17 December 2009

Birth Story...Mommy's version

Gene wrote up Callan's birth story last year, which is now part of our "2008 Huston photo/scrapbook album." So, our 2009 Huston album will not be complete without a Kinsley birth story...

DECEMBER 12:
Arrived at hospital at 10:00pm. They checked to see if the baby's head was still head-down...and it was! The nurse put the IV in so that it would be ready to go for the morning. She also gave me Cervidil to help prepare me for the induction the next day. I had to spend the night in the hospital so that they could monitor my contractions and the baby's heartbeat while I was on Cervidil. This made for a VERY uncomfortable night's sleep because I had to sleep on my back to keep the monitor's on my stomach. Getting up to go to the bathroom every hour or so was also a major event. All the cords had to be unplugged and then replugged when I returned. They gave me a sleeping pill, but it only helped me sleep until the next bathroom run. After that it was hard to fall back to sleep. Nothing like going into a day of labor with having a horrible night's sleep!

DECEMBER 13:
Woke up and was given permission to get a shower to get ready for the big day. At 6:57am they started me on pitocin to get contractions going. I believe I was about 1.5 cm at this point.

At 8:23am Dr. Apgar broke my water. He said after my water is broken the baby will not turn or flip again. Good news to hear!

They kept checking me all morning, but I was not having any contractions (just like when I went into labor with Callan). At 10:45am they checked me again, and I was about 3cm. They said even though I didn't feel the contractions, they were doing something!

The nurse said she had increased my pitocin to the highest dosage as she could without getting permission from the doctor to go higher. She called Dr. Apgar, and he gave her permission to increase the dosage...but by 1:20pm I was starting to feel the contractions. They were light but steady. I began the first stage of breathing, which lasted about an hour.

I was afraid that the "hard" contractions would kick in fast since they did with Callan, so when the nurse said that the anesthesiologist was in doing a c-section and would be out in about an hour and could do an epidural then, Gene quickly answered for me and said, "Yes, she wants an epidural as soon as he can get here." I didn't want to get it before I needed it, but my wise husband "put the order in" for it for me so that it would be available before I got to the real painful contractions. Thank goodness for a wise husband who knows me better than I know myself!

At 2:45pm I received the epidural...and just in time, too! I was just beginning the next level of contractions and things were picking up more. As he was doing my epidural, he got two calls from a c-section patient and another patient who needed epidurals...so it was good that I was first in line! It might have been another 2 hours or more if I would have had to wait for him to come to me. It would have been too late by then!

The epidural kicked in right away (which it didn't do with Callan...so I was grateful it did this time). The nurse said I was about 4cm at 3:30ish, so I should get some rest and she would check me again at 5:30ish.

At 4:10 I began to feel a lot of pressure. I never had this feeling with Callan because the epidural had numbed me SO much during his labor. I had heard friends say that when they had to push they felt this "pressure," so I figured maybe this meant I was ready to push! I had only been 4cm at 3:30pm and now it was only 4:00pm. Did I really go from 4-10cm in half an hour?

I told Gene to go get the nurse and she checked me. She said I was 10cm already! She told Dr. Apgar and he said to wait 15-20 minutes before we started pushing. He was eating Chipotle, his dinner, then. :) I told the nurse that I was jealous because I was SOOOOO hungry!

A minute or so later I really felt pressure, so I told Gene to quickly get the nurse. She came in and said that she could help me start pushing. It really helped to push through and not just let the contraction pass. She went to get Dr. Apgar a few minutes later (about 4:30) and just a few pushes later, out slid Flipper at 4:49pm! I only pushed about 20 minutes (compared to the 2 hours that I pushed with Callan).

The Dr. said that it was really amazing because Kinsley actually pushed herself out without any pulling from the Dr.! Dr. Apgar was actually yelling at me to "Look at this, Renee! She's doing this all by herself! I'm not touching her! This is amazing!"

We all waited in anticipation while the Dr. turned her over and exclaimed, "It's a girl!" I actually got to witness Kinsley's first bath, weigh-in and breast-feed her within the first hour...unlike Callan. With him they had to take me to the Operation Room after delivery to fix some major problems that occurred during delivery. All the nurses said that it was great that Dr. Apgar could deliver me since he delivered Callan and knew all about the complications of that delivery. He even said that he was able to fix some things from my previous delivery, and hopefully I'll have a smoother and less painful recovery this time. Praise God for ordaining every moment and detail of Kinsley's birth!

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