My First Birth

Little Knight's Birth Story

Long... heh. Little Knight was born February 25th, 2009 at 3:06am and was 8lbs 11oz, 21 inches long.

Sunday night I couldn't sleep at all, I was too awake for some reason so I went on the computer (like an idiot) and around 1:30am I started feeling tired so I went to bed. I had been feeling pains but didn't relate it to being contractions at the time. The pains weren't really bad but they were annoying and kept me from sleeping. My husband woke up at 4:15 for work and by that time I had thought maybe I was having contractions as they kept happening. I told him and he got really excited, asked if he should stay home from work and how regular they were. I told him I didn't know (I didn't think to pay that close attention... ha ha ha) and started asking if he should call in to work or go. I told him it was up to him. Who knew how long it would take to get somewhere I figured, and it wasn't really feeling that intense. He ended up going to work but had me start timing the contractions. This was about 5am when I started to do that.

After about an hour or so it looked like they were consistently 6.5 mins apart and about 30 seconds long, and they were getting stronger and after a while started to get closer together. My husband called after about an hour or so and after talking to me decided to come back home just in case. I had a doctor's appointment at 9:15 for an NST and an AFI so I figured I would see what they said then. My sister came out just in case (she was my doula and lives about an hour away) and my mom because they thought it would be coming and wanted to make sure they were close. At my appointment they monitored everything and it showed me having regular pretty strong contractions and also the baby was doing really well. When they checked my cervix I wasn't dilated at all... and he was at a -3 station... Basically the same as the Thursday before. I was really upset as I was due the previous Tuesday so I was already 6 days over my due date... The doctor said if the contractions get to be 4-5 minutes apart and over a minute long for a while then to consider going to labor and delivery.

We kept timing contractions at home and by 11pm my contractions were 4.5 mins apart and lasted about a minute each and were very strong for a couple of hours so we decided to leave for labor and delivery at 1am, got to labor and delivery at 2am (it was now Tuesday). When they checked me, I was still NOT dilated. AT ALL. I was in pain though... They gave me morphine to help my relax between contractions. The doctor eventually gave me the option to either try to help me dilate with a Foley catheter (a balloon they insert and fill up to stretch out the walls of the cervix). Or I could go home, they said they wouldn't let me go more than 5 days longer... I don't think so! I opted for the catheter. Then the doctor came back and said she couldn't do it as she was off in 30 mins and they were super busy (an emergency c-section for triplets was in and lots of other people) so I could either go home or wait and hope the next doctor could do something. It was 8am by this time, I was still in triage.

The next doctor came in and said he could do the catheter but he was going to send me home after, I started freaking out and losing it (I hadn't slept since Saturday night and couldn't keep on going how I was going) so he said he could have me stay as I obviously had a lot of anxiety. He put in the catheter (he checked me before and I was barely maybe a 1...) and they moved me into a room. After about an hour or so I was dying... I don't know when they checked me next but when they did I was finally a 2-3. They took out the catheter and soon after they really suggested I get an epidural so I could get some kind of rest, so they gave me that and then started pitocin. After the epi I felt no contractions or anything. I got some short naps in and it was awesome. The next time they checked me they asked if they could break my water, but I told them I would rather wait on that (I didn't want to do it too soon if I was going to be in labor longer and have those risks involved) so they checked me and I was at a 6 and my water broke while she was checking me. 

Finally at maybe 2:15am (Wednesday), they checked me again and I was fully dilated and ready to go, so I started pushing. It was my sister, my husband, and my mom. When the baby was coming out there was only a nurse with us and she started paging frantically for a doctor to get in, it took about 45 minutes of pushing. My husband after a while of pushing had to sit down as he was about to pass out... ha ha ha! When his head came out his cord was wrapped around his neck and he was blue and wasn't making any sound. The nurse quickly cut the cord and once he was all the way out there were finally more people in the room, they quickly took him and swarmed him and I heard someone say really loud "floppy baby" (couldn't they have a code word or something that wouldn't freak me the frick out?) They had to put him on oxygen for a bit and suck stuff out and finally he started to cry. I don't know how long it took. It just seemed like forever. 

Once he was doing ok they let me hold him for maybe a minute... then they took him away to the nursery... I had gotten a fever of 103 during labor so they wanted to monitor him and give him antibiotics just in case I had an infection and he had one too. They also put me on antibiotics and made sure my fever went down (it was gone after the birth). It was really hard. They wouldn't even let me try to feed him or anything. They fed him formula for his first feeding and I wasn't there and didn't even have any control over any of it. He was totally fine in the nursery the whole time and I would go to the nursery to feed him. After about 24 hours they started bringing him to me to eat and then would take him back, then finally we were able to keep him in our room with us.

Friday morning they told us we would probably get to go home with Little Knight. My husband was having problems breathing (he was sick and hadn't slept much, and he has asthma... bad combination) so he went to minor injuries and had an asthma attack while there and was transferred to the ER. That was definitely very interesting trying to keep in contact... Just as Little Knight and I were being discharged he was finally discharged too and he came up and we got to leave. When we got home that night I started getting chills and feeling really awful. I had a fever and it kept going up. I started taking Motrin but I couldn't seem to break my fever. Still, no sleep for me  All Saturday I kept trying to break my fever by taking Motrin and Tylenol. Saturday night my fever hit 104.1 and my husband called the  advice nurse who told us to go to the ER (waste of time to me) by the time we got there my fever had gotten to 99.something when they did an initial evaluation, and they took some blood and sent me back out to wait. By 2:30am Sunday I was still waiting and check myself out and my temp. had gone down to 97.something. We had to be back at the hospital at 9am for an appointment for Little Knight and we NEEDED to sleep. 

I am still sick now but I am feeling a lot better and hoping that things start to go better now which is good as my husband had to go back to work this Monday  This is the short version... heh. This last week was the worst week I have ever had. Nothing seemed to go right for us... but we have our son and he is healthy, he seems happy, he has been very calm and pretty easy on us so we are very fortunate. We love him so much ♡