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Penelope's Birth Story (long)
Penelope's Birth Story:
On Monday, October 3rd,I was 37 weeks 2 days and had my weekly doctor's appointment. Before this, I had been walking around at 6cm dilated and 50% effaced for the past week with inconsistent contractions that would just come and go. At the appointment, the doctor said that she thought I was 6-7cm dilated and 80% effaced. She was hesitant to send me to triage because my water hadn't broke yet, I wasn't having contractions at the moment and something else about the "new full term" being 39 weeks and they wouldn't induce me until then.
After talking over my concerns about living 25 mins away or more if bad traffic, having to make arrangements for 3 kids and the husband on night shift, we decided I should go on up to triage and get a second opinion on my cervix and see what the other doctor thought.
I went on up, was checked by the resident doctor and she thought I was more 5-6 cm. They unhooked me from the monitors and had me walk the halls in my gown for 45 minutes, then were going to recheck me. So off I went to walk. Came back to get checked, another doctor checked me and said still 6cm, then proceeded to STRETCH my cervix to 7 cm. Talk about pain.
They admitted me around 7pm. I rallyed the troops to make plans for the kiddos and told the husband to come on down. Because I was GBS+, I had to have antibiotics in me for 4 hours before they would break my water. They planned to break it at midnight.
Well the new doctor came on, and he is the worst one in my practice. Super lazy and distant and weird. He had the resident doctor do everything. After the resident checked me at midnight, they felt the baby was a little high up and were afraid to break my water due to the cord slipping out or something like that. They then started the Pitocin. I was on it for almost 9 hours. The crappy doctor showed his face at 5am with a lovely set of bedhead to check me and said I still had the baby high up and they might just send me home. (insert side eye here). I was completely discouraged, had just done 5+ hours of Pitocin with no pain meds, and you wanna send me home? riiighhht.
Thankfully a new doctor (totally awesome and most experienced in the practice) came on at 8am. Came in to check me at 8:45am. Broke my water at 8:50am and said he wasn't going far because I would have a baby in a few minutes. They started setting up the room and my contractions kicked into overdrive. At 9:05 am I got the urge to push and after a few good ones, Penelope Paige was born at 9:10am! She was 6pounds 15 ounces and 21 inches long. I only had a small 1st degree tear with a few stitches.
Being Team Green was pretty awesome. DH loved every minute of the suspence. After a long night of waiting around it really gave us the motivation in the end. I was super tired and honestly, he probably could have told me it was a Giraffe and I would have been ok with that. I was also in a bit of shock that it was a girl cause I thought boy the whole time. It was also a completely different after birth experience. I never got to have any of my babies put onto my chest or actually stay in the room with me for so long afterwards. It was great.
Penny is doing great and I'm attempting to breastfeed. She lost a fwe ounces in the hospital but has already gained some back! My milk came in yesterday and my already ginormous boobs are now the size of watermelons and weigh as much as canonballs. I have no idea what I am doing in the breastfeeding department and hope I can reach out here if I get stuck!
If you made it this far, God bless ya!
Re: Penelope's Birth Story (long)
If they offer you progesterone during your next pregnancy due to pre-term labor last time, I would highly recommend it. I had to get a shot weekly, and that sucked, but it definitely kept her in there to full term!
WOW! It sounds like you had a hell of an experience. I'm so glad that you trusted your instincts AND got the doc you wanted for delivery! If I had the nasty doc in my practice, I would've been upset too.
I love her name! Congrats again to you and your ever expanding family...just kidding! In all seriousness, best wishes!
Oh wow.. so much of that sounds painful! manually stretching of the cervix (shudders)
Congratulations!
Tammy--
I haven't been here in FOREVER, but I was online at AMH's webnursery looking at a friend's photos and I saw a name I had a feeling was you...so I came over here to check it out. Congrats! I'm sure Penny's brothers and sisters are soo excited.