Labor: Part II

It’s been awhile since I updated. Being a mom is taking up all of my time. But as promised, here is the rest of the labor story…

My doctor comes in around 9 AM to check on my progress. She is finds that I am at 5 centimeters dilated and she wants to keep me going as is since I am progressing, albeit slowly. She also informs me that the baby is posterior in position instead of anterior. Meaning the baby is facing forward instead of backwards. This is a complication that makes labor much more difficult on the baby and longer. She requests that the nurses to work with me to see if we can turn the baby. They have be lay in the sims position (almost laying on my stomach). I am only able to lay on my right side. We tried the left side, the baby’s heart rate would plummet. The contractions are very strong, and my husband starts taking pictures of the printed tape that is recording my contractions to show me how strong they are. He is quite impressed by them. I however am very aware of their strength. I ask for another pain shot, which does really nothing this time. By now, I am on my 17th hour of labor. At 11 AM, my doctor swings back by. Since the turning exercises haven’t worked. They baby is still posterior so she decides to go forward and get things really moving by breaking my water, and we will deliver our baby in the posterior positon. Once the water is broken, the contractions really increase in intensity. Which is amazing since they were hurting so much to begin with. The contractions are causing me to really shut down. All I can do it just bear through each one. At noon I beg for an epidural. I was really trying to go without it, but I am not doing well, and neither is the baby. 20 minutes later, the anesthesiologist shows up and gives me the epidural. When she is working on putting in the needle into my spine I have a terrible contraction and she is telling me to stay still. That is just about impossible at this point, but somehow I manage. 15 minutes later I am numb from the waist down and feeling great! At 1 PM, I am finally at 10.5 centimeters, ready to push. The nurse and my husband help me turn into the correct laboring position. Since my legs are useless, I need help to move at this point. We start pushing, but with every push, the baby’s heart rate starts to drop. It’s supposed to be around 120, and during the pushing, it would drop to 40 and it wouldn’t recover very quickly. I was sucking on the oxygen as best as I could. After 6 pushes, the nurse stops me and we decide to labor down. I am losing it. I start crying uncontrollably. I am petrified that my baby is going to die while in labor. My sister-in-law lost her first child in labor and all I could think of was that. The nurse rushes out to find my doctor, but she is in surgery with an emergency c-section so we have to wait. The nurse starts talking to me about vacuum extraction for delivery, otherwise it will be a c-section for me. I am crying so much that I can barely comprehend what she is saying to me. My husband is whispering my ear that I am doing so well and everything will be alright. At 2:30, my doctor comes in and the room gets really busy, nurses, doctors, and students fill the room. I am only really aware of the my doctor, nurse, and husband along with the scary heart beat of my baby. I am sucking on the oxygen like a robot, not taking a second to stop to talk to anyone. I am finally told to make a decision right this second about vacuum extraction. No more thinking about it. I make the decision to go ahead and do the vacuum extraction as scary as I think it is. My husband and nurse pull me back into the laboring position, and the doctor gets ready. She tells me to push. I do. I feel a huge pressure then a quick release. She tells me to stop pushing, they have to get the umbilical cord unwrapped around his head. Then she comments on all the hair that he has. That was all I needed to hear. I lost it. I has actually giving birth to my son! She then tells me to push one more time, I did, and then that was it. My son was born! He was totally blue, they quickly cut the cord and put him under a warming light and began to work on him. My husband’s face said it all, he was terrified seeing him blue, but turned to me about a minute later (seemed like forever), and said that he was pinking up and then I heard him cry. They let my husband cut the little cord that was still on the baby and then they wrapped him up and put him on me. What an amazing moment. I will never forget the first glimpse of Max. The doctor told me that the reason that the baby wouldn’t turn from posterior was because the cord not only was around the baby’s neck, but too short. So we did the right thing with the vacuum extraction. Max had a nice little bruise about the size of a plum on the side of his head for a week or so and he was a little jaundice, but other than that, Max was born a perfectly healthy little guy!

Here is a photo I took of Max when he was 3 day's old. It's the cutest picture I have ever seen of a baby - of course I am COMPLETELY bias! :)