Hi Everyone:
Just wanted to post that Gregory David made it into this world a full 3 weeks early at 37w 0d gestation on 5 March.
Labor was 38 hours between ruptured membranes and birth and I pushed for 3 3/4 hours. He's perfect and beautiful! Stats follow:
Name: Gregory David
born: March 5, 2007 10:45 PM
size: 7lb 9oz - 20 inches
subsequent hospitalization on 3/10 for jaundice/dehydration/weight loss. He's doing much better and has now gained all the weight back and doing fine. My biggest lesson is that I'll no longer "wait it out" for the breast milk and will encourage every one else who might have late or inadequate lactation to supplement with formula even though it's not very politically correct. It's too scary to see your little newborn in the hospital with IV tubes, feeding tubes, etc because you wanted to exclusively breast feed.
birth story for those who want the sordid details:
Sunday, March 3 at about 8:30 am, I was on the phone with my friend, Kelli, discussing our trip to pancake hut that morning and I noticed a small gush. I knew right away it was my membranes rupturing because a bit earlier I had a similar gush while using the bathroom. so I cancelled the breakfast trip and called the OB on call who told me to head into L&D. I did tell her that we probably wouldn't be hurring and she agreed that it was fine. I know that going to the hospital after rupture is the hotel california -- you aren't leaving again. I had a ton of things to do as this baby was over 3 weeks early and I hadn't finished preparing for his arrival yet! So dh and I did a bunch of stuff around the house -- finished packing! and I took a shower and stuff before we left.We arrived at L&D triage about 1:00. They grabbed my chart which was on the desk already and said "wow. you called a while ago." heh. It was crazy in there. Evidently, there were people waiting in the hallway. My nurse told me that every single person in labor in there on that day had ruptured membranes -- she said it was because of full moon. go figure! Because they were so busy, we were only in there long enough to verify that the fluid was amniotic (no meconium) and we were sent to L&D.
At L&D I was checked and was only dialated a fingertip -- very little effacement and my cervix was still really firm. They gave me a dose of cytotec at 4:00 PM hoping to make my cervix more favorable so they could start pitocin. Nothin' doin. Another dose was inserted at 8:00 PM. Again, no dice. At 1:00 am they switched to cervidil and that got things movin'! I started to have really strong contractions and they were coming every 4 or 5 minutes. I was barely recovering from one when the next one hit me. Because I had ruptured membranes, they didn't check me very often -- usually every 4 or 5 hours.
The nurse talked me into waiting as long as possible before any narcotic pain relief because the hospital will only give you 3 doses and we didn't know when I'd be ready for the epidural. The last thing I wanted was to have some relief for a while (3 hours) and then have to tough it out waiting for the epidural. My labor wasn't moving very fast so I decided not to chance it but by 7 am I couldn't take it anymore. I got a dose of phentenal which was a gift from heaven. It didn't take the pain of the contractions away but it helped me to recover better in between them. At 7:45 I was worried that it was starting to wear off and I needed more but the nurse let me know that I was due for a cervix check and I might be able to get the epi. I was 3 centimeters and they were willing to call the anesthesiologist but I was worried that the narcotic would wear off before they could get the epidural in me. Nurse told me I could get another dose but before we could get any further in the conversation, the anesthesiologist showed up.
Labor progressed steadily but very slowly from there. They started the pitocin and increased it gradually. Unfortunately the combination of a high dose of pitocin and me moving from lying on one side to lying on the other side turned out to be a bad idea for Gregory as he was experiencing deccelations in his heartrate. It happened a couple of times and after the 2nd time, i basically couldn't move at all for fear of causing another one. I was on my left side for about 6 hours in a row at one point. I'd only move if there were 2 nurses in the room ready to hit the code button if something went wrong.
Cervical dialation took a VERY long time. It was stuck on "98% effaced (rim only remaining) for 3 or 4 hours. Finally, at 7 pm, the doctor checked and there was a little rim left. She moved it manually and told me i was good to start pushing. Unfortunately the pitocin had to be dialed down so many times throughout the day that the contractions weren't very strong or close together -- like every 5 minutes or so. So the pushing time is a bit misleading. I had lots of time between contractions to rest -- and I needed it! because they weren't all that strong, I did lots of the work myself. But it was totally worth it.
At 10:45 pm, Gregory arrived in the world -- only one small internal tear and my OB told me that she did it massaging my perineum trying to stretch it as he was beginning to crown. It took one stitch. He was born bright pink and didn't even cry when he was born -- just a lot of grunting. He was born with a pretty big hematoma on his back fontenal (this is suspected of causing the jaundice problem) because he wasn't quite straight coming down the birth canal.
He latched beautifully right away and we enjoyed close to an hour of breastfeeding while the nurses worked on him. His APGARs were 8/8 and i was told by my labor nurse that the nurse that did the evaluation is "stingy" with her apgar scores -- she'd have given him a 9/9.
love you all!
Debbi :-)
Gregory - 3 weeks old! (his due date is tomorrow!)