I gave birth on Friday Feb 13, to a
baby girl. Catherine Therese is her name, she was early at 37 week and
5 days, but is healthy and weighed in at 7 lbs, 7 oz. I went in to
labour around 12:23 am on Friday morning, but didn't really know it. I
thought I had to have a bowel movement and kept getting up to try to go
almost every hour until about 5 am. When I went to the bathroom at 5 am
and I wiped I had tons of bloody show. I freaked out a bit, because
despite the fact that I am a nurse, I never expected it could be that
much. I paged my midwife and immediately called my mom to ask her. She
said it sounds like you are going to have a baby soon. My midwife
called back and said I was either in labour or would likely be soon and
to time anymore "cramps" I had and call when they were 5 mins apart,
lasting a minute for an hour. So I started timing at about 6:30 am.
From 6:30 to 7:30 am they were about 5 minutes and lasting 1 minute
each. My contractions the entire labour were in my lower back and
around the bottom of my belly. So I paged my midwife back. She said
that because I was coping so well and planning on staying home as long
as possible to just keep doing what I was doing and call when they were
getting hard to talk through. She they called me back 30 minutes later to
ask where I had done my Group B Strep testing because they still didn't
have the results. So I told her and she set off to get the results. By
about 1 pm, the contractions were getting much closer together and were
much more uncomfortable, so again I paged my midwife. She called back
and said she had 1 more clinic appointment that she would like to do
and that she would be there around 2, 2:30 pm, if I thought I could
manage until then. I said yes. She came and assessed me at 2:30 pm and
I was already 4 cm dilated and in active labour. I was shocked I
thought the pains would be much worse at this point. So she stayed and
I walked around the block with DH a few times. From 5 to 6 pm I tried
to get a little rest since I really hadn't slept that previous night,
but I gave up because the contractions were way worse laying down. My
midwife rechecked me at 6:30 pm and said before she checked me that she
would like to see me at about 6 cm, because they want to see you
progress at least 0.5 cm per hour. So when she checked me and said
"wow", I asked wow good or wow bad. She then said well if you want to
give birth in the hospital we need to leave now because you are 9 cm
dilated. I was even more shocked because although the contractions were
tough to get through, I still didn't find them to be as painful as I
have heard them described at this point. The HypnoBirthing was really
working. So we left for the hospital after getting stuff together. We
arrived and were in our labour room around 7:20 pm. I kept labouring
like I had been at home and my midwife rechecked me at 8:20 pm. I was
still 9 cm, but my cervical lip was completely gone and the baby had
come down a lot more. My membranes were bulging and she suggested that
we break my waters and speed things along. The first two contractions
after my water broke were horrible. She offered for me to go in the
birthing tub or use laughing gas at this point. I chose the tub because
I wanted to try to do the whole labour natural. The tub helped greatly
and I stayed in for about an hour at the point my midwife suggested we
go back to the room to recheck where I was and go from there. I was
finally at 10 cm dilated, which I had already suspected because I was
feeling tons of pressure and was using the birth breaths I learned in
HypnoBirthing while I was in the tub. I pushed for just under an hour
trying a few different push positions. Finally I ended up on my side on
the bed with my top leg up. The pushing was the hardest part and all I
kept saying was I want it out now, is it over yet? Finally my midwife
said you have about 5 to 10 minutes and the baby will be out. I was so
happy to hear that and within the next two contractions, about 3 minutes,
her head was out. My midwife said to stop pushing and pant, but I was
having a hard time not pushing. She then realized that the cord was
wrapped twice around the babies neck and said push hard now, we need to
get her out. One hard push and a little help from my midwife, the baby
finally came out. They brought the baby right up to my chest, but had
it covered with a blanket to rub it so it would cry more. Finally after
a few minutes they took the baby over to the warmer to assess it better
and suction out its nose and mouth because it was having a hard time
crying. I still didn't know the sex at this point, so I told Jeff to go
and look and find out. He said it was a girl, we looked at each other
thought of the two girls names we had picked out and decided on
Catherine Therese. He started crying at this point too. They brought
her back over to me, while still checking her and rubbing her. My
midwife said that on my next contractions to try to push down the
placenta. She used a little bit on pressure on the cord and it came out
with one push. Following that was a huge gush of liquid, it almost felt
like my water had broke again. It wasn't -- I was bleeding, so I had to
get the IM shot of oxytocin to help stop the bleeding. The placenta was
intact, so she didn't think I was bleeding because of that. It appeared
as though my uterus wasn't contracting properly. I also had a large rip
inside my vagina. So they started massaging my uterus from the outside
and the bleeding slowed down, but didn't stop. My midwife said she
would have to repair the rip and would freeze me first. Boy did the
stitches still hurt, more than even the contractions. Once she finally
got all 12 stitches in the bleeding seemed much better. Things settled.
I was oozing a bit still but only when I moved around in the bed and
while breast feeding, which is normal. She then said that she wanted to
keep me over night because I had lost about 500 ml of blood and she
want to watch me more closely. I agreed and we made plans for Jeff to
go home because there were only semi-private rooms available. My mom
and sister came to get Jeff to take him home and meet the baby and I
was preparing to go to the ward. My midwife asked if I felt like I
needed to use the washroom. I said I would try and she helped me to the
washroom. I went slowly, but it didn't feel as bad as I thought it
would. I got up to wash my hands and felt like I was going to be sick,
I asked her if that was normal. She said its ok as long as I didn't
feel like I was going to faint, I said no, turned around and said now I
feel faint and fainted right in to her. I woke up on the floor of the
bathroom with three midwives around me talking to me asking me how I
was and propping my head up with pillows. They check my blood pressure
which was still great and helped me up and back in to the bed, they
checked the pad I was wearing and there was a plum size clot sitting on
it. They then started and IV and gave me more oxytocin in the IV to
stop the bleeding. I went over to the floor, fed Catherine again and
went to sleep. I got up at around 7:30 am to go pee because by then I
had had over a liter of fluid in via my IV and my bladder was full. The
bleeding seemed to be much better then and I went back to bed until
8:30 am. I got up to use the washroom again then and had hardly and
bleeding. I ate breakfast and fed Catherine again and waited until I
could call DH (when we left the hospital he said not to call until
after 10 am, so he could get a little sleep), so at 10:30 am I finally
called and said I should be coming home I was just waiting for my
midwife to come back and discharge me. He came at around 11:30 am and
my midwife came at around 12. She was very happy with me and the baby
and sent us on our way.
The bleeding is very minimal now and
even though I have passed another plum sized, I feel really good. They
finally got the results of my Group B Strep test and I was positive. I
showed no signs of infection and the baby has also been fine. They
usually test their blood cell counts at 4 and 12 hours post delivery
with Group B Strep unknown patients or patients who have not been able
to have the antibiotics in 4 hours before delivery that are positive.
We were almost at 20 hours post when she found out. So we are just
watching her really closely. She's been fine, no temperature, increased
breathing or irritability, so for now we aren't going to do anything
other than watch and wait. If she shows any signs or symptoms of
infection I have to get her to the hospital ASAP, but I'm not too
worried being a pediatric nurse.
She's breast feeding really
well now that we're getting the latch. She looks just like Jeff and has
a full head of brown curly hair.
