As a midwife, I truly believe in telling your birth story. I often encourage patients to write theirs down so they can read for years to come. After all, delivering a baby is a unique amazing experience.
So taking the advice I give to my patients.... Here is my story.
Because my birth story continued over the span of a week and a half, I decided to divide it into multiple posts.
My story really started about a week before Collin's arrival. I started having really bad headaches and swelling of my feet. I of course knew that swelling was normal but the headaches were bad and I was getting one every day. So I started checking my blood pressures at work, and the were slightly elevated 130-140/80-90. I did not really worry too much about it because I just figured I was stressed at work. However, Friday March 1st I decided to come home early after my head was pounding. My provider's office was already closed for the afternoon so I just took it easy for that weekend- celebrating Joe's birthday with my family on Saturday and a small little surprise party on Sunday. I continued to monitor my pressures and they were still high and the headaches continued.
So Monday I had off and had a wonderful lunch with one of my friends, after I went to Cvs to pick something up and checked my pressure, which was normal. I decided I was just making to much of it and everything was fine. Tuesday I headed in to work with another headache, this time it was so bad I wanted to hit my head against the wall. I had my nurse check my pressures and they continued to be elevated, so I decided it was time to call my midwife. I knew what they answer was going to be- they wanted me to go to Labor and Delivery to get my blood pressures check and to get some lab work to make sure I did not have Pre- eclampsia. I paged Joe at work on his birthday and told him I was going to the hospital, he immediately flipped out and told me he would meet me there. I told him it was not necessary as I was sure they were just going to send me home, but he insisted.
So I arrived to the Loudoun Birthing Inn around 1120 on March 5th and was immediately placed on the monitor and had blood pressures obtained which were 140/80-90s. They drew labs and Joe finally got there while I was waiting for them. My head was still throbbing at this point, and Tylenol was not helping. We had to wait about 30 minutes for the labs to get back and Margie, the midwife on that day, walked in and said "Your having a baby!" I immediately starting balling stating he was no ready and neither was I. Margie then told me how bad my blood work was - low platelets, elevated liver enzymes, elevated Uric Acid and I knew that their would be no arguing as it was evident that I have mild Pre- eclampsia. I was going to need to be induced today whether I was ready or not!
So Joe went home to get some stuff while they worked on admitting me. My cervix was doing nothing at this point so they started off with cervadil which they placed at 4 pm. Joe stopped and got dinner at Panera and they let me eat and we celebrated Joe's birthday in the hospital with cupcakes I had made that he brought from home. Everyone was calling him to wish him a Happy Birthday, most of the calls he choose to ignore as he did not want to lie about what was going on, and I was not ready for people to know we were in the hospital as I knew this was going to be a long run.
Margie wrote for me to have some ambien so I could try to get some sleep while the cervadil was in place, as it is placed for 12 hours to help thin out your cervix and get it ready for labor. Ambien + Laura = bad! I basically got really sick, and started seeing things. Not fun especially when the contractions started. The cervadil came out at 4 am at which point I was contracting ever 2 to 5 minutes. The contraction were mild but uncomfortable. They started pitocin on me at 6 am so the contractioms were getting stronger and more uncomfortable.
Paula releaved Margie at 10 am and decided to place a cooks balloon in to help maunual dilated my cervix while also being on pitocin. This is basically a balloon they put into your cervix that they blow up. This was the most painful thing I have ever felt especially since the pitocin was going at the same time. I was in tears, and that is when my midwife recommend I get an epidural. At this point I had been up for 28 hours straight and being induced for over 16 hours, so I caved.
It was the best decision I have ever made, the anesthesiologist who was my new friend had my epidural in in less than 2 minutes- it was amazing......
Up next- to cut or not.....
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