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Birth Story; January 23, 2008
2008-01-29, 2:22 p.m.

I definitely, definitely owe a couple of entries, don't I?

I'm not sure I'm up to the birth story entry yet, though I don't think it'll be very long or complicated to get through. Aww, heck.. Why not?

I guess I should go back before the beginning of it all to the weekend before. My last day of work before Martin Luther King Day was marred