Labor Story

The hospital called me at 3:30 am on Monday morning to come into the hospital to be induced. I called George who was working in Mesquite and he met me at the hospital around 4 am. My nurse had me change into a gown and hooked me up to the blood pressure cuff. On a little side note my nurse that took care of me for most of the day was named Marcia, which is my moms name and as most people already know my mom had a severe heart attack on saturday May 16th, two days before I was to be induced. She is doing really well now the doctors placed two stents and she is home from the hospital, but I just thought that is was a nice coincidence that they shared the same name. To continue my long story, my nurse monitored my blood pressure and then checked my cervix and I was dilated to a 2. The head nurse came into my room and told me that I didn't meet the requirements to be induced. My blood pressure was fine and I was not dilated very far, so they were going to call Dr. Astle (who was on-call) and tell him about my situation and see what his opinion was. The nurse came in later to tell me that Dr. Astle agreed with her that there was no reason to induce me but that they were still going to call Dr. Rogers (who is my OB/GYN) and see what he had to say. Well, they didn't want to wake him so early so they decided to monitor my blood pressure for an hour and then page him. Finally at 8 am Dr. Rogers came into my room and checked me. I was still at a 2 but he said he could stretch me to a 3. Then he talked to me about my options, which were waiting for a couple more weeks or him breaking my water and starting me on petocin. I, of course, chose to be induced. He then broke my water 10 minutes later and they hooked me up to an IV and started the meds. I was doing well for a while. The contractions weren't too bad. Dr. Rogers came back at 9 am and checked me. I was at a 3 and 80% or more effaced. Then the waiting continued. The nurse gave me some pain medication to help me with the contractions. The first dose really helped, but the second dose didn't do anything but make me feel tired and a little stoned. The contractions were continuing to get stronger so by 4:30 I had them give me an epidural. It was pure heaven. I couldn't feel a thing. I was finally able to relax and rest. At 5 pm Dr. Rogers came back and checked me. By that time I was at a 5 and 90% effaced. I was progressing nicely. However, at 9pm when he came to check me again I had only moved to a 5+ and her head was still really high. Dr. Rogers increased my petocin and gave me an hour to progress or a c-section would be our only option. So an hour passed by and the nurse checked me with no progress. Dr. Rogers was back by 10:30pm and my nurse got me ready for surgery and off I went to the OR with George in his cute white suit and blue hat and shoe covers. Once in the OR they gave me a stronger dose in my epidural and I went completely numb. They prepped me and let George come in. The doctors starting the c-section and she was out in less than 10 minutes. They showed her to me and then George followed them as they took her out of the room to clean her. They stitched and stapled me and that was it. I unfortunatley preceded to vomitted in the OR before they took me to recovery. So here I was tired and drugged up when they brought Avery in so I could see her. The nurse said she was very hungry and alert and asked me if I wanted to try breastfeeding. I said sure and George helped to hold her up and she started eating. It was the weirdest feeling to look down and see this little angel looking back up at me. My doctor said the I have a small pelvic outlet and in my pelvic outlet I have some bony spines that poke out farther than most people and that is why Avery's head never dropped completely down into the birthing canal. Because of this lovely anatomy I have all of my future deliverys will be done through c-sections. At least now I won't have to go through 14 hours of labor before they cut me open. My incision is healing nicely and I can get around a lot easier. Avery has only lost 1 ounce since leaving the hospital and she is feeding, pooping, and sleeping like a champ.