My plan was to try to labor and deliver without pain medication, but being confined to the bed and with how intense everything had gotten, I told my nurse that I'd like to try the IV drugs. So at 8:00(ish) I was given a dose of fentanyl and was told that it took about 15 min to kick in. It. Did. Nothing.
Kyle asked me if I wanted him to start our diffuser with lavender. My response was, "None of that hippie stuff. I want the epidural." He thought that was hilarious, so a message was sent to the anesthetist and he was on his way up. I'm all for essential oils and I love them. At that point, I was just too focused on my pain.
Dave, the anesthetist, came and finished placing my epidural around 9:45 pm and it was magic. When he came back 30 min later to make sure it worked, I told him that he was magic. I was able to get some sleep after that. But, at 12:40 am (Tuesday), baby's heart rate dropped and I woke up to a nurse putting an oxygen mask on me and they turned the pitocin off. It was freaky to wake up and not know what was happening. The nurses had to monitor baby's heart rate for a while. They turned the pitocin back on at 1:30am and I got back to sleep.
At 4:54am, the same thing happened. Pitocin went off and the oxygen mask went on. I slept more.
Around 9 am, I realized that my epidural started wearing off. I asked for more juice from my epidural and Tuesday's anesthetist, Jamie, showed up. He gave me a little boost and said things would get moving quickly. I was at 6cm by this point.
I was still feeling a lot of pain during contractions. The nurses and Kyle kept rolling me from side to side to get the epidural to my right side.
Around 11, Jamie came back to check on my pain levels and the dr checked again. I was at an 8!! And then time seemed to stand still.
Around 1:30pm or 2, the
boost Jamie had given me had worn off. My body felt like it was on
fire. I remember looking down at my belly and thinking that baby had
appeared to have moved down.
Remember this for later...
Dr checked me and I was almost at a 10. So we did some practice pushes to see if she could stretch me. No luck. She said she'd be back at 4.
By 2:45/3pm I had some intense back labor and even Kyle's counter pressure didn't help. I told my nurse that I felt like I needed to push because otherwise my body would on its own.
The dr was back at 3/3:05 and she wanted to have me push anyway. After three contractions, baby's heart rate continued to drop. She said that while I was pushing well, we didn't have the time to keep pushing. So our best option was an emergency c-section.
By 3:30/:40, I was on the operating table and they were starting. Baby Lewis was born at 3:53pm after lots of pulling and tugging. He was having some issues breathing and they put him on an oxygen mask and started treating him for an infection. So he stayed in the NICU for a week.
It was traumatic, but he's here and he's totally worth it!
Newborn pics by Erin Johnson Photography
Happy Friday!
No comments:
Post a Comment