Thursday, May 5, 2011

Elijah's Birth-told by mom (Erin)

My pregnancy was far from enjoyable and the delivery didn't get any better. I had early contractions on a couple occasions and had some kidney issues, plus I was terribly sick until the day I delivered. My water broke about 345 am and I was only working on about 3 hours or so of sleep. I had gotten up to go to the bathroom and when I jumped up in bed to go back to sleep there was a small gush. My thought was "oh come on I just went pee...oh my gosh that wasn't pee!" i laugh at that now but it was a mixture of emotions when it was happening. I was excited and terrified all at the same time. We got to the hospital about 5 am and my contractions were a steady 7 minutes apart. When they checked me, I was only dilated to a 1 but 90% effaced. They encouraged me to take walks around the hospital and get in the shower and tub. The contractions were getting worse but by 9, I was fully effaced but not dilating so I heard that dreaded word, pitocin! I was put on pitocin and by noon I was having contractions that were 2 minutes apart lasting a minute long (like i was dilated to a 10 but no pushing for relief) and I finally couldn't take it. I requested some pain meds to take the edge off but they upped the pitocin at the same time totally counteracting it. That was it for me. I was only dilated to a 3, in terrible pain and kept tensing up making the contractions worse. I asked for the epidural and when it kicked in, I was so exhausted I went in and out of consciousness. Everything was kind of a blur after that, but I do remember them saying they needed to roll me from 1 side to the other and vice versa. I remember saying she needed to put an internal monitor in and then I heard them tell Trevor to tell the nurses they needed help in my room. I opened my eyes to see he didn't move fast enough because a nurse ran to the door and said "we need help in here" and every available nurse on the floor ran into my room. I didn't see anyone I knew (my gma sent my mom to get her some food because she didn't feel comfortable going to get it herself) and my gma was on her way to tell my mom there were problems. They started wheeling me down to the OR and I was crying I was so scared and YES I WANTED MY MOMMY! They were taking me to do an emergency c section so nobody was allowed in with me. I later found out Elijah's heartbeat dropped to around 80 for over 10 minutes causing them concern. I also found out that after my epidural, I dilated from a 3 to a 6 in 5 minutes which could have caused his heartbeat to drop because of the shock of such a move. In the c section 1 of my awake moments was when they said they needed to do a scalpel test and said "Erin can you feel that?" ok what I said was a really shaky and scared "no" but i was thinking "oh my gosh they are cutting me open!!!!" I tell ya what, a c section isn't without pain and discomfort. The pressure down there still feels as if you are pushing the baby out vaginally. Elijah was born screaming so loud they could hear him down in my room. He was healthy with no problems and could go to the normal nursery until I was taken to my room. I remember looking at him and seeing them hold him up for me and they brought him over right in my face so I could see him before they took him. He was born at 114 pm. I didnt get to hold him for about 2 hours after that. They had some problems with the xray machine and I ended up having to have an xray upstairs which sucked because it hurt my belly where my incision was to lay flat on that metal slab. The worst part afterwards was that there was constantly people in my room visiting and I got no rest and no time to bond with my son until I went home. I'm definitely hoping for a better pregnancy, delivery, and hospital stay this time around. This pregnancy already is having it's bad moments. I will say I loved the hospital (Trinity 7th street moline birthing center) and the nurses there were great! The nurses sent me a card congratulating me on having Elijah and were just so sweet to me." 

1 comment:

  1. I didn't know you were pregnant Erin. Congratulations! Think positive thoughts about this one lady. You don't need any negative energy floating around :)

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