Archive for the 'baby' Category

Part I

So, when we left off it was 9:30 a.m. and my water had just broken.  I was so excited!  And, if you’re wondering what it feels like to have your water break, basically it’s like you peed yourself, only you can’t stop the flow at all.  At this point, my contractions were about 2-3 minutes apart and were really regular.  Things seemed like they were right on track.  And, I felt like I would probably have a baby before dinner time. 

My contractions were still really manageable.  I could feel them coming, but I was not at the point where I had to stop myself from talking during one even though I could see that they were pretty strong.  Although I knew I wanted an epidural, I wanted to hold off and get one a little later because I didn’t want anything to slow down my labor.  Over the next few hours, my contractions started to space out a bit.  I’d have some every 2-3 minutes and then some every 5 minutes.  So, we continued to up my Pitocin to try to get them more regular. 

At 11 a.m., I got the nurse, Amber, that would see me through my delivery and I LOVED her.  She was super calm, knowledgable and explained everything to me.  She was in our room just the right amount of time.  Meaning that she wasn’t invasive, but I also felt like we were important to her.  My contractions were starting to pick up now and I had to stop talking whenever I was having one.  I used the breathing exercises I learned at our lamaze class to get me through them, and it was manageable.  At that point, my doctor came by to check on me and see how dilated I was.  She was super excited that my water had broken on its own too, and even more excited that the baby handled it well.  I felt like I had to at least be a 4 by now because it seemed like things were going well.  Well, I was only 3 cm, 50% effaced with the baby at -2 station.  I was kind of bummed, but this was still an improvement since I’d gained a cm, even though the effacement sure wasn’t happening very quickly.

I talked to my doctor about an epidural, and she said that any point I wanted one, I could have one.  So, I told myself that I would go until at least 3 pm.  I don’t know why I picked that time, but I figured that would give my body enough time to make some additional progress.  Around 2 pm they were super intense, and I was wondering if I could make it until 3.  Both Sean and my sister were telling me to quit being stubborn and just get the damn epidural already, but I just wanted to know that I could do it for a little longer.  So, finally when the clock got to 3, my nurse came in and I told her to go ahead and get the anesthesiologist because I was ready for my epidural.  She wheeled in the chest with all their equipment, and told me they were next door but that I was next. 

Both an anesthesiologist and nurse anesthetist came in to administer the epidural.  I’d been scared of this all day long, but I knew that in the end I would feel so much better afterwards.  I don’t know if all anesthesiologists are zany or not, but I feel like you usually hear stories about witty banter they have with their patients.  Mine was no different.  The nurse anesthetist was calm, but the anesthesiologist was a fast-talking, tiny dude.  They asked me to scoot all the way to the edge of the bed and arch my back like a cat.  Then, they applied the numbing shot which felt like a bee sting in my back, but it was way less intense than I thought it was going to be.  We had to take a small break during a contraction, but then they put the big needle in, asked if I felt nauseous or if I had a metal taste in my mouth (no).  So, they knew that they’d put it in the right spot.  After that, the pain relief wasn’t instant, but it came pretty soon after.  I could feel my legs starting to numb, but I was still able to move them a little bit.  My left leg was more numb than my right, but they assured me that was normal. 

So, it had been nearly 4 hours since my last check; I was sure that I’d made some progress now.  I mean, my contractions were painful enough to require an epidural, right?  So, Amber checked me and I waited eagerly to find out the results.  Oh, and I was also excited to get checked after my epidural because it meant I wouldn’t feel it anymore.  The checks are super uncomfortable.  So, Amber looked up at me with her sweet eyes and said, “Well, you’re at 3, 50% effaced.”  This meant that in the last 4 hours I’d made zero progress.  None.  Amber increased my pitocin again, and just kept watching my contractions hoping that they would become more regular like they’d been earlier that day.  I knew that my doctor was going to come by in a couple of hours, so I was anxious to hear what she thought. 

At 6:30 p.m. my doctor came by to see what was going on.  She checked me, and told me the bad news.  Again, no progress.  I was mad at myself for getting the epidural, thinking that maybe if I’d held off I would have been able to make more progress.  My doctor told me that if by 8:30 p.m. I’d made no progress, she wanted to throw in the towel and do a c-section.  I nodded because I knew that if I talked I would cry.  This was now so off-course from what I had envisioned.  But, at the same time, I thought if I’ve made even a tiny bit of progress at 8:30, that means my labor will go on and on.  I wasn’t sure which was worse.  I hoped I would either make a lot of progress, or no progress at all.   I was tired; my induction had started 24 hours earlier and I was just ready to meet our baby girl.  I was also ready to eat something. 

