Labor Story

It was 20 1/2 hours before they decided to do a C-section, then about 1 1/2 hours to get ready for that.

I *thought* I broke my water about 4:30pm on Sunday, but nothing else came out again so I figured it probably wasn’t my water, just discharge. Then when I got out of bed Mon morning at 9:30 a lot more came out (cat was in the way and got wet!). So then I sat and watched TV. for about 45 minutes until I had 3 contractions. Called the doctor’s office and got to the hospital at about 10:30.

I tested negative for my water breaking, but I was still having contractions and they were getting harder. They hooked me up to the baby heart rate monitor and my contraction monitor. The baby heart rate monitor was working just fine, but the contraction monitor wasn’t picking up my contractions at all. But they were getting really strong, but were not super regular. They were basically skipping between 8 to 15 minutes apart. On the monitor it was showing up a tiny little blurps. They tested my cervix right when I came in and it was barely dilated enough to fit Nurse Amy’s pinky finger, which was exactly how it was at the Doctor’s office the Monday before, and about 50% effaced. So about 3 hours and 3 checks later it was still at barely a centimeter and 50% effaced. I however, KNEW I was in labor, the contractions were getting stronger and longer, even though they were still around 8-15 minutes apart, but because they weren’t showing up on the monitor as more than little blurps they didn’t think I was in *real* labor. They had checked my fluid levels at about noon, so they got a reaffirmation that my water hadn’t broke.

I had scheduled a doctor’s appointment for 4:30 Monday to go over stress and water level tests anyway, so we went to Target to walk around for an hour and a half. Getting to Target I had a HUGE contraction it was so bad I had trouble breathing through it. After that, the contractions started coming pretty normally at 5 minute intervals and lasting for about 50 seconds each. Dew was a very good contraction counter.

At 4 pm, we had clearance to go to my Doctor’s Appointment early. We got there at 4:08, and they saw me at 4:15. When Dr. Dries checked my progress I was 80% effaced, and had 3 centimeters. Of course I had already *known* that I was in labor! So back to the hospital we went. At 5pm, we checked again and I was fully effaced with just less than 5 centimeters. So, Doctor Manning broke my water at 5:30. By 6 pm I needed the epidural because the pain was getting unbearable. We didn’t realize it yet, but she was facing the wrong way and causing severe back labor pains. The epidural was WONDERFUL J Made things a whole lot better. Till about 7pm the epidural worked without me feeling any of the contractions. At 7pm Dr. Manning checked my progress again with the help of the new nurse who was also named Amy. As before there was still no progress. Her head hadn’t dropped at all, although he could feel it. The contractions at this point were getting hard enough again that even with the epidural I had to breathe through them. He decided to start me on Pitocin to get things started. At 11:30 we checked the progress again. As before there was no real progress at all, so the Pitocin level was increased quite a bit.

This was the moment I realized she wasn’t coming till the next day which was super exciting because my dad was born on December 1^st as well. He was super excited, and somehow managed to get through the phone into the delivery room….go figure. They still couldn’t see what was up with my contractions. They knew I was having them, but the machine still couldn’t accurately monitor them. So at this time they inserted a contraction monitor that was inside my cervix and resting between the baby and the uterine wall. This time they could see exactly how hard and close my contractions had been. At 1:30 am Dr. Manning checked my progress again. She still hadn’t dropped into my pelvis and he was starting to get worried that she would not fit. So he increased the Pitocin again, and this time when he checked my progress at 3am I had progressed to just about 7cm dilated. So he figured that by 5 or 6 am I would be ready to push. I managed to take a nap until Dr. Manning came back at 5pm to check my progress. Yet again I hadn’t progress past the 7 cm and she still hadn’t dropped.

During the whole process her heart rate was great, so they weren’t overly worried about it being such a long labor. Although I was getting REALLY tired by that point, for obvious reasons! So at 5am we decided it wouldn’t matter how long we waited, she wasn’t going to fit through my cervix. So they prepped me and we went off to get a C-Section.

I had developed quite a bit of nausea and an intense head ache by this point that I could not get rid of. They discontinued the Pitocin at 5am and within a few minutes my headache went away, and most of my nausea. Of course for the C-Section they did a spinal block for my boobs down. It was the weirdest sensation with the tugging and pulling and such. They were a few seconds from taking her out when I started to feel the cut being tugged on, and the pain was starting to seep through the spinal block. Then she was out and crying. They pain was steadily getting worse. So I told Dew I am starting to feel it. He said the pressure? And I said no the Pain. They had handed him Kyra and ushered him out of the room quickly and knocked me out for the rest of the operation.

When I woke up I could feel every ounce of the pain. It was excruciating. I couldn’t help but sob hysterically. It was the worst pain I had ever felt. Apparently they couldn’t give me pain meds till I woke up because they had used so much meds with the epidural, spinal block, and anti nausea meds that they needed to know verbally how high the pain was, and adjust the dosage to my needs. Finally they got me into my new bed, and started giving me doses of morphine, once every 35 seconds or so until the pain was at a barely level of say 3 of 10.

It was horrible. I am still hooked up to the morphine, so I can’t breast feed yet. The morphine drip has been dosing me every 30 minutes. And I have a trigger I can hit to get it as frequently as 10 minutes apart. I’ve had to use it less and less which is good.

So, to make a very long story short, my little Duette, Kyra Hayden DuEst was born at 6:33 am on December 1, 2009. She weighed 7lbs 5 ounce and was 20 ½ inches long.