The birth story...

Man. I am BEHIND! I have never been this happy to be this exhausted. lmao. Amelia's birth went fairly well. We went in Sunday night Dec 27th and the drs decided that cytotech (my old friend) would be the best way to ripen my cervix for delivery. They did 3 25mg doses (midnight, 3 and 6) and by 6 am i was only 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced and Amelia's heart rate started to drop drastically because the contractions were coming too quick to give her a break to recover. So they gave me a shot of something to stop my contractions and then decided that the best way to get me to dilate was to use a foley balloon (think cervical angioplasty). At this point I had had like 6 people check me, which I'm sorry, but being checked is the worst part of labor (aside from the pushing) and I decided that if they were going to inflate a balloon in my area that I needed some drugs. Being assured that an epidural would not slow down pitocin induced labor, we went for it. They put the balloon in and i probably laid there until 11 just waiting for Amelia's heart rate to recover enough for them to feel comfortable starting the pitocin...which they did about 11 am. The dr came back before her 2 o'clock c section and removed the balloon and I was dilated 3.5!!! She decided to speed things along and broke my water only to discover TONS of meconium (which apparently is very common for 40 week babies). They said she probably did it that morning when her heart rate dropped. After she broke my water there was just a lot of waiting. In retrospect it went very quickly. James was a champ- he snuck me little sips of water in my ice chips because i was literally DYING of thirst. My 5 o'clock nurse said good bye and turned OFF my pitocin because the dr had a 6 oclock c-section and i was too close to pushing. The night nurse, who I still love, came back in at 6:30 and said that she thought I was ready, turned the pitocin back on and jacked it up. by 8 o'clock i was ready to push. The nurse told me she thought the baby would be out in about 45-1hr...boy did she LIE!!!! I told James I thought it would be 2-3 hours and she laughed at me. She laughed until she realized that the baby was still at -2. I had tons of energy the first hour and a half of delivery. I pushed like a pro but then I hit the wall. I got to the point where my cervix was swelling and the nurse spent half her time with her fingers in my cooch telling me to push them out and then sweeping the sides to make room for the baby. Plus they had a blood pressure cuff on my left arm that activated every 15 minutes and for some reason between the cuff and the fingers I lost it. I just started crying- not wailing but just tears. I never thought I was going to get this baby out. Finally the dr came in and we start really pushing hard. they brought the mirror in for me to see her head of hair coming out and in all honesty the only thing it did was discourage me so I asked them to take it away. lol. James, on the other hand, manned up enough to sneak a peak and found his motivation. He said "Honey we have HAIR....PUSH it out". lmao. The nurses told him afterward that he needed to quit his day job and become a doula because he was such an excellent coach. Finally I could feel her right at the bottom and I was exhausted. We started one last set of 3 contractions and the dr said that if i had one more I should go for it and i did and she came FLYING out- head, shoulders, everything in one giant whoosh. And then I freaked out...she wasn't crying. The dr said they didn;t want her to cry because of the meconium so they whisked her over to the peds closet and started working on her. The poor baby came into this world jaundice with a conehead worthy of SNL and covered in her own crap. I was fine as soon as the baby was out, but then it was James' turn to cry. We could see into the peds room where they were working on her and he just lost it. They took her to the main nursery and James followed my previous command of "no matter what happens to me if that baby leaves our sight, follow that kid" and he was gone. I finished delivery and they stitched me up- only a second degree tear- thanks a lot baby! And it was over. 25 hours and 32 minutes after we walked into the hospital. Best day of my life. The only thing I wanted after delivery was a real honest to GOD coke and James came in from the nursery with a coke. Best damn coke ever!