Been MIA - had my baby!

rxbeth · April 2012

Hi ladies,

I haven't been around much in the past 16 days but I wanted to drop in and let you know that I had my baby on Friday April 13th and share my birth story for anyone interested. Madison Lynn was 7 pounds, 9 ounces and 20 inches long

At my 39 week appointment, my OB checked me and I was 3cm and pretty much fully effaced. While he was up there poking around he also said "uh oh, I think that's a butt." Went up to L&D for a quick ultrasound and baby was frank breech. I didn't have enough fluid to try a version and so he wanted to schedule a c-section. I was pretty shocked. We thought she was head down all this time but it turns out she had been breech for a while (hadn't had an u/s since 20 week A/S). This was on Thursday April 12th and the next opening for a scheduled c-section was Friday April 20th!

At this point, the plan was for me to go home, try some exercises off spinning babies and come back the following Thursday and see if baby had changed position. My OB, however, didn't think I would make it to Thursday. He figured I would end up in labour with an emergency c-section. The internal he had done that day made me bleed...a lot.

My DH wasn't with me at this appointment so I called him to let him know and I informed work that the next day would be my last day. Friday morning at about 2am I started having really bad back pain and contractions. I had a hard time figuring out how long they were since the pain in my back was constant. I had been told I now had to get to the hospital when my contractions were 7 minutes apart as opposed to 5. Honestly, I was just in denial that I was in labour and waited for my husband to get up for work at 6am and we left for the hospital after he sent his tests he was to give that day in to school. It seemed to take him forever to get everything ready and I was trying to take out the recycling and things which made contractions suck that much more.

We got to the hospital and had to sit in the waiting room while my contractions were 4-5 minutes apart for about 25 minutes. I was pretty scared that she would start coming before we could get the c-section. Eventually, they got me in and on the monitors just in time for my contractions to stop. Seriously. However, baby's heart rate was in the 180's-190's and they told me if it didn't turn around, they would take the baby out just for that. The heart rate had always been 130's-150's so I knew something was going on with LO. They threw a litre of fluid into me in something like 20 minutes and the heart rate did go back into the 150's, however, this made the contractions come back. They were not regular but they were not stopping and very sporadic.

My OB happened to be on call (thankfully) and he came to see me and said that since I was there and had an IV, I should just have the c-section. WTF? That's his reasoning? lol But seriously, we talked and he said that he was confident that this labour wasn't going to stop and I would just be in L&D daily until baby was taken in an emergency situation. So, they were going to fit us in between scheduled c-sections in the afternoon. At about 11:15 they told us that for some reason, the noon scheduled c-section wasn't happening and they would start prepping me in 15 minutes. Ah!

We got to the OR, I got my spinal (which is heavenly because my contractions were sucking). I was nervous going in because I have never even had stitches before, let alone had major surgery. DH came in and they got started. I had heard people talking about how the table can shake when they are trying to get the baby out but wasn't prepared for the violence of it all. The entire time, DH's eyes were wide open and I knew he was worried about me. I spent my time reassuring him I was okay. After about 15 minutes, they got the baby out and told us it was a girl (we were waiting to find out). Her apgars were perfect and they showed her to us from a distance and I could see all her blond hair! We both cried.

I was still being stitched up so they gave her over to DH and we tried to comfort her because she was wailing. Much after this is a blur but we went to recovery and I did get to do some skin to skin and try to breastfeed. I was in recovery for a while because they were getting my bed ready and I was having some increased BP issues.

They rolled me down the hall to get to our room and MIL saw us and tried to attack us and was all "there's my grandbaby" and seriously tried to chase us down the hall. DH had to tell her she had to back off and wait that we wanted some alone time. We had told them there wasn't anything they could do up at the hospital during my c-section and we would call them but they showed up anyways. My Dad respected my wishes and waited until we called.

Our immediate families came up and met Madison. Again, much of what was going on is a blur. One of our nurses became concerned that Madison was much more shaky and jittery than a normal newborn and thought it best to test her sugar. It was borderline low so they were following it. Eventually, they tested it and it was low enough that they got NICU involved (and her heartrate dropped to 80) and they ended up taking my baby to NICU after all my family had left. I cried. We didn't call our families because we didn't want to worry them because we figured she would be back the next morning. Ultimately, they kept her for 2 days and we don't know why her sugar dropped but now she is fine but those were the hardest 2 days having to go and feed and her see her in the NICU and not have her with us.

She is 16 days old today and as of Wednesday she had exceeded her birthweight (up to 8 pounds 1 ounce). Breastfeeding has been a challenge but I must be doing something right. Also, the postpartum hormones are worse than I ever expected. I'm hoping I'm over the worst of it because I was crying quite a bit.

I know I've probably missed a lot and hope to catch up some time soon. Any recaps anyone can offer?

I wasn't expecting a c-section at all so my recovery has been quite different than I was anticipating. It's also a bit of a slap in the face since everyone said my labour and delivery and recovery would be so much easier since I ran the entire pregnancy.

Interestingly enough, I had gained 29 pounds with the pregnancy and I've already lost about 21 of those just through breastfeeding since I haven't even been able to get out for walks yet. I'm feeling MUCH better physically today and hope the weather cooperates and I can get out for a walk soon but I'm going to hold off on running since I don't want to push things.

Here is a picture of Madison from the hospital...

Here is one of her newborn pics. We're in love...