Labor Day

First of all, it everything was Perfect...because it all had to happen
that way to bring the little man to this world.

As you all know I was excited that I was 3 cm dilated 2 weeks before
the due date with a "little baby". Everyone suspected that I'd have an
easy delivery. And you also know that I really wanted a natural child
birth and have that experience. Well, turns out I got to experience
pretty much every aspect of child birth in about 24 hours.

Since Dr. Gilberg-Lenz wanted to induce me because of the "small baby", we tried every alternative to avoid a medical induction the days leading up to the appointment on July 15th. Octavia came over and gave me reflexology, which had good results that night with strong contractions, but wore off by the morning. Walking up and down a very steep hill and squatting in the birthing tub didn't seem to do too much either. So our hope was that by Tuesday morning that we break my water should kick start the contractions.

9 am broke the water, waited 3 hours with slightly stronger
contractions, but not enough for the dilation to progress. We moved on
to using Pitocin at the lowest dose. Pitocin works to give you
stronger contractions than what your body naturally does to help get
things going. For some reason my body really reacted to that, my
highest level was at 5 (out of 40) but most women who gets Pitocin
also get an Epidural so the body does the work but you don't feel the
pain....I didn't want to do that because even if I don't feel it, the
baby does and it's hard on Oliver to have such strong contractions. So I just breathed through the pain, one after another.

From that point on, I had contractions that were literally off the
chart without pain medication until the next morning at 3 am. So about
18 hours. And I was stuck at 8 cm for about 8 hrs on Pitocin (you need
10 cm to push)

I was exhausted physical and emotionally because it was none stop
contraction about every 3 minutes for about 1 minute long each time.
My bladder was full but couldn't get enough time in between
contractions to go to the bathroom.

I finally decided that in order to have energy to push later, I have to get the
epidural to give myself a break. I also got a catheter so I can make
room for the baby to move. At this point Oliver was still a bit too
high in position, and little off to the side.

We had one of the best anesthetologist in the country giving me the
epidural...but then for whatever reason my body did not react to it,
so even at top strength, I continued to feel very painful
contractions...and wasn't able to rest.

At around 5 am, Oliver's had a long day, we were all
worried about his heart rate dropping with each contraction. Our last resort was to give him more
amniotic fluid to make him more comfortable...unfortunately at the
same time, I started a fever. because when you break the water, your
body thinks it's a wound and tries to treat it.

My doctor was great at giving me more time to try to go natural as
long as the baby and myself were ok...but we all knew we are out of
options.

By 6:30 am I was in the operating room with a second epidural that
numbed my entire body and having a c-section.

Almost 22 hours since I arrived at the hospital, Oliver was born and
surprised everyone by his size: a healthy 8 lb. and measuring at 20.5 inches long. I remember my doctor saying "Boy, are we wrong about his weight, this is NOT a small baby."

Oliver is a cutie with a full head of hair, and scored 9 out of 10 on his APGAR score.

So since then I've been really out of it. The pain meds have been
making me nauseous and lack of sleep doesn't help either. I'm less
mobile now then before the pregnancy.

The good news is I'm breastfeeding and getting better at it each
time...meaning every 3 hours. I've yet to figure out when to
sleep...but just so happy to be home.

So...even though it was hard to get
through....I feel good that I did my best and made all the decisions
without any regrets. We realized that c-section probably was the only
way Oliver can come out and he knew it, but waited since he knew I
wanted to try. There was suspicion that since I had procedures done
when I miscarried, but I might have had scar tissue that made it hard
for my body to dilate properly. Who knows...he's here now and we are
both safe. At times I still wished that I had given birth to him the natural way, but that might just be the baby blues talking. He's healthy and happy, and that's all that matters.