Labor description mainly for my memory
Feb. 23rd, 2021 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kay_gmdI went hunting for this and am putting it here so that it's easier to find. I'm also trying to update gender references.
Last edited 2/23/21
ยท
Labor description mainly for my memory
Tuesday 2/22
Wake up 10:30 ish Water leakage (it took a while for me to ID this)
chat with mom more leakage call hospital
noonish call birthing team
Get ride to hospital (Thanks Bob!!)
Water definitely broken Decide to induce started cervical softener and penicillin
Brian and Gretl arrive wave 1 of the birthing team No contractions yet we play cards and have silly conversation. Gretl is an amazing quartermaster, and support, also while my mind is on food, te hospital food was surprisingly good. If you need to go to a hospital, and will be eating there I suggest Woodland Memorial.
Evening I send Gretl off to get some sleep and Brian off to get dinner (the hospital food is good, but only for the patient, and the mass of amazing snacks was not designed nor expected to cover meals.
Sonya arrives. More conversation with I thin more of a pregnancy focus, since she's expecting.
Brian gets back. Still no contractions, so I send Sonya to our place to get some sleep.
Brian and I get some sleep.
10:30 latest dose of drugs and first contraction. Back to sleep.
End of monitoring (2 hours after each dose of drugs) nurse tels me contractions are at 6 min apart. I feel a compulsion to check for myself.
2ish I am convinced and call Guildmistress (last wave of the team I'd told her not to come up last night since things weren't supposed to start until morning, and she has a little girl at home) since she had the best idea of what this might mean, and has the longest to go.
Some cuddle time with Brian.
Call rest of team.
Some time laboring in tub as the team arrives. Exiting tub involves a fit of chills so I get in bed under blankets.
Contractions escalate.
It becomes evident that back labor is painful. Contractions begin to involve convulsions and rolling around to try to relieve the pain. It is suggested and I try laboring on the labor ball (like a balance ball). I'm told the baby doesn't like that, which translates to his heart rate goes down when I contract on the ball. Back to the bed pain gets worse. I ask for drugs, at first tentatively. The second time Brian makes sure I am listened too. They present 2 options, and I lean on Guildmistress' mighty brain as my usually low decisive ower is completely flummoxed. we go with the intermediate option a shot of some sort of narcotic. This makes things bearable. Sonya is a reassuring presence, and gracefully captures the scene while ensuring that she is where she needs to be.
Contractions are now bearable, but baby Josh's heart rate is still dropping with contractions, and labor is slowing significantly. The nurses suggest that we go to the big guns of pain relief an epidural. This appeals to my still quite in pain self, but they say many medical things that make my head swim, so I check again with the Guildmistress. She concurs with the nurses, and mentions that the other option would be wearing off soon anyway. I don't know for sure, but I think knowledge of this wearing off issue might have pushed me to the epidural earlier, but I also very much understand incremental steps.
The team is sent out after rearranging the room for the anesthesiologist. He comes in and attempts to do the epidural while I lie down since sitting seems to aggravate the baby. After trying diligently it is decided that I need to sit up. Apparently this makes things easier for him. To make sure the baby is safe they put a monitor on his head. The external monitor was loosing information during contractions. So I now have tubes coming out of my arm and vagina while having one inserted in my spine. The sitting insertion works smoothly and pain begins to subside. At this point I get a catheter, and they insert an IV drip into the uterus to replace the amniotic fluid I think just with saline.
The liquid allows Josh to float off of the umbilical chord the pinching of which was causing the drops in heart rate, and to turn so that we are no longer in back labor. The numbing of the epidural gets me to a point where I have to concentrate to know when I'm having contractions.
Things have slowed down enough that Guildmistress runs off to teach her class, and the rest of us nap.
I'm awakened at 4 by the doctor (this is the first time I notice interacting with the doctor, I'm sure he must have been in previously, but almost everything has been done by the fabulous nurses) I'd put down a preference for a midwife, but apparently they didn't have any on call that day. Tuesday and early Wednesday morning the midwife had been quite helpful.
He says that I'm fully effaced and dilated, and that soon it will be time to push. They delay the pushing to let the epidural wear off so that I will feel the contractions enough to know when to push. This makes sense because currently I can't even feel it when my foot tries to leave the bed, and I'm not at all certain even when concentrating if I'm having a contraction.
I regain some feeling, and it's time to push. This involves Guildmistress on one side and Gretl on the other holding legs up, and Brian at the head helping guid it. I feel vaguely bad that there's not a spot for Sonya to take, but later I'm relieved to see that this means that we have pictures of this somewhat odd scene. To push I'm to grab my thighs pull them open and back, and take my chin to my chest pushing with every part of my body. Along with my team there are the 2 diligent nurses watching cheerleading and stretching the vaginal opening. Guildmistress starts up dance counting to keep me puching at the right times and relaxing at the right times.
At some point in this process I apparently rather severely mess up my neck, but I won't notice that until later.
I get descriptions of a hairy head and good progress, and then I have to stop pushing to wait for the doctor. In fairness this was probably only for a contraction or 2, but it seemed quite insane at the time. Apparently they wait so long to bring the doctor in because otherwise doctors are likely to try to speed things up. The doctor shows up, and a few pushes later Josh is out. I don't know that I really believed it was going to happen until then. (I'm not sure what I thought, but it was just this realization that we had a baby).
She is the most adorable baby girl on the face of the planet. She came out with a slight cone head, and blue in his extremities, but that is quite normal, and since then she has become even more perfect.
Of course if I was a smart mommy I'd have spent this time while she's been napping doing the same, but I wanted to get this down before I forgot.
Last edited 2/23/21
ยท
Labor description mainly for my memory
Tuesday 2/22
Wake up 10:30 ish Water leakage (it took a while for me to ID this)
chat with mom more leakage call hospital
noonish call birthing team
Get ride to hospital (Thanks Bob!!)
Water definitely broken Decide to induce started cervical softener and penicillin
Brian and Gretl arrive wave 1 of the birthing team No contractions yet we play cards and have silly conversation. Gretl is an amazing quartermaster, and support, also while my mind is on food, te hospital food was surprisingly good. If you need to go to a hospital, and will be eating there I suggest Woodland Memorial.
Evening I send Gretl off to get some sleep and Brian off to get dinner (the hospital food is good, but only for the patient, and the mass of amazing snacks was not designed nor expected to cover meals.
Sonya arrives. More conversation with I thin more of a pregnancy focus, since she's expecting.
Brian gets back. Still no contractions, so I send Sonya to our place to get some sleep.
Brian and I get some sleep.
10:30 latest dose of drugs and first contraction. Back to sleep.
End of monitoring (2 hours after each dose of drugs) nurse tels me contractions are at 6 min apart. I feel a compulsion to check for myself.
2ish I am convinced and call Guildmistress (last wave of the team I'd told her not to come up last night since things weren't supposed to start until morning, and she has a little girl at home) since she had the best idea of what this might mean, and has the longest to go.
Some cuddle time with Brian.
Call rest of team.
Some time laboring in tub as the team arrives. Exiting tub involves a fit of chills so I get in bed under blankets.
Contractions escalate.
It becomes evident that back labor is painful. Contractions begin to involve convulsions and rolling around to try to relieve the pain. It is suggested and I try laboring on the labor ball (like a balance ball). I'm told the baby doesn't like that, which translates to his heart rate goes down when I contract on the ball. Back to the bed pain gets worse. I ask for drugs, at first tentatively. The second time Brian makes sure I am listened too. They present 2 options, and I lean on Guildmistress' mighty brain as my usually low decisive ower is completely flummoxed. we go with the intermediate option a shot of some sort of narcotic. This makes things bearable. Sonya is a reassuring presence, and gracefully captures the scene while ensuring that she is where she needs to be.
Contractions are now bearable, but baby Josh's heart rate is still dropping with contractions, and labor is slowing significantly. The nurses suggest that we go to the big guns of pain relief an epidural. This appeals to my still quite in pain self, but they say many medical things that make my head swim, so I check again with the Guildmistress. She concurs with the nurses, and mentions that the other option would be wearing off soon anyway. I don't know for sure, but I think knowledge of this wearing off issue might have pushed me to the epidural earlier, but I also very much understand incremental steps.
The team is sent out after rearranging the room for the anesthesiologist. He comes in and attempts to do the epidural while I lie down since sitting seems to aggravate the baby. After trying diligently it is decided that I need to sit up. Apparently this makes things easier for him. To make sure the baby is safe they put a monitor on his head. The external monitor was loosing information during contractions. So I now have tubes coming out of my arm and vagina while having one inserted in my spine. The sitting insertion works smoothly and pain begins to subside. At this point I get a catheter, and they insert an IV drip into the uterus to replace the amniotic fluid I think just with saline.
The liquid allows Josh to float off of the umbilical chord the pinching of which was causing the drops in heart rate, and to turn so that we are no longer in back labor. The numbing of the epidural gets me to a point where I have to concentrate to know when I'm having contractions.
Things have slowed down enough that Guildmistress runs off to teach her class, and the rest of us nap.
I'm awakened at 4 by the doctor (this is the first time I notice interacting with the doctor, I'm sure he must have been in previously, but almost everything has been done by the fabulous nurses) I'd put down a preference for a midwife, but apparently they didn't have any on call that day. Tuesday and early Wednesday morning the midwife had been quite helpful.
He says that I'm fully effaced and dilated, and that soon it will be time to push. They delay the pushing to let the epidural wear off so that I will feel the contractions enough to know when to push. This makes sense because currently I can't even feel it when my foot tries to leave the bed, and I'm not at all certain even when concentrating if I'm having a contraction.
I regain some feeling, and it's time to push. This involves Guildmistress on one side and Gretl on the other holding legs up, and Brian at the head helping guid it. I feel vaguely bad that there's not a spot for Sonya to take, but later I'm relieved to see that this means that we have pictures of this somewhat odd scene. To push I'm to grab my thighs pull them open and back, and take my chin to my chest pushing with every part of my body. Along with my team there are the 2 diligent nurses watching cheerleading and stretching the vaginal opening. Guildmistress starts up dance counting to keep me puching at the right times and relaxing at the right times.
At some point in this process I apparently rather severely mess up my neck, but I won't notice that until later.
I get descriptions of a hairy head and good progress, and then I have to stop pushing to wait for the doctor. In fairness this was probably only for a contraction or 2, but it seemed quite insane at the time. Apparently they wait so long to bring the doctor in because otherwise doctors are likely to try to speed things up. The doctor shows up, and a few pushes later Josh is out. I don't know that I really believed it was going to happen until then. (I'm not sure what I thought, but it was just this realization that we had a baby).
She is the most adorable baby girl on the face of the planet. She came out with a slight cone head, and blue in his extremities, but that is quite normal, and since then she has become even more perfect.
Of course if I was a smart mommy I'd have spent this time while she's been napping doing the same, but I wanted to get this down before I forgot.