Mikayla's Birth Story - Hospital Birth With Meds

Kirsten over at GreenStyleMom is looking for birth stories. So here is Mikayla's birth story.

In wee early morning hours on May 6, 2005 I woke up with an intense pain in my back, but I just rolled over and fell back to sleep. This went on until about 4am when I really woke and started to wonder why does my back hurt so bad? I realized that I must be in labor but I am only 37 1/2 weeks so it is probably Braxton Hixs. The pain in my back was pretty bad so I got up and took a bath. I have heard that sometimes a bath will help. Well it didn't and I was still in denial so when 7am rolled around I took a shower and got ready for work. Hubby and I headed to work thinking since I was so early the contractions will stop.

At work I was attempting to concentrate and get some work done but it was hard. The contractions were coming about every 5 minutes or so. I called the doctor and he said that the only way know for sure was to come in and he would examine me. I went to the doctors about 2:30pm and he said, yup you are in labor and have already dilated 3 cm.

Hubby and I headed home - and of course the nesting set it. I HAD to clean the house because I did not want to come home with a brand new baby and a dirty house. I took another bath around 6:30 or so in order to ease the pain of the contractions. The doctor called while I was in the tub and wanted to see how I was doing. He asked me to head to the hospital at 7:30 to get checked out and see how far along I was. By the time I got out of tub I was ready for an epidural, the contractions were getting stronger and I had been in labor since 4am and I was over it!

At the hospital they did the worse thing in the world for a woman in labor they made me sit in a bed and not move for over 30 minutes while they hooked me up to monitor my contractions. They also examined me and found out that I had only progressed to 4 cm since 2:30 that afternoon. The nurse was very nice but she would not give me drugs and she sent me home. She said to come back when the contractions got worse or if I saw any blood.

Joe and I headed home about 8pm or so. We grabbed a quick bit at McDonald's and went home to relax. The nurse actually gave me a sleeping pill to help me relax a bit because she knew I had been up since 4am. What was she thinking???? I was having horrible contractions every 2-3 minutes - Did she really think I could sleep??? At 9pm I went to the bathroom and there was a very small amount of blood and I felt the contractions and really sky-rocketed so we headed back to the hospital.

Once we arrived back at the hospital I promptly went to the bathroom and threw up and the nurse was so excited. She new that I was in the transition stage, just where she wanted me. She made me get back into that bed and go through the whole monitoring of the contractions again. I asked for the epidural again and she said she work on getting that for me. But she had to get my doctor and the epidural doctor to the hospital first. During this time I was watching the clock with every contraction. I would have about 15 seconds of peace, then 30 seconds of horrible shivering, then the contraction and then the process would start all over again.

At this point it is more Hubby's memory than mine - my doctor arrived before then epidural doctor (funny because my doctor lives 30 minutes from the hospital and the other doctor was only a few minutes away from the hospital). My doctor was getting very upset and yelling at the epidural doctor because if I did not get that epidural in they I was going to have this baby with nothing.

Finally they got the epidural in. It took a few tries. The first time they tried to have me sit up, Mikayla's heart rate dropped and they had me lay back down. Second time they were able to get it in and I finally started to relax and enjoy this. Before I knew it, it was time to push.

I noticed that they were watching Mikayla's heart rate pretty close but were not saying anything about it. While I was pushing the doctor was using a manual vacuum on Mikayla's head to help her out. Hubby had one job during the pushing stage. To put his hands on my belly and when he felt me having a contraction to tell me to push. I just had the epidural and I could not feel anything. Hubby was too busy laughing and joking with the doctor to do his job. But after 20 minutes of pushing, Mikayla arrived at 12:17am on May 7, 2005. She had the cord wrapped around her neck once and that is why her heart rate had dropped during labor. The doctor did say that she was so low in the birth canal that if he was really worried about her he would have just reached up and grabbed her (ouch!)

Mikayla weighed in at 5 pounds 3 ounces and 18.5 inches long. She had a head of black hair which eventually either fell out or turned to her current dirty blond almost brown hair.

We stayed a total of 2 nights in the hospital and we loved our night nurse that helped deliver Mikayla. After we headed home and begin the journey of parents.

As most of you know our second little girl is due on February 8th and I will post that birth story when she is born.