Miles' birth story

Monday, April 22 I went to my regular OB appointment.   At this point I'd been on a relaxed bed rest for a week because of a blood pressure spike at 36 weeks.   I had 4 non-stress tests and all had shown the baby to be good, and trace amounts of protein in my urine.   Basically, I was the one having health problems, not Miles so we continued to just monitor the situation closely.

At this appointment my blood pressure was still higher than they wanted it (150s/90s) I knew something was different when my doctor came in and sat down.  He told me that up to this point, the baby had been better off inside of me, but he was growing concerned that the placenta was taking blood away from the baby.  He went on to say that if we didn't deliver soon, he wasn't sure how the baby would handle the labor.  All that flashed through my mind was C-section and how I DID NOT want one.  He sent me to get another non-stress test.

I texted Trevor, my parents, and my in-laws to tell them the current standings and that I was in a hospital gown, with an IV port. This is not how I envisioned my labor starting.  As the test results came back, everything was the same as it had been my doctor sort of left the ball in my court.  I decided that I would much rather be induced now, when both me and the baby could deal with labor, then to hold out and possibly have to have surgery.

I was started on Pitocin about 3:00 on Monday afternoon.  The nurse came and raised it every 15 minutes. They told me that most people are crawling out of bed and screaming for medicine before it gets to 20ml/hour.  So I waited. Trevor came, parents started their drive to Oklahoma.  By 9:00 I was up to the max dose of 40ml/hour.  I could feel my stomach tightening, but no pain.  I KNEW this couldn't be labor.

I had opted for the doctor to not break my water, because I didn't want all the internal monitoring, catheter, etc.  By 11:00pm my body was no longer responding to the Pitocin so they stopped the pump and Trevor and I went to sleep. They planned to start it up at 3:00am the next morning after my body had been flushed of it.

(not feeling a thing)

 

Morning came, more Pitocin and still no labor.  I hadn't dilated at all from the 1cm I started out. I sent the boys to the house to do some repairs and stayed at the hospital with my mom and mother-in-law.  At 10:30am the doctor came in and asked again about breaking my water.  At this point I was feeling a lot of pressure to just have the baby since everyone had driven from Missouri to see him.  So I agreed.  By the time I was prepped for this it was 11:15.

OUCH.  It was a lot more 'water' than I thought it would be. It hurt to have him break it because I wasn't dilated very far and he was ramming this crochet hook looking thing up there. When he started I was a 'stretchy 1' and when he finished breaking my water I was a 3.  Then they hooked up some internal monitors.   The nurse started cleaning up the mess and when she was finished with that (about 15 minutes later) I was a 6.  Then the contractions started.  They came solid.  I didn't want any one talking except to tell me when it was almost over.  I also remember asking my mom to get Trevor to come back.  The nurse came into check on me a few minutes later, and I decided that I wanted some pain medicine.

After I was done with getting hooked up with the good stuff, the nurse checked me again.  I was a 10! She said she would call the doctor and let him know I was a 9.5 so it would give Miles a little more time to descend.  His heart rate was also dropping a little during this time because everything was happening so fast so they hooked me up with some oxygen and had me lay on my side. Trevor finally made it back, having missed all the excitement, and I was starting to feel a little better.

At 12:30 the Dr. Hensley came in rolling this big table of tools. EEk. I got put in the stirrups and Dr. Hensley announced that he could see Miles' hair. So both moms took a peak and I felt down there and yep, sure enough hair!  I gave a practice push and the nurse told me I was a natural.  I pushed through the next 3 contractions, 3 pushes each.  And then he was here! 1:09 pm.  They slopped him up on my stomach right away and we started wiping him down. 

After a few minutes they asked if they could take him and get him all cleaned up and checked out since he was early.  I hung out getting stitched up while Trevor and our moms accompanied Miles across the room to the warmer to get weighed, measured, and stats. He was eventually returned to me for skin-to-skin because his temperature was lower then they wanted it to be. (97.9)  After we were piled with warm blankets both grandpas and uncle Travis came in to check out Miles.

About and hour later he was warm enough to be passed around and got to meet all the people who love him the most! Welcome baby boy!