The Birth Story

This birth story could not be longer so I'm going to try to narrow it down. Saturday June 18th I woke up at 5am to my water breaking. No big gush but lots of little gushes (gross) and there was no confusion over what had just happened to me. I got up and rushed for the bathroom, kinda walked back and forth for a minute and then yelled to David that my water had just broke. His response? "No it didn't." Haha but yes, yes it had. I got in the shower while he kinda put stuff together. I was only 36.5 weeks and I definitely didn't think I'd be having this baby before I went in for my scheduled inducing when I was 38 weeks. I thought to myself in the shower..."I've got to be dilated to like a 2 already! Is that a labor pain? That didn't hurt that bad. This is going to go quickly." On the way out the door to go to the hospital David and I took turns guessing what time she'd actually get here. Guess what I said? 11am. haha David went with 8pm and I was like, "she better be here by then!" So at the hospital they checked to see how dilated I was. Drum roll please......a big fat 0. Seriously? Alright body, who's big idea was it to put yourself into labor without making any progress of your own? Dumb. Dumb dumb dumb. They gave me a pill to ripen the cervix. You can take one every 3 hours and it gets things started before they give you the pitocen to really get your contractions going. 6 hours into this I was having what I would say were really bad cramps. Atleast the pill was doing something. However, even though my water broke babygirl did not drop at all. Still totally under my ribs. Every contraction I was having hurt my right rib so bad I couldn't breathe. They gave me some narcotic pain med. Can I even explain how great it was? No. It hit me so fast once she put it in my IV and then I would pass out and be able to sleep for like 45 minutes and then it wore off. She gave me 2 hits of that, which helped a ton but wore off WAY too fast. ;] The resident (lovingly named homeboy by my mother) came back in to check my dilation. I was a 1+. Thats enough to start receiving pitocen. Since my rib was killing so bad I got my epidural at the same time that I got my pitocen. Getting the epidural was actually pretty painful. Not the shot in my back so much but the ball the anesthesiologist made me curl up into. David helped hold me there because it hurt so bad to pull my knees up to my chest. The epidural felt so strange but I didn't have any rib pain anymore and that was nice...but it was replaced by some amazing neck pain. I had a gut feeling that the epidural was the reason for this neck pain but the nurse insisted that it wouldn't cause that. (It went away the second they took the epidural out) I dilated very quickly with the pitocen actually. I went from a 2 to an 8 in a couple hours. Then I hung out at a 9+ for 3 hours. I found out during this time that the only person going to be in the room with David and I while I was pushing was my 1 nurse. Thats it? Thats not how they do it on 16 and pregnant! I had always planned on just me and David being in the room but seeing as I needed someone to hold the leg the nurse wasn't holding and I still wanted someone by my head we asked my mom to stay and be there. I had lots of pressure down there and I felt like I needed to push so bad. Finally homeboy came in and told me he was going to move the rest of the cervix out of the way manually. Couldn't you have done that 3 hours ago!! Is he kidding? After he moved the cervix I pushed (which took a second to figure out considering I couldn't feel anything from my ribs down) for 3 hours. NBD. Finally my dr made the call that it wasn't happening and we would be doing a C Section. I was so upset about this because I had worked so hard and been there for so long and it was ending like this? David could not have been a better husband during this whole process. He told me all along how great I was and how proud of me he was. When I was crying because they were taking me in for the C section he was telling me I couldn't have done better. He helped me so much. At 5:55am on June 19, 2011 my little nugget was ripped from her home inside me and thrown into this world. She cried right away coming out which I was so relived about her lungs being healthy. I thought for sure she'd have to go to the NICU due to lung issues but the second she cried I knew she was perfect. David and I just sat there and cried. My dr kept saying "No wonder she wouldn't come out! Wow, look at her. Good thing she came early!" She weighed in at 8 lbs 6oz 22 in long. Kyla Gwen Barham. Now to tell you that I remember much after that would be a big fat lie. I was exhausted and now on some serious meds and all I remember is falling asleep and shaking so bad as a reaction to the morphine. Then I heard they were taking Kyla to the NICU because she was grunting and that can mean fluid in the lungs. They just needed to check her out there. Then I heard they were admitting her because her blood sugar was low. Then we also had big problems because since I pushed for 3 hours her head had stretched out so far without her skull following that she had a subgaleal bleed. I'm so glad I was out of it that day because it wasn't great news from the NICU but I didn't really know or understand...however I also didn't really feel like I had a baby. I saw her for a second when they wheeled me into the NICU but there was no holding her or bonding with her at all. I've been saying from the beginning of this pregnancy that my worst nightmare would be to be in labor for 20 hours and then have a C section. Don't worry folks thats not what happened...I was in labor for 23 hours and then I had a C section. All I know is I'm glad she's here and so obviously I wouldn't change anything. :]

Coming up: The tales of the NICU and beyond