Labor and Delivery Part II

Part II of my labor and delivery story

Once I was admitted to the hospital I was moved to my room in labor & delivery. I wasn’t ever administered in Pitocin or anything bc I was dilating fast enough.  I was at 4cm and 90 effacement at this point.  My contractions started kicking in and at 6 PM I was finally given my epidural.  Before I got my epidural my blood pressure started to get really high (it got to 176/something at one point.) We had to turn off all the lights, no talking, no sound etc to try to calm me to get it lower.  But the matter of fact was the more pain I was in the higher it got.  Once I got my epidural it stayed about 140-150/something (can’t remember the bottom number) until I delivered that night. 

My Epidural…

Now I don’t know how much you know about epidurals.. Well let me tell you.. They totally suck when they don’t work and it sucks having to sit still during contractions while they are administering it.  Hospital rules were NO ONE was allowed in the room while I was getting my epidural, not even my husband, which scared the heck out of me.  Only my nurse, anesthesiologist, and myself could be in there.  So I sat there on the edge of the bed, kind of hunched over a pillow and also hugging the nurse and the nurse was hugging me so I didn’t move.  Now it was like as soon as they said I was going to go ahead and get my epidural my contractions got hardcore.  I kept shaking from all the pain, I basically had no control over the shaking of my body. 

But long story short, got my epidural and then my legs starting getting this really warm feeling which meant it was working, at this point.  My whole left side of my body got entirely numb. My fingers, and chest, my toes etc.  My right side of the body did NOT.  So I couldn’t feel the contractions at all on my left side but I could total feel them on my right.  I told my anesthesiologist and he looked at me and said “oh that’s not suppose to happen”.. Gee Thanks for freaking me out even more..

So they lay me on my right so “gravity” will make the medicine to my right side of my body and make it numb.. Well a half hour-hour later when my right side does go numb, my left side is not.  He couldn’t give me any more meds bc one side of my body was a 6 and the other was about a 2 and he wanted my body to be a 5.  I ended up talking him into giving me a bolus shot which made my feet more numb but that was it.. Nothing else.

My IV

They originally put my iv in my right hand wrist kind of.. It wasn’t in my hand, she said that is would work better and not hurt as much well also wrong.  It kept like pinching me like the tape was too tight holding the needle in for the iv so it hurt really bad. So I had them put my iv in the top of my left hand.  Well my anesthesiologist put it in for me bc he felt bad about my epidural not taking correctly. (this rarely happens.. I happened to just be an unlucky one).  Well he wasn’t very good at putting iv’s.. He put the needle in, well my hand started bleeding really bad so he is trying to clean in, and hold the needle in while not moving it, OUCH.  I was just having a rough time at this point. 

Anywho, He told me he could redo my whole epidural but honestly I didn’t want to go through having another catheter being put in my back.  That whole “crunching feeling/sound” totally freaked me out.. And at this point I was at 9cm so there seriously was no point. I went from 4cm to 9cm in about 2 hours I think it was.. Within the next 20 mins I was at 10 cm.. My nurse shooed everyone out. So I said my goodbyes to my family and they left.  My nurse said okay we are going to do a trial push.. Well she got down there and looked and said “Oh NO. DO NOT PUSH. I can see her head” So she seriously sat down there making sure I wasn’t pushing or she wasn’t coming out for the next 20 minutes until my doctor arrived at the hospital.  My doctor walked in all happy etc and saw how far we were etc and then started rushing. I mean seriously rushing.  She threw on all her scrub stuff in about 15 seconds flat.

At 10:50 PM I started pushing and Chloe Dean arrived at 11:08 PM.  I basically delivered Miss Chloe all natural since my epidural didn’t work and what did work had worn off a while ago at that point.  I had them lay her on my stomach when she first came out and while Chris clipped the cord.  But they still take her away so fast to get her all cleaned up and make sure she is healthy.

Christopher had the camera and was snapping pictures of Chloe of her getting cleaned up, weight taken, shots, footprints etc.  Stuff I wasn’t able to see bc I was getting cleaned up at that point.

Family was allowed to come in shortly after and see her.  They were only allowed to stay about 15-20 minutes because it was so late at night and I was being taken to my post partum private room and visiting hours stopped at 9:30. 

They say you forget the pain of the contractions and labor doesn’t seem that bad afterwards.  Well to me, that is partly true.  I know I felt like I was being split in half while going through it, but after all it wasn’t that bad.  But it was totally worth every bit of it. 

And We Are Home :)