Friday, October 30, 2009
Oct.30.2008
I thought this will be great to put on Remy's blog. It described my birthing experience in detail. Good to share!
-----------------Oct 30, 2008 --------------------------------------
Hi,
Here are some photos of our new baby, Remy. One group of photos was taken within 2 days of his birth. The other group has photos from the 3rd day through today. I am still recovering from labor and taking care of Remy so it has been hard to get the chance to e-mail photos or a birth annoucement.
Remy was born on Oct 30, 00:38 am. The intense labor took more than 24 hours! My water broke on Oct 24 when I was at my Doctor's office for a "routine" prenatal check up. Since my water leaked only a little and, after many tests, there were no signs of contractions, my Doctor let me go home to rest. Every day, after that, I had to go to hospital for a few hours of fetal monitoring. Also, I was frequently taking my temperature to make sure that I did not have any infection. I had some contractions Friday night but they went away after a couple of hours.
On Saturday and Monday nights, I had contractions for a couple of hours. Each time, it was more and more intense. However, by 4 or 5 am, they would go away.
Oct 28, Tuesday, I had bad contractions again around 8:00 pm. Ira and I went for a walk in the neighborhood because we'd been told that this could help get labor fully started. However, the time between contractions stayed at about 15 minutes which was still too far apart to go to the hospital. As the evening turned to morning, the gap between contractions was getting shorter. By 2:00 am, it was down to about 7 minutes.
We started to get everything ready to go while waiting for the interval to get down to 5 minutes. We left home at around 5 o'clock when the gap had shrunken to just 6 minutes. The pain from the contractions was very bad so Ira hoped that the hospital could help, perhaps with some medicine.
When we arrived at the Birthing Center, there were many cars in the parking lot. Two nurses quickly settled us in to one of the birthing rooms and attached two monitors. One to measure my contractions; the other to check Remy's heartbeat. Dr. Maya showed up after 8:00 in the morning to check me out. She told me that my cervix had opened to 4 cm and the wall was 90% thinned out(effaced). She could feel the top of Remy's head. She estimated that it might take an hour for each additional centimeter so that by 2 PM I might be fully dilated.
By 4 PM, it was clear that I was not progressing. Dr. Maya suggested that they start administering Pitocin(Oxytocin) to give me contractions. Ira did not want to do this as he believes in "natural" child birth. But the 3 doctors there, were nearly insistent because they were worried that I might get an infection after the water breaking and being examined to see how dilated I was. Ira was also worried because I was becoming exhausted after being in labor, on and off, for nearly 5 days and not getting much sleep. They agreed to adminster the Pitocin along with a sedative. The labor nurse, Maggie, inserted an IV in my arm and they started the drugs immediately along with some saline to prevent dehydration. I feel asleep almost immediately. When I awoke, Dr. Maya, again examined me, and said I had progressed to about 5.5 cm. They told me, if I could get to 6 cm, it should go very fast, so they started the drugs again. This time I did not get as much rest. In fact, as the sedative wore off, the pain became unbearable. All the childbirth class preparation, we had done, was not enough to deal with the reality of the contractions. The nurses asked if we'd like the assistance of a "doula", a non-medical person who has much experience in assistance women with their birth experience. We agreed and a very patient, experienced, women, Dana was at the hospital within 20 minutes.
By this time, I was sitting on the toilet as this was the only place I could go where I could stand the pain. I had gone there from the bed, dragging my IV hookup behind me. The Pitocin was still attached and had been increased but the sedative had been removed because it might have a bad effect on Remy. Dana led me through about 45 minutes of breathing and relaxing exercises that helped me get through this intense period of time. The nurses kept asking me to rate my pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Mine was 11! Then, at one point, I told Dana that I felt like "pushing". No one thought it would be good to give birth on the toilet so I was led back to the bed, Ira pushing the IV after me. The midwife, Jennifer, checked me. I was fully dilated. The magic number. 10 cm!!! They told me I could push. It was about 10 PM.
First I pushed in the conventional position lying on my back on the special birthing bed. I didn't make a lot of progress like this. Then I tried a squatting position with a special bar across the bed to hold on to. We couldn't quite get that set-up to work right. Then the nurses had me turn around and put my arms over the back of the bed. This was a great position and I made a lot of progress. At this point, I was not feeling the pain. It was there but it was kind of like an out of body experience. All I cared about was pushing and all my energy was focused on getting Remy out into the world. But my arms became sore, even bruised, from hanging over the back of the bed, so I changed positions again to be on my back. It was nearly midnight.
The nurses even brought out a mirror so I could see the top of Remy's head coming out of my vagina. I in turn asked them to cheer for me when I did something that made progress. I was very focused and deliberate at this point. Suddenly, I made one push and everyone said, great Stephanie, you're almost there. With each contraction, Remy's head was appearing and then slipping back inside. Now he was stuck there -- or so I'm told. Each push after this, moved him a little further along. Finally, with one big push, he came out. The nurses wiped him off and put him on my chest and I had my baby at last. It was 12:38 am.
After birth, I nursed Remy with my first milk, a honey thick liquid called Colostrum which contains important nutrition for the baby. After a day or two, Remy became very irritable and cried a lot. Ira said that this was not normal. On Sunday, we took him to the after hours clinic in Davis, next to the Birthing Center, and were seen by Dr. Horta - a very gentle and understanding Doctor and mother. Remy had lost over a pound of weight since birth. Dr. Horta said he was dehydrated and we should supplement him with formula. Luckily, Similac, had sent us two large cans of their advanced formula so we started feeding him as soon as we got home. This did the trick. Remy became far less irritable, stopped crying for no reason at all, and started to gain weight rapidly. You might say he looks pudgy now.
