Clare is here! (w/ long birth story)

Whales124

Hi Ladies!  Clare was born on 1/31/13 at 8:41pm weighing 7lbs 11oz and 20in long!  She is the love of our lives and as cute as a button!

As I posted on here, my water broke at home around 8:55am on 1/31.  We went to the hospital about an hour later after I showered and DH wore a hole in the floor pacing.  I highly rec adult diapers for the car ride, I didn't leak anywhere and the nurse was surprised at how much AF I had.  Anyway, I was a happy camper pacing the halls, doing squats and lunges, trying to get active labor started.  It wasn't really coming on its own so my MFM told me I'd be getting pitocin at 2pm.  Oh pitocin, you wicked drug..........

So, fast forward to 2pm started the pitocin drip, very quickly I was no longer a happy camper.  Paged for the epidural.  On a side note, we got hooked up at the hospital.  One of our very good friends is an anesthesiologist there and called her practice to make sure we were getting the best since she wasn't in till evening.  Turns out the doc she picked for us was one of our student's parents and he ditched the cases he was working on to come to my epi, and what a glorious epi it was!  Also, my cousin is the secretary in L&D, so the nurses were impressed that we had peeps.  Definitely got the royal treatment which made a stressful situation bearable.

Okay back to the stressful part.  So the pitocin brought on active labor.  After 7pm or so Clare started screwing around (per usual)  and her HR started dropping with contractions.  I could tell something was up because my doc and the nurses were in and out of the room a lot.  Finally they come in, throw an oxygen mask on me, roll me around a few times, and announce we are having a C-section.  I agree, noting it's not my first choice, but whatever is best for the baby.  Amazingly my doc takes this into consideration and is just staring at us for a minute.  DH says are we going to the OR or what?  All the sudden doc yells push!  Uh, okay.  I push 3 times during the next contraction and make progress.  He cancels the C-section, urges me to continue to push.  Our friend comes running in, she stayed to do my C-section and was so confused, but we went with it.  I had her out in 22 min flat!  Did I mention I didn't fully dilate due to the cerclage and was only 9cm, managed to rip through my cervix, and needed a 2nd degree episiotomy?  Yeah....we'll see how that fairs in the the future.

Afterward got dicey.  I lost A LOT of blood (they were talking transfusion the next morning) and had a bad reaction to the epi.  I shook, more like convulsed, for a good hour and was soooo cold.  My temp was going up and my parents were convinced I was going into shock.  I had every blanket in the place on me, and could only hold Clare for 10min skin to skin because I was too afraid I'd drop her.  Finally everything regulated itself, but it was scary.  I'm now on super high doses of iron to try to get my numbers back up, but I'm feeling okay.

Everything we went through was worth it, she's amazing.  We've had a few rough patches.  She won't latch for BF so I've been pumping, and we had to supplement with formula for a few days, and I now know what a colicky baby acts like - but I just adore everything about her!  We are doing the newborn shoot today, so after I look up how the heck to post pics I will - lame I know but I've never put one up before. 

Thanks for reading and hoping the best for all of you!!!