So we waited the 2  hours.  I spent some time with my family and tried to prepare myself for whatever the news might be.  Right at 8:30 on the dot, my doctor came back.  I held my breath as she checked me, this time super anxious about what she would say.  Well, again I’d made no progress.  She said it was time to get ready for the c-section.  Again, I nodded, but this time I couldn’t stop the tears from coming.  Amber (my nurse) came over to me, and reassured me.  She’d had 2 c-sections previously and both turned out great.  My sister called, and I talked to her, again crying.  She also reassured me that it would be fine, and just talked to me the way only a sister can.  Amber started getting all my meds ready (one that tasted like sweet tarts gone wrong), gave Sean his outfit, and then 2 anesthesiologists came in.  One was the zany one from before, and the other was a new one.  They changed the medication in my epidural to numb me from my chest down. 

After that it seemed like it took forever for everyone to get together and take me to the operating room.  In reality it was probably about 15 minutes, but it felt much longer.  Finally, we were on our way to the operating room.  Sean had to wait in the hall as they moved me to the operating table, got me all ready and made sure that my medicine had kicked in by pinching my stomach.  Or at least that’s what they told me, I felt nothing.  At this point I could not stop shaking and chattering.  The girl anesthesiologist told me that it was totally normal.  It was an effect of both the medication and the fact that the operating room was really cold.  She set me up with a “bear hug”.  It’s an airbag that goes across your chest and arms.  They pipe in warm air through it.  I felt much better once she put that on, but I still couldn’t stop shaking.  She told me that once I hear my baby cry, she was pretty sure I would stop shaking because everything else would melt away. 

Here’s where things got kind of funny, so I have to share.  I noticed that the girl anesthesiologist had a bad bruise on her nail, so I asked what happened.  She asked me if I’d ever heard of Pinterest.  Ha!  Yes, of course.  So, she told me about a project she’d seen on there that she wanted to do herself, and she ended up accidentally hitting her nail with a hammer.  She even showed me her inspiration and her completed project on her iPhone.  It was such a nice way to calm me down.  So, Pinterest, you have infiltrated the operating room. 

Then, it seemed like they were going to get started, but Sean wasn’t in the room.  I got freaked out and asked where he was.  One of the nurses had already gone to get him, but I didn’t know that.  I saw him walking in and felt relieved.  After that things moved very quickly.  I couldn’t feel anything when they cut me, but I could definitely feel when they pressed down on my chest to move her down and get her out.   It wasn’t painful at all, it was just a lot of pressure.  And then I heard it…her cry.  And I immediately cried with her.  The c-section, the labor, everything didn’t matter anymore.  Our baby girl was here and I was in love with someone I hadn’t even seen yet.  Sean walked over to the table where they examined her, and then he brought her over to me where I got to see her for the first time.

Then she, her dad and the pediatric nurse went to the nursery to check her out. While I stayed behind to get stitched up and then on to recovery.  I was so upset that I wasn’t going to get to bond with her right away, and I thought I wasn’t going to be able to see her for the 2 hours I was in recovery.  Thankfully, about 5 minutes into my recovery stay they called from the nursery to ask if I was ready to try to nurse her.  I excitedly told them yes!! 

When she came back, I kissed her over and over, and started our bonding time as a family.  Sean and I could not take our eyes off of her.  Amber sat in the wings though her shift had ended hours ago.  I was so grateful for her. And, I was so grateful that our little girl had arrived safe and sound even if it didn’t go the way I envisioned.  She was here, and she was perfect and that’s all that mattered. 

Now she’s already almost one month old and we love her more each day.

We survived one week!  There were definitely some ups and downs and lots of tears (both mine and the baby’s), but things are definitely getting better.  So what have I learned?  Well, a lot and some of it I hope will be helpful for other people because it wasn’t anything I knew or heard before I experienced it. 

So first, engorgement.  OMG.  Yes, I’d heard of engorgement and I knew that it could be painful, but I had no idea just how terrible it could be.  Elliott is a great nurser.  She came out of the womb ready to eat, and at her first opportunity she ate for over an hour.  Which obviously told my body to produce milk, and fast.  And, it did.  The day I came home from the hospital I didn’t even recognize my body anymore.  My breasts felt like they had rocks in them and they were painful.  But, I could deal with that.  The biggest problem, and something I was not prepared for, was that the baby could no longer latch on. 

So, here I am with tons of milk ready to feed her, and she can’t eat any of it.  I called my sister crying and asked what I should do.  She suggested that I pump to get some of the milk out and allow her to latch again.  So, I did.  But very little milk came out.  Then, I decided to take a hot shower to try and hand express some of the milk.  Again, very little came out.  I think my body hadn’t experienced “let down” yet, so I started massaging the “rocks” to try and work them out.  Meanwhile my baby was screaming and super upset that I couldn’t feed her and I was crying because my first day home from the hospital I was already screwing things up.  At 4 a.m. Sean went to Walgreens to find a nipple shield to help, and we gave her a bottle of pumped milk.  Clearly I did not intend to give our baby a bottle at 3 days old, but I realized that you can’t plan it all out. 

Lesson #1: Have a breast pump at home.  It doesn’t have to be the double electric pump kind, but you just never know when you’ll need it. 

Lesson #2: Have bottles.  I didn’t intend to give her one so early, but I was glad I had them just in case. 

Lesson #3: Have nipple shields.  The hospital might even be able to provide them to you.  Thankfully, our Walgreens is open 24/7 and carried them, otherwise I’m not sure what we would have done. 

The nipple shield helped, but I really wanted her to be able to latch on without it.  And, every time I tried she would scream.  But,  I just kept trying because I didn’t want to have use it for the rest of our time and eventually she got the hang of it.   

As you can imagine after all this attention on my um…nipples, they were feeling really sore.  Thankfully, before I left the hospital, my nurse gave me Soothies.  WAY better than Lanolin in my opinion. 

Lansinoh Soothies Gel Pads

Lesson #4: Buy stuff to protect your nipples before you bring baby home, or better yet, get it from the hospital.  They gave me both  Lanonlin and Soothies. 

I wore those all the time.  And now I don’t need them anymore, but they were so helpful in the very beginning.

And the last big thing that I learned was that lactation consultants are awesome.  Do not be afraid to call them.  I relied on Central Texas Healthy Mothers Healthy Babies Coalition and found a super helpful lactation consultant who talked me through everything.  She also makes house calls, but after talking to her on the phone, I felt confident enough to try her suggestions on my own first and told her I would call her back if I had more issues.  So what did she recommend to me while I was engorged?   Reverse Pressure Softening.  This technique moves some of the milk away from the nipple to allow the baby to latch on again.  It was SO helpful.  And, it was the only way I was able to get her to eat. 

Lesson # 5: Call a lactation consultant when you need to.

So, we’re surviving and actually getting some sleep at night.  Our baby’s longest stretch between meals is at night, thank you baby.  Obviously I still have lots to learn and we’ll face new issues, but for now this is what’s working for us. 

Damn.  I’ve been counting down the days, weeks for so long now that I really can’t believe that we are in single digits now.  Even my neighbors are counting down with me.  I’ve remained pretty active, and still take our dogs for a walk everyday, and each day some neighbor will comment about how it’s almost time.  It’s really sweet.  But because I know the date I’ll be induced, I’ve basically thrown out the idea that she could possibly come any earlier than that day.  So far I’ve been right. 

So, this week before she arrives I have a list of things I need to do.  Some of them are things I actually need to do, and others of them are more fun things like get a pedicure and pick up my birthday gift from Sephora…oh yeah, I turned 31 just a few days ago!  So baby girl and I will have a birthday just a few days apart. 

Ok, so if you’re wondering what happens when you get induced, I got the details from my doctor.  Not saying this is the only way it can happen, but this is what the plan is for me.  I’ll go in the night before my induction so that they can start to “ripen my cervix”.   Basically, it’s a softening of the cervix that is done either by placing a tablet on your cervix or taking an oral pill.  My doctor is opting for the tablet on my cervix.  It causes cramping, but studies have shown that if you start with this procedure, then you are able to use less pitocin, so I’m all for that.  Then, at about 4 or 5 a.m. they’ll plan to start the pitocin.  And they’ll just monitor my progress to see how things are going.  My doctor said that if my water has not broken on its own, then she plans to do that anywhere between 10 a.m. and 12.  Of course this is all depends on how my body responds to the pitocin, but this is the loose plan. 

We also talked about epidural.  I know I haven’t talked about my birth plan here at all, but it was always my intent to get an epidural.  I had hoped that I would be able to labor at home for as long as possible and then go into the hospital.   But, since my amniotic fluid has been high all along, that plan was thrown out the window.  So, I had basically already planned on spending longer laboring in the hospital than I would like.  Which, actually makes this induction thing even easier to swallow.  Ok, but back to the epidural…my doctor indicated that they are very generous with them, so I just need to let them know whenever I’m ready to get one.  And, she reminded me that because I will be given pitocin, my contractions will be pretty intense.   I also talked to my sister about all this because she was induced with each of her kids and she recommended that I get an epidural before they break my water because it was pretty painful.  Definitely a good tip to remember. 

I also told my doctor that I was really opposed to the use of forceps or vacuum extraction.  Thankfully, she told me that since my baby is measuring large, she would never think to use them.  She said if she’s not coming out, it means that she is not fitting and the use of either of those items would be extremely dangerous.  We also talked about external vs. internal monitoring.  Again, I said that I wanted to avoid internal monitoring except as a last resort.  She indicated that internal monitoring is last resort for her too, she would only do it if my labor stopped progressing so that they could get more information about what was going on.  I can get on board with that. 

And then I’ll have a baby!!  I’m still in disbelief that it’s almost here.  But I couldn’t be more excited.  I’ve seen her chubby cheeks and pouty lips for so many weeks in the ultrasound pictures; now I’m ready to see all of that for real.  And, I’m dying to share her name with you all.  It’s just a few more days!  Wish us luck.

I haven’t updated you all about everything during my weekly updates. The one thing I’d been leaving out was baby E’s position. It wasn’t intentional, I just figured it wasn’t that important. But then, at my weekly doctor’s visit, I saw that the ultrasound tech would casually type “breech” on the images. Finally, I decided that I should ask the doctor about this and try to figure out at what point I should start to become concerned that she wouldn’t flip. The doctor told me that typically babies settle into whatever position they’ll stay at during birth at about 35 weeks.

So, at 31 weeks I begin to worry about it a bit, but I wasn’t so concerned yet. I started doing a little research online on my own. Then, at 32 weeks when she still hadn’t flipped, I decided to reach out to my twitter friends. I got a lot of great tips, so thank you all! Caroline from Paloma’s Nest suggested that I look into Spinning Babies. It was there that I first learned about doing a pelvic tilt to get the baby in the right position:

Cleveland Clinic

You are supposed to arch your back like a cat in this position. I started doing it at home. But, it seemed like I wasn’t getting much of an arch of my back since my belly made it pretty difficult. So, I modified it a bit and started doing the downward facing dog position:

Yoga Journal

So, I started with the yoga techniques, but heard about a few other things that I was planning to try if the baby didn’t flip by 35 weeks:

• Webster Technique performed by a chiropractor- this technique is used to help the pelvis open and the ligaments soften, allowing the baby enough room to assume a good position in the pelvis.
• Acupuncture- this is done to release qi, prevent it from being blocked or help it move. This is supposed to help the baby find a better position by allowing the mom’s body to move freely and the baby to have the room he/she needs to be well placed in the uterus for birth.
• Swimming- unfortunately it is winter and even though it was 70 today, there aren’t any pools that I know of that I can swim at. So, this one is out, but I will keep it in mind if I have a summer baby next.
• Ice and light- Ok, I know this one sounds crazy, but hear me out. You’re supposed to place the ice (or frozen pea bag) near the baby’s head. And, place a light at your lower uterus to encourage the baby to come down there. I’ve also heard that you can use the music in place of the light. Babies don’t like the cold, so they move away from it, but the light/music is comforting to them.
• Moxibustion- this is a traditional Chinese technique that involves rolling the dried leaves of the mugwort plant into a cigar-shaped stick, which is then burned like a cigar next to your pinky toe. I’m not sure how this one works, but it has received a lot of praise.
• External Cephalic Version- This is performed by your doctor. Women are typically admitted to the hospital for this technique because it can cause labor. The doctor basically tries to turn the baby from the outside. I wasn’t planning on trying this one, and my doctor told me that she wouldn’t do it on me anyway since I have excess amniotic fluid and it may rupture.
• Rebozo- This can be used during labor or to correct a malpositioned baby. You wrap a sheet around your belly and your partner grabs the ends and moves them side to side.

So, after doing all the research, I decided to see if I’d made any progress by just doing the pelvic tilt and downward facing dog. Luckily, I had a doctor’s appointment last Friday when I was 33 weeks, so I knew we could see what was going on. Well, the baby had flipped!! She is no longer breech!! But, if she does decide that she wants to flip back, at least I have a lot of techniques to try, and I know that the pelvic tilt seems to work for her.

Have you heard of any of these? Would you be open to trying the natural options for turning your baby?