My birth story

I thought I better type this out before I forget!

My birth story starts on Wednesday, 7/1/09 at about 4:30pm. I went to my doctor's office (Dr. Ivie) to start the induction process. (About two weeks prior, I told Dr. Ivie I didn't want to be pregnant anymore and that I was SO tired! She didn't argue because I had gestational diabetes and the baby was getting big.) The type of induction I chose is called a Foley catheter. Many people think that's a tube that is inserted into the bladder however this one is a little different. Foley catheters can also be used to "ripen" the cervix, to allow the induction of labor. The catheter is inserted behind the cervical wall and inflated with 60 cc's of water. The inflated balloon applies pressure to the cervix, like the baby's head would prior to labor, causing it to dilate. When the cervix has dilated sufficiently, the catheter simply drops out.

After the catheter was put in place at 4:30pm, I was sent home to begin labor. However there was no "begin to labor" at home...it began immediately after Dr Ivie put in the catheter. I began contracting before I got out of the doctor's office! I didn't think the pain was all that bad and drove home. My mom was with me at the doctor's office and came home with me for a short time. Shawn took her back to her hotel at about 6:00pm. On his way home he picked me up a cobb salad from Claim Jumper, YUM! I was pretty hungry, again, the contractions weren't that bad...yet!

Shawn and I ate some dinner and I spent much of the evening on an exercise ball. The ball took much of the pressure off my bottom and it helped me relax. We went to bed around 11:00pm and set our alarms for 3:30am because I was instructed to report to the hospital at 4:00am.

I woke up at about 12:30am and was contracting a bit harder. I left the lights off and let Shawn sleep and I sat on my exercise ball until about 1:30am. My contractions let up a little and my fatigue took over! I crawled back into bed and actually slept until my alarm went off. When I got up, I showered which felt amazing and the contractions began to get stronger again.

We got to the hospital at on Thursday morning, 7/2/09 at 4:30am. We had to park on the ER side of the hospital which is the exact opposite end of the building from the Woman's center! But I decided to walk the length of the building because I figured it couldn't hurt the labor process. We got to my room, got settled in, IV's inserted, pitocin started and the catheter was removed (it never fell out on it's own). The nurse checked me and I was 4cm dilated at about 5:00am. She checked me again at 6:30am and I was still 4cm dilated and she asked me if I wanted the epidural. It was going to take a while to get one because the anesthesiologist went home because there were no other laboring moms. I told her I was ok at the moment and then she informed me she was going to break my water at 7:00am, I changed my tune and said to order me up an epidral, STAT!

She broke my water at 7:00am and I got my epidural around 7:30am. For that 30 minutes I was in some serious pain! I can't imagine what it would have been like to go through the entire labor with no pain killers! Kudos to you brave ladies who have done it! After I got the epidural, I was feeling no pain. However, after about 30 minutes I developed a "window" of pain, which is basically a spot that the epidural missed, in the middle left side of my abdomen. The anesthesiologist gave me a small amount of a spinal block which completely numbed me from the waist down. I was feeling no pain and went to sleep for awhile.

I was checked again at about 9:30 or 10:00am and I was 7cm dilated! Man that went quick!. I told Shawn to go to the car and get the camera as I forgot it in my purse. He was pretty nonchalant about getting the camera, thinking we were going to have awhile before the baby would be born. Around 11:30am the nurse checked me again and I was 9cm dilated, again, holy cow that went fast! I told Shawn to get the camera right now! While Shawn was gone, the nurse checked me again and I was 10cm dilated and she told me to push! I was like "holy crap, I can't push yet because Shawn isn't here!" The nurse reassured me that she just wanted to see how I pushed to see what kind of progress I was going to make. I did and the nurse told me to stop because I was going to make very good and quick progress! She left and Shawn came back and I told him I pushed, he had a look of fear on his face!

A few minutes later the nurse and a few others came back and set up the room for having a baby. Around that time, the spinal block wore off and the window of pain came back. I was in a great amount of pain. The nurse asked me if I could push through the pain, to which I responded "do I have a choice?!". The anesthesiologist did try and give me a little more of the spinal block however it wasn't effective and I had to just live with the pain. The room was set up and I started pushing at about 12:15pm. I pushed for about 5 minutes and was told that I was crowning but Dr. Ivie was delivering another baby and another hospital! Fantastic! So I was told to stop pushing and I was just hanging out, crowned!

In the meantime, Shawn was white as a ghost. When I started pushing Shawn got up and crossed the room, passing by me in the process. He looked at what he "didn't want to see" and got light headed. The nurse told Shawn to sit down because there was one patient in the room and it wasn't going to be him! So poor Shawn coward in the corner of the room while I took care of the "heavy lifting"!

At about 12:35pm Dr. Ivie finally got to my room, gloved up and told me to start pushing! About time! Baby Avery made her appearance at 12:49pm, I was told I was a pro at pushing :-)

Shawn and I were home by 3:00pm on Friday, 7/3/09! We had enough of the hospital, the food sucked and so did the bed! We were both ready to be home to sleep...or at least lay in our own bed! LOL!

So that's it, my/Avery's birth story! It's a book and I'm sorry for the long read!