Birth story! kind of long...PIP

Pnut30

I was a week past my due date with very little progress.  Baby was still pretty high, I was less than 1 cm dialated and very little effacement.  My Dr.  decided it would be best to schedule an induction for the night of 12/26.  I started cervidil around 9pm started getting some pretty bad (but tolerable) cramping.  It got a bit worse and I was filled with anxiety so I decided to get some relief with nubain.  It did help a lot.  I was unable to get more than a few minutes of sleep though.  I was very scared because I was supposed to start pitocin in the morning and I had heard such horrible things about it.  They checked me around 9 am and I was 3 cm so we waited a few more hours to see if I would progress on my own.  They checked me again around noon and I was 4.5 cm so it was decided I did not need pitocin and I could go ahead and get my epidural! They broke my water first and I really did not feel that at all.  The epidural was such a strange procedure.  It was very difficult for me to stay still while I was having some pretty hard contractions.  The electrical pulses were pretty intense and I wound up kicking the nurse! I had the combo spinal/epi and I felt some relief pretty quickly.  For some reason I had this chunk of my right abdomen and lower back that did not get much relief.  I continued to labor and they checked me several more times.  Around 4 pm I was told I was 10 cm. and they were calling the Dr.  Another nurse came in and told me that baby was still too high so we decided to ?labor him down? for a bit before I started pushing. 

This was the hardest part.  I pushed 3 times with every 2 to 3 min for over two and a half hours.  Baby was not descending much.  It was the most aggravating thing to see the looks on the nurses faces when I would ask if he was lower and they would say no.  My DH was doing so awesome to help me and I could not have asked for a better partner during that time.  Around 8:20 pm my Dr. talked about using the vacuum.  I was so out of it and I don?t remember much other than being so scared.  Before I knew it there was a team of NICU staff in my room and they were getting the vacuum in place.  I got another contraction and pushed 3 more times as hard as I possibly could.  My Dr. said if the vacuum didn?t work in the first few tries I would be going back for a c-section.  On the last push I screamed so loud and pushed super hard. My DH said it was the scream heard around the world! With that final push I felt immense relief and heard my baby cry as they put him on my tummy. It was the happiest moment of my life and I am so thankful that everything worked out the way it did.  It turned out that not only was he coming out face up but he had his little hand on top of his head and was getting stuck in my pelvis.  He had a small bruise on top of his head from the vacuum but was otherwise healthy. 

My recovery has been pretty good.  I had a few 2^nd degree tears and one was very close to my urethra.  I have been having a lot of urinary incontinence but hopefully that goes away soon, I am not ashamed of my depends! It is amazing how quickly the vag starts healing though! Breastfeeding is going really well for us.  I am very grateful for that because it was something that meant a lot to me. 

So that is my story and here he is! I can?t wait for all of you to get to experience this!