Tiff and Company: October 2011

The Week of august 30th we found out my blood pressure was a little high at Perinantal Associates. They ran some tests and found some protein in my urine so they had me do the 24-hr urine test (which was peeing in a bucket and filling a container-after 24-hrs I had almost 2 gallons of pee!!). The results came back on the 2nd and my level was 317 and normal is below 300. They decided to put me on bed rest before that so I had stopped working. We went to see Karen, my midwife, Friday the 2nd and she stripped my membranes and scheduled my induction for 5:30AM on the 3rd (the next day, eek!!). I started having contractions that night and kinda hoped I go into labor on my own. Clarence went and got us dinner from Chili's and continued to bounce on my ball hoping to get some labor moving.

I decided to take a bath and a shower and give my hair a nice blow out. Figured I might as well look somewhat decent for Kendall’s debut! We fell asleep kinda late partly because I started having really back bad pain again. I woke up around 130 and my back was killing me. Some contractions but mostly really bad back pain. Kendall had been moving like crazy which I loved. I felt like she was ready to come out. I kept trying to go back to sleep but the pain in my back sucked and my legs hurt. In the end I probably slept about 5 hours that night, which was probably not a good thing in retrospect!

My last belly pic taken before heading to the hospital on 9/3

We stopped for breakfast at McDonalds- egg mcmuffin, yogurt parfait, orange drink- I knew I needed to fill up. We got to L & D and went straight to room 007 (Clarence thought the room number was cool). The nurses got my IV going, which was painful & left a nasty bruise, then blood drawn. At about 7am they started the pitocin pretty slowly. Karen, my mid-wife, came in and checked and I was about 3-4 cm dilated. And we were off.

All throughout the day I did a lot of moving and breathing and positions. Sat in the ball, sat in the rocking chair, stood up and rocked my hips, walked the halls. They upped my pit throughout the day but the contractions were still manageable. I was rocking my plan to do this naturally. I remember being starving. I was able to eat crackers, Graham crackers, Astro pops, drinks and candies. Ginger, the 2nd midwife came and checked me again around 4-5ish and we made the decision to break my water. I wasn't progressing and we didn't want labor to go on and on.

After that the contractions became so incredibly intense. I sat on the rocking chair and really had to breathe through each contraction. They were consistently 2 minutes apart and about 1 minute long. I decided to get in the tub to help with the pain and I couldn't get comfortable in there. (At one point the doula was spraying my back with the shower head, I was having contraction and it was all a bit much)! I stayed in there for about 15 minutes and decided to get back in the rocking chair. I went through several contractions and decided that I needed an epidural. I decided that it was ok to throw out my going naturally plan when the doula told me that I probably had another 6-hours to go. Clarence was great and had me give him a couple more contractions before making a final decision. After 2 more I was done.

RuthAnn, my sister, called to tell the nurse that I was ready for an epidural and the nurse came in to have me sign some paperwork. I don't think the contract was legally binding because I was under such duress. I didn't care what the paper said I wanted the epi now. The nurse came back and told me that the anesthesiologist was in an emergency c-section & then we find out that it was shift change so we would not get an epi for some time. I made the decision to get some pain meds through my IV to hold me over. This was NOT a good idea – they made me so sick and dizzy I felt crappy. I guess the one good thing that came of it was that for the hour that they were at their peak I had to focus really hard on not throwing up.

Eventually I got the epidural. Clarence was able to stay in the room for it and I remember him and the Doula helping me get through contractions while the epi was being put in. It was so hard to hold still while having contractions while they did the epi, so hard. The epidural was in and it started to work everywhere EXCEPT for my left hip and all the pain of labor was suddenly in that hip. The nurse started hitting the "add more medicine" button and I was rolled to my left side to help the medicine head in that direction. About 30-minutes later the epidural was on my left side, I was shaking like crazy, but I didn’t feel the pain any longer. The mid-wife came into the room as soon as the epidural was in full effect, checked me and I was ready to start pushing. I was ready to have my baby here but I really wanted to enjoy the epidural and take a nap for just a while –so I was slightly disappointed.

While pushing my blood pressure was all over the place, which I was concerned about but no one else seemed to be. I could feel pressure when I had a contraction but not pain so I knew when to push. The midwife had me push slowly to reduce tearing and after 30-minutes our little girl, Kendall Elizabeth, was born a 9:27pm after 14-hours of labor. She weighed 7lbs 13oz and 19 ¼ in long with lots of dark hair and cute little screaming voice. I’m not sure what her apgar scores were, we forgot to ask. She was placed on my chest immediately and latched to feed about 30-minutes in. I had a 2^nd degree tear and some “shredding” that caused the midwife to call a surgeon to help her stitch me. They worked on me for an hour but I was still on the epidural and was really more focused on my baby then the pain. I also hemorrhaged because, according to the midwife, the pitocin causes your uterus to work really hard during labor so after the pitocin is stopped the uterus doesn’t contract as hard as it should to help heal the spot where the placenta separates which can cause hemorrhaging (interesting to me because I would have bet $$ it was from all the tearing and shredding that happened down there). After all the commotion of the tear fixes and the baby weighing and such the nurse wanted me to get up and walk to the bathroom to try to pee. I got up and was VERY shaky; I couldn’t quite feel my legs yet. The nurse and the doula walked me to the bathroom where I could not pee at all. I had to tell the nurse that nothing was happening and she informed me that she would have to do a catheter because my bladder was way to full. So back to the bed I went and I was catherized (not sure that is a real word). After that we headed to the room where we would be spending the next couple of nights.

Clarence and I were exhausted by the time we got back to the hospital room. I was super pale and felt really awful from losing so much blood. Kendall was sleepy and I don’t even remember feeding her much that night. The nurse did come and take her and did her first bath around 3AM. I wanted one of us to be there for that but neither of us were about to wake up at that point. They kept her after that and brought her back for her next feeding. I wanted to room in with her but honestly I’m really glad they took her both nights we were there for a while. It really helped me get SOME sleep before heading home where we got NO sleep.

1st Family Picture

And the rest is history. The first 6 weeks were really hard on us. It wasn’t until the middle of week 6 that Kendall started to have some sort of “schedule” – if you can call it that. No one tells you how hard breastfeeding is and there were lots of times where I was ready to throw in the towel. I’m so glad I didn’t because things are GREAT now. Being a Mommy is tough but I love this little girl more than I could have ever imagined, she is amazing.

Here are some more pictures from the hospital and heading home. ENJOY!