Friday, August 8, 2008

Miss Pancake's Birth Story

Wow, I cannot believe it has been just about a week since Miss Pancake entered into our world. It has been lovely, stressful, exhausting, painful, and exciting all rolled up into a ball of life!

SO here is the story of my 2nd birth. At our Wednesday appointment, I was 3 cm, 75% effaced and very very soft. We decided to just go ahead with the scheduled Friday am time to break my water. The midwife felt that would get things started (though I am still sure she had her own agenda - we felt it was a good time to do this none the less.) I know I could have changed my mind but I was just ready to have a baby! We were excited and ready.

I was so excited Friday morning because I lost my mucus plug in the shower! I know TMI and also SO YEAH you are saying but I never had anything like this with M so it was like icing on the cake to know my body could do this without drugs! We took M to K's house and go to the hospital late, of course. They strapped me in for the 1st time of 900 and checked everything. Miss Pancake and I were great so we waited another hour and Liz came in to break my waters. Molly, our doula, came in at this time as well. The funniest moment of the morning - Kevin and I went down to the cafeteria to get him some lunch. He had a wrap and some Doritos. As Liz broke my water we all heard the pop except Kevin. When the pop came nothing happened - no water came out so Liz said "did we hear a pop?" And we all nodded except Kevin who was holding my hand and looking around blankly. "Pop?", he said "What pop? I was still crunching Doritos." Silly boy!

Anyway, long story short we walked the hospital grounds in the sweltering heat about 20 times, all around the halls, I was ready to start running. I tried the birth ball, I tried squatting, leaning on the birth ball, etc... with few results. We did this all day. We also watched a movie (Glory Days, its pretty good if you like sports flicks) and played cards. I was getting frustrated and nervous about everything as the sun started to go down. We had no back up plan for Matthew (and I was stressing out about how he was doing until I talked to Kelly and calmed me down - THANK YOU!) or the dogs. I think we were both hopeful we would have the baby by the evening on the 1st. AND I really wanted to avoid any drugs which was direction we were headed at that point.

Molly being Molly threw out some suggestions - Castor oil, stimulation in the shower, blah blah blah. We decided after consulting with Liz and I had some food to get the Castor oil from the local health food store. I ate something and at around 9:00p I took two "shots" of Castor oil and this started my contractions almost immediately. They were good contractions in that with the piotocin I remember the contractions just hammered me to pieces. These came on slowly and did the whole longer, stronger and closer together thing.

I was at 8 cm and I remember thinking 'OMG I cannot do this naturally - I am going to die'. Obviously there was no going back. I made it to ten and pushed for about 12 hours - er I am mean 30 minutes. Miss Pancake got stuck in my pelvis briefly and I had to push a couple of more times. One of the oddest sensations ever - having a baby fully engaged in one's pelvis and being able to feel her moving there. She came out perfectly with pretty bad bruising. I had a 2nd degree tear and the hemorrhoids - well I have to say those are worse then the tear by far and I will be having surgery to get that fixed because it does not seem they are going away on their own.

I am amazed at the recovery this time versus last time. I felt great hours later and left the hospital that same evening! I have had my ups and downs this week but it has been nothing like I had with M. Also having no meds during the birth was amazing, scary, wild and surreal. I remember every moment of the birth process with a clarity I never had with M. I know the nurses are doing their job and we loved the day nurse but the evening nurse I nearly gave her a piece of my mind. Thank goodness for Molly because she basically told that girl how we wanted things done. I was so sick of being monitored I wanted to scream. Additionally the nurse who put the IV in did a fine job but I still ended up pulling it out AGAIN. It was right before I pushed Miss Pancake out so they just took it out and come on it was like 15th dose antibiotics. The baby was not going to get sick in fact I may not get sick for next ten years ;) The site where she put the IV has been one of the most painful things on me since I left the hospital!

Finally, I had the lovely moment when they put the baby on your chest. M was whisked away from me because of the merconium and he was not breathing right away. It was pretty dark in the room when Miss Pancake arrived so they could not tell if she was just bruised or not breathing. I was holding on to that baby so tight I do not think they could have taken her out my arms anyway. She was fine. And for you Kelly my first words were "is she really a girl?" and I checked her bum! Thought that would make you laugh!!

There are some things I left out that I will tell you now because I don't want anyone to get ideas - Castor oil makes you poop. A LOT. Uncontrollably. So that you soil yourself while pushing and need to go in the tub and push in there all the while also pooping and for about 24 hours after you are very cleaned out intestinally speaking. While it sounds rotten it really was not. I mean I was totally freaked out by the lack of control at first but I quickly got over it (um hello CONTRACTIONS!) So that is Miss Pancake's birth story - writing it makes it seem a little anticlimactic compared to M's birth story which is a good thing!

The story is great but really what matters is that I have her, this beautiful little girl to cuddle, hug and love for all the days of my life (huh, can you tell what I have been doing this week???) and that is the best part of it all:

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yay! I love this story! Great job, mama!

I had the same "I cannot do this" feeling at about 8 - 9 cm as well. Once I started pushing though it was all good! The hemorrhoids will probably go away on their own. It took awhile for mine after Cam was born but they did eventually go away within a couple of weeks. Hang in there! I hear ya on the feeling so much better after the natural birth! It's amazing!

Congrats on your baby girl!

Anonymous said...

Beautiful. Congratulations, you.

Kelly said...

Congratualtions again! I am so happy you had the experience you wanted (mostly)!

And I swear she still looks like M! ;)

K and J's mom said...

Beautiful story, C! And glad you added the honesty piece about castor oil...b/c honesty is good for all the first time moms reading! I had a friend who had to have surgery on hemorrhoids after birth too. I hear they are horribly painful. Hope your's get better on their own! She's so pretty! I can't wait to hold her!

Jen said...

Thanks for posting your birth story. It sounds like it went well and you are enjoying your beautiful baby girl!!

Pickles and Dimes said...

What a great birth story. I love reading these!

The new photo of M and Baby Pancake is adorable!