At my last few midwife visits my blood pressure has been a little high, so Dr. Bhattacharya said I could be induced a week early.
After going back and forth we got an appointment for 10am today at Castle.
Yesterday we flew over to Oahu so that we wouldn’t be all rushed this morning. We actually spent a good part of yesterday running errands- the main task of which was buying a new infant car seat.
Today we checked into the hospital a little late- around 10:05, then went to our room. Per usual, Castle was pretty busy, so we started off in a small room, and I didn’t get an IV until around 11:30. They finally stared my clindamyacin at noon, and pitocin around 12:30.
They moved us to a larger delivery room thinking that my labor would go fast. Haha.
At 4:00 I was only around 5cm. Around 4:30 the on call Dr. Awaya swept my membranes to try to move things along. Labor wasn’t terrible, but around 5 I was starting to get tired and hungry, so I asked for my fetanol. They said I could just get the epidural, but I’m kind of scared of them, so I opted to wait it out awhile, and start with just the fetinol instead.
At 8:00 I was still only 5cm. But at least baby was -1 now. So the dr. And nurse suggested that I lay down and use this thing called a peanut ball.
I was having sting contractions but wasn’t progressing, so I asked for an epidural before they turned up the pitocin past 24. It was scary and gross as usual. Daniel almost passed out- though probably from locking his knees while supporting me.
Baby and I did NOT do well with the epidural this time. My heart rate was racing and hers was dropping. I got “the shakes” was super nauseaous, and was so itchy-like ants crawling all over me. I couldn’t tell if I was passing out or falling asleep, but I just kept having the most insane thoughts pass through my head. It was pretty terrible. Meanwhile the nurses made me keep moving around to stabilize the baby and for awhile I had to be on oxygen. The three consistent things running through my head were.
1. Just trust modern medicine- it’s fine
2. I wonder when they’re going to call this off and just do a c-section
3. Why did I do this? I should have just gone without drugs, it would have been better all natural again.
Everything else was literally insanity. Like floating numbers and crazy $hit.
The nurses put me with one leg on a table almost hanging off of the bed, and that worked. A little after 1:30 I told them I was feeling pressure again. The doctor came in and checked me and said the baby was coming out- I just needed to push and don’t push until they got everything ready.
So I waited and tried to calm down bc pushing scares the shit out of me also. Then the doctor said push. I was too scared, so I waited through three more contractions until the nurse told me to push. With the first one she was crowning. The doctor said slow down so I tried to push easy and steady, but I also remembered how much Ethan hurt and just wanted her out. So all in all she was born in probably 2 minutes. Only 4 easy pushes. I could tell immediately that she was smaller and easier than Michael or Ethan.
Then they handed her to me and she was so perfect and beautiful and it was just love at first sight.
I asked Daniel to take some pictures, so at least we would have some from the real camera, not just iphone pics. More on those later.