Best & love
stephanie
-----------------Oct 30, 2008 --------------------------------------
Hi,
Here are some photos of our new baby, Remy. One group of photos was taken within 2 days of his birth. The other group has photos from the 3rd day through today. I am still recovering from labor and taking care of Remy so it has been hard to get the chance to e-mail photos or a birth annoucement.
Remy was born on Oct 30, 00:38 am. The intense labor took more than 24 hours! My water broke on Oct 24 when I was at my Doctor's office for a "routine" prenatal check up. Since my water leaked only a little and, after many tests, there were no signs of contractions, my Doctor let me go home to rest. Every day, after that, I had to go to hospital for a few hours of fetal monitoring. Also, I was frequently taking my temperature to make sure that I did not have any infection. I had some contractions Friday night but they went away after a couple of hours.
On Saturday and Monday nights, I had contractions for a couple of hours. Each time, it was more and more intense. However, by 4 or 5 am, they would go away.
Oct 28, Tuesday, I had bad contractions again around 8:00 pm. Ira and I went for a walk in the neighborhood because we'd been told that this could help get labor fully started. However, the time between contractions stayed at about 15 minutes which was still too far apart to go to the hospital. As the evening turned to morning, the gap between contractions was getting shorter. By 2:00 am, it was down to about 7 minutes.
We started to get everything ready to go while waiting for the interval to get down to 5 minutes. We left home at around 5 o'clock when the gap had shrunken to just 6 minutes. The pain from the contractions was very bad so Ira hoped that the hospital could help, perhaps with some medicine.
When we arrived at the Birthing Center, there were many cars in the parking lot. Two nurses quickly settled us in to one of the birthing rooms and attached two monitors. One to measure my contractions; the other to check Remy's heartbeat. Dr. Maya showed up after 8:00 in the morning to check me out. She told me that my cervix had opened to 4 cm and the wall was 90% thinned out(effaced). She could feel the top of Remy's head. She estimated that it might take an hour for each additional centimeter so that by 2 PM I might be fully dilated.
By 4 PM, it was clear that I was not progressing. Dr. Maya suggested that they start administering Pitocin(Oxytocin) to give me contractions. Ira did not want to do this as he believes in "natural" child birth. But the 3 doctors there, were nearly insistent because they were worried that I might get an infection after the water breaking and being examined to see how dilated I was. Ira was also worried because I was becoming exhausted after being in labor, on and off, for nearly 5 days and not getting much sleep. They agreed to adminster the Pitocin along with a sedative. The labor nurse, Maggie, inserted an IV in my arm and they started the drugs immediately along with some saline to prevent dehydration. I feel asleep almost immediately. When I awoke, Dr. Maya, again examined me, and said I had progressed to about 5.5 cm. They told me, if I could get to 6 cm, it should go very fast, so they started the drugs again. This time I did not get as much rest. In fact, as the sedative wore off, the pain became unbearable. All the childbirth class preparation, we had done, was not enough to deal with the reality of the contractions. The nurses asked if we'd like the assistance of a "doula", a non-medical person who has much experience in assistance women with their birth experience. We agreed and a very patient, experienced, women, Dana was at the hospital within 20 minutes.
By this time, I was sitting on the toilet as this was the only place I could go where I could stand the pain. I had gone there from the bed, dragging my IV hookup behind me. The Pitocin was still attached and had been increased but the sedative had been removed because it might have a bad effect on Remy. Dana led me through about 45 minutes of breathing and relaxing exercises that helped me get through this intense period of time. The nurses kept asking me to rate my pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Mine was 11! Then, at one point, I told Dana that I felt like "pushing". No one thought it would be good to give birth on the toilet so I was led back to the bed, Ira pushing the IV after me. The midwife, Jennifer, checked me. I was fully dilated. The magic number. 10 cm!!! They told me I could push. It was about 10 PM.
First I pushed in the conventional position lying on my back on the special birthing bed. I didn't make a lot of progress like this. Then I tried a squatting position with a special bar across the bed to hold on to. We couldn't quite get that set-up to work right. Then the nurses had me turn around and put my arms over the back of the bed. This was a great position and I made a lot of progress. At this point, I was not feeling the pain. It was there but it was kind of like an out of body experience. All I cared about was pushing and all my energy was focused on getting Remy out into the world. But my arms became sore, even bruised, from hanging over the back of the bed, so I changed positions again to be on my back. It was nearly midnight.
The nurses even brought out a mirror so I could see the top of Remy's head coming out of my vagina. I in turn asked them to cheer for me when I did something that made progress. I was very focused and deliberate at this point. Suddenly, I made one push and everyone said, great Stephanie, you're almost there. With each contraction, Remy's head was appearing and then slipping back inside. Now he was stuck there -- or so I'm told. Each push after this, moved him a little further along. Finally, with one big push, he came out. The nurses wiped him off and put him on my chest and I had my baby at last. It was 12:38 am.
After birth, I nursed Remy with my first milk, a honey thick liquid called Colostrum which contains important nutrition for the baby. After a day or two, Remy became very irritable and cried a lot. Ira said that this was not normal. On Sunday, we took him to the after hours clinic in Davis, next to the Birthing Center, and were seen by Dr. Horta - a very gentle and understanding Doctor and mother. Remy had lost over a pound of weight since birth. Dr. Horta said he was dehydrated and we should supplement him with formula. Luckily, Similac, had sent us two large cans of their advanced formula so we started feeding him as soon as we got home. This did the trick. Remy became far less irritable, stopped crying for no reason at all, and started to gain weight rapidly. You might say he looks pudgy now.
Best & love
stephanie
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
