before molly turns three...
the birth story. I'll warn you now, it's totally uneventful...well, except for the fact that the most beautiful baby girl I've ever met was born :).
With my high blood pressure (which was pre-existing and is completely under control without medication now...go figure) my doctor scheduled us for induction a week and a half before Molly's due date as a precautionary measure. We checked into the hospital around 10:30 p.m. on April 17th. As soon as we were settled my nurse checked to see where we were: maybe half a centimeter dilated and 0% effaced. I was given a quarter of a cytotec pill (extremely tiny) orally to ripen my cervix and penicillin in my IV for Group B Strep. Then we waited and tried to sleep. At 4:00 a.m. my nurse checked to see if anything had changed since our arrival and it had! I was dilated two centimeters and 50% effaced and with little to no pain at all! Then half of a cytotec pill was inserted vaginally to complete the ripening. I went back to sleep. At 8:00 a.m. my doctor stopped in to check our progress (four centimeters and 90% effaced) and to break my water. He was going to start pitocin at that point too; however, a large number of women decided to walk in off the street nine centimeters dilated (and this is no exaggeration...15 babies were delivered the day Molly was born. And I don't mean during the 24 hours of a day, I mean between the hours of six a.m. and one p.m.) so for my safety and their lack of staff on hand we waited...as much as my body would wait anyway. About five minutes after my water broke the "real" contractions kicked in...not too terrible, but not very nice either...for a while and then they were really not nice. I was ever so glad to see the anesthesiologist for about a minute and a half until he inserted the catheter into a vein instead of where ever he was supposed to insert it. I began shaking uncontrollably and my heart began to race...all the while having extremely unpleasant contractions and being told to sit very still. Oy. Once he got everything back under control and reinserted the catheter correctly the pain medicine only numbed the left side of my body. Again, oy. I will tell you this, though, half of a very painful contraction is better than a full one. Eventually the pain medicine worked its way over to the right side of my body and I took a lovely nap. Around noon I woke up to crazy pressure and odd gushes of fluid. I buzzed the nurses station to let them know and was told they would tell my nurse. By 12:30 every 90 seconds or so the pressure (a.k.a. Molly's head) would come so I buzzed the nurses station again and informed them that the baby was going to take care of things herself if we didn't do something quick. My nurse came in, checked me, ran to call my doctor (whose office is across the parking lot from the hospital) and after a blur of the bed being dismantled, lights coming out of the ceiling and stirrups being set up I started pushing. I pushed through three contractions and out she came. She did quite a number on me too. It took my doctor longer to put me back together than it did to deliver her.
She'll be six weeks old on Wednesday and it's like she's always been here. I know I say that everytime we have a baby, but it is a true statement everytime. She is an absolute dream of baby. She hardly fusses (don't get me wrong, she has her moments, but they are few and far between and usually in her carseat) and is content to hang out and look around in her crib or chair or on her totally awesome quilt (made by my totally awesome friend) when I'm doing stuff with the boys or taking care of housekeeping. From the beginning we all kept a pretty decent sleep schedule, but now it's really nice since she's zeroed in on the 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. feedings. She's a cat napper with a good long nap mid day and another early evening.
Obviously I could go on and on, but I have pandas and butterflies to be finished along with thank you notes and baby gifts to finish as well. I should have a nice bunch of photos to post Friday-ish documenting the little pockets of creative time I've had lately! See you then :).
With my high blood pressure (which was pre-existing and is completely under control without medication now...go figure) my doctor scheduled us for induction a week and a half before Molly's due date as a precautionary measure. We checked into the hospital around 10:30 p.m. on April 17th. As soon as we were settled my nurse checked to see where we were: maybe half a centimeter dilated and 0% effaced. I was given a quarter of a cytotec pill (extremely tiny) orally to ripen my cervix and penicillin in my IV for Group B Strep. Then we waited and tried to sleep. At 4:00 a.m. my nurse checked to see if anything had changed since our arrival and it had! I was dilated two centimeters and 50% effaced and with little to no pain at all! Then half of a cytotec pill was inserted vaginally to complete the ripening. I went back to sleep. At 8:00 a.m. my doctor stopped in to check our progress (four centimeters and 90% effaced) and to break my water. He was going to start pitocin at that point too; however, a large number of women decided to walk in off the street nine centimeters dilated (and this is no exaggeration...15 babies were delivered the day Molly was born. And I don't mean during the 24 hours of a day, I mean between the hours of six a.m. and one p.m.) so for my safety and their lack of staff on hand we waited...as much as my body would wait anyway. About five minutes after my water broke the "real" contractions kicked in...not too terrible, but not very nice either...for a while and then they were really not nice. I was ever so glad to see the anesthesiologist for about a minute and a half until he inserted the catheter into a vein instead of where ever he was supposed to insert it. I began shaking uncontrollably and my heart began to race...all the while having extremely unpleasant contractions and being told to sit very still. Oy. Once he got everything back under control and reinserted the catheter correctly the pain medicine only numbed the left side of my body. Again, oy. I will tell you this, though, half of a very painful contraction is better than a full one. Eventually the pain medicine worked its way over to the right side of my body and I took a lovely nap. Around noon I woke up to crazy pressure and odd gushes of fluid. I buzzed the nurses station to let them know and was told they would tell my nurse. By 12:30 every 90 seconds or so the pressure (a.k.a. Molly's head) would come so I buzzed the nurses station again and informed them that the baby was going to take care of things herself if we didn't do something quick. My nurse came in, checked me, ran to call my doctor (whose office is across the parking lot from the hospital) and after a blur of the bed being dismantled, lights coming out of the ceiling and stirrups being set up I started pushing. I pushed through three contractions and out she came. She did quite a number on me too. It took my doctor longer to put me back together than it did to deliver her.
She'll be six weeks old on Wednesday and it's like she's always been here. I know I say that everytime we have a baby, but it is a true statement everytime. She is an absolute dream of baby. She hardly fusses (don't get me wrong, she has her moments, but they are few and far between and usually in her carseat) and is content to hang out and look around in her crib or chair or on her totally awesome quilt (made by my totally awesome friend) when I'm doing stuff with the boys or taking care of housekeeping. From the beginning we all kept a pretty decent sleep schedule, but now it's really nice since she's zeroed in on the 1:30 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. feedings. She's a cat napper with a good long nap mid day and another early evening.
Obviously I could go on and on, but I have pandas and butterflies to be finished along with thank you notes and baby gifts to finish as well. I should have a nice bunch of photos to post Friday-ish documenting the little pockets of creative time I've had lately! See you then :).
posted by Amy at 11:32 AM
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