Stubborn and Beatiful Paige!

The following blog is a true story, this is the story of the birth of my daughter.

Let me start with this disclaimer:
- if you are pregnant (particularly with your first) take caution reading this, I didn't have the most normal birth story.
- the basics are: born 8/26/11 @ 7:34pm; weight 8lbs 13oz; height 21.5in.

So while I'm waiting for the pain medicine to kick in I thought what better time to write my birth story then at 1:30am!

Let's go back to Wednesday the 24th... I went in for my 41 week check up, I was at 3cm and the doctor stripped my membranes, she mentioned there was a 50% chance that this would speed things along and boy I think it did. We talked about the possibility of induction and I had originally thought that I didn't want to go past the weekend, but after talking with the doctor (who was by no means pushing me to get the induction) and after talking with Jeremy I felt this overwhelming sense of peace to wait. I know it was God saying I'm in control and she will come out when she's ready, so we decided to wait to schedule the induction for the following Wed (8/31).
Thursday: I woke up like I usually do every other morning, except I was only going to go to work for an hour or two to get things tied up and let them know I wanted to "officially" start my leave. One thing that happened before I headed downtown which made me a little curious about events later to come that day was that I had some diarrhea. I had thought I remembered reading somewhere that diarrhea was a sign of labor so I was paying close attention to my body the rest of the day.
I came home and just laid around for the rest of the afternoon with no significant events. I was starting to have a few contractions around 6 but they went away and weren't very strong. Then I had some more diarrhea and then Jeremy and I went for our normal evening walk. We took the short route because I told him I wasn't feeling well and wanted to stay a little closer to the house this time. When we got back to the house I started timing them at regular intervals (this started around 7:30 pm). They were stronger than I had ever felt before but I still wasn't ready to call this real labor yet, however, I think jeremy was... He knew before I did that we would be heading to the hospital that night (well early Friday morning). He called in sick to work around 9:00 that evening and I was so glad he did! I tried to lay down to get some sleep around 10pm but I don't think I ever really slept that night in more than 5 minute increments...
Friday: around 2:30am Jeremy finally convinced me to call the doctor and ask if we should head to the hospital, I called, told her my symptoms and she said yes, come on down. We arrived about 3:30 after getting the car packed up and went straight to triage where I was hooked up on the fetal monitor. The nurse checked me and I was at 5cm which made me pretty happy and I felt good about how long we stayed home to try and labor. We made it to our room around 4:30am and we were told that because I was at 41 weeks I would have to be hooked up to the monitor at all times, we weren't too happy about it and our nurse that came in at 5:ooam convinced the doctor to let us go 30 on/ 30 off since Paige was doing so great! We tried different labor techniques for the next few hours such as walking, leaning, using the birthing ball... I don't think I would say that I ever found a favorite position. Eventually all I wanted to do was curl up into the fetal position as much as I could. Jeremy was amazing through every single contraction.. He coached me through the so well! The doctor came in to check me around 8:30 and I hadn't progressed micha dn she wanted to break my water to try to help get things moving along. I think it was around 11:00 that I knew I needed a little bit of help, so we tried the Fentonoyl (not sure on the spelling) to try to take the edge off... I would say it only worked through like 2 contractions for me...
I was getting to the point that I remembered the doula saying in the natural childbirth discussion: if it gets to the point where it's going to be a traumatic experience for you then you need to think about an intervention. Jeremy was great, he knew how hard I was trying but he also saw the pain in my eyes. So we went with the epidural. I was more scared of the procedure of the epidural than anything else... It was probably the easiest part of yesterday, even better than getting the IV which took them 3 tries! I think I felt 2 more contractions while waiting for the mess to kick in... And then... Nothing!! I was at 7cm when I was given the epidural... So almost 9 hours of labor and I went from a 5 to a 7.. That was also a deciding factor for the drugs! The weirdest part was not being able to feel ANYTHING... I was completely numb! It did allow me to try to sleep for an hour or so...
The doctor came back in around 2:30 and I was completely dilated! She wanted me to start pushing but it was so hard because I couldn't feel anything! So they came and decreased my epidural which still didn't help much and they eventually turned it off. The next 3 hours from about 4:00-7:00 were filled with pushing, and towards the end the epidural was pretty much gone so I was feeling the contractions again, and while I wanted to stop pushing, it felt better to push through them than it did to try to breathe through them!
Here comes the problem... Paige was face up, the doctor could feel her forehead instead of the back of her head. We had tried during early labor some of the techniques to try to get her in position but apparently it never worked. The doctor thought through pushing I might be able to get her low enough to use the vacuum or forceps to get her out... Let me tell you, I'm glad I did't get that far! We ultimately made the decision with the doctor to get the C-Section. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be, I guess the scariest part for me was not being able know constantly that I was doing okay and that baby was doing okay. But once they pulled her out and I heard her crying I was so excited!! Then they had to keep working on me which was probably the most nerve-wracking part! I was so exhausted at this point that I could barely keep my eyes open while they were finishing. We made it back to our room around 8ish... I tried to feed Paige but could barely keep my eyes open to do it so she didn't get much to eat! I vaguely remember my parents coming into the room to meet her and then in was out cold. We sent Paige to the nursery so we could both get some sleep!

And that's how the birth story ends... There a few other TMI (too much information) bits that I left out... But no one wants to hear the bloody parts of birth!

As for any typos that appear.. I apologize I kept dozing off while writing this, but I really wanted to get it done! Now time for some more sleep!!