Shya's Story 4/15/10

Wednesday April 14th I was 39 weeks and 2 days pregnant, I had my 39 week appointment that morning. I was hoping to have made progress from 38 weeks but after being check...no such luck. I found it surprising that I wasn't very depressed leaving the office that day, like I had been after my 38 week check-up. But, I think I had come to terms that having another c-section wasn't the end of the world. At my appointment that day we set up my c-section date for April 21, which was 2 days after my due date. And although it was draining thinking that I still another week to go if I made it all the way to my c-section date...my pregnancy finally had an end date. I went home that day, thinking I probably had another week to get stuff done so I played with Cohen all morning. We were outside for hours since it was finally nice weather. We jumped on the trampoline, in which I did a somersault at Cohen's request...much harder than I anticipated when you're 39+ weeks pregnant. Cohen looked for bugs while I half weeded the grow boxes. We moved to the front yard, played a little basket ball, I helped Cohen ride his tricycle, and then I weeded the front flowers while he again looked for bugs and spiders. We went in for lunch, took naps and then went to Brooke's house to play. After catching up on my shows while Josh watched a movie with his team downstairs, he had come up stairs and watched the last couple mintues of a show with me. My back was starting to hurt so as I was getting up from the couch I kind of rolled into a balled position to stretch it out. Josh asking jokingly if he was going to have to take me to the hospital in the middle of the night like on "Thrill of it All". I said no. By the time I was getting to bed it was 11:30. At 1:00, I had a pretty painful contraction and thought I just needed to go to the bathroom. Five minutes later I had another painful contraction. They continued for the next half hour before I woke up Josh. Our converstaion went something like this:
Me: Josh...I don't know when... but we are going to need to call your mom tonight. I'm in labor.
Josh: What? No you aren't.
Me: Yeah, I'm pretty sure I am.
Josh: You can't go into labor...I have to go to work tomorrow...everyone knows you're not going to have the baby on your own, except for you. (take into account I'm waking him up, maybe an hour after he went to bed...apparently an hour wasn't enough sleep for Mr. Cranky pants)

I tried the bath to help the contractions. I seriously have no idea what people are talking about when they say that makes the contractions better. It didn't do jack squat. So since I couldn't sleep anyway, I called my mother-in-law and told her she should start getting ready to come. I hung up clothes, got dressed and finished putting the last items into my hospital bag, in between contractions. By the time Josh's mom got there and we got to the hospital it was 3:30 am Thursday morning. When they checked I was a 3 1/2. So they decided to watch me over the next hr. Which actually turned into an hour and a half because in the time that I had gotten there 4 girls had come in and had their babies within the hour. I hadn't made progress in the hour and a half and they normally would have sent me home, but I think there are 2 reasons they didn't. The first being I had just been checked that morning and I was still a 2, so I was progressing. The second probably more important reason I think they didn't send me home was that I had previously had a c-section and was trying for a v-bac, and although they didn't say it ,were thinking I was high risk. They watched me for a while longer, all while my contractions were getting harder and harder. The worst part was it seemed like my contractions never stopped because my previous c-section scar had been hurting during my contractions the whole time, but it had begun to BURN and continue burning after the contraction had stopped. Just about the time the burning would stop, another contraction would start. It was about this time that I remember thinking being induced is actually a pretty good option (which I will never have) but you skip the crappy labor with out drugs. I never experienced this part with Cohen since I was overdue and had been induced.

At 6:30 I was finally a 4, and they admitted me. Turns out my Dr. was out of town at a medical conference so the Dr on call would be delivering me. I was a tad nervous because I didn't know how another Dr would react to my wanting a v-bac. Because my c-section scar was hurting me so bad I wanted my epidural. They were able to give that to be shortly after being admitted. At 8:30ish the Dr came in and introduced herself, since I had never met her. My Dr. is leaving the practice and a new Dr. is replacing her. Turns out the new Dr had just moved from Grand Junction and my sister had been to her. Anyway, she broke my water and the process began. She would NOT give me any petocin and the epidural totally slowed down my labor. It was a very LONG day of waiting. The good news was this time my epidural was working, up until I got to a 7, then they had to keep upping my dosage. I also liked my nurse, so really I was already off to a better start. We litterally waited all day. At about 5:20 I was finally able to start pushing. I pushed for about 50 min and had Shya at 6:07pm. I wouldn't have had to push for so long but my epidural had slowed my contractions down to 4 1/2 mins apart so I was getting quite a bit of rest inbetween pushes. The nurse and the Dr. probably thought I was crazy because I kept asking them...so she's making progress?? while I was pushing. Given my previous experience you can understand why that was so important to me...I pushed for 3 1/2 hrs and made NO progress. In the back of my mind all day I kept thinking it might still end in a c-section. And I could tell it was in Josh's mind too when he was so shocked that she was actually descending. Lucky for me, I have a compliant little girl who did in fact want to come on her own and give me the best gift...a v-bac.

I've talked to other people who have had their babies both ways and they were right...there is good and bad to both. But I would NEVER opt for a c-section over what I went through the second go around. I didn't even take IB profin once I got home from the hospital and I was on heavy duty drugs for a couple weeks after the c-section. I felt and looked so much better after this birth than the first. I would recommend a v-bac to anyone who has a chance. My Dr. told me in the beginning that my chances of a v-bac were statistically low because I had gotten to the 10, pushed and was still unable to deliver Cohen. So much for statistics.