Edit: I almost forgot baby tax
Submitted February 28, 2017 at 01:10AM by hapabean http://ift.tt/2mn8yVc BabyBumps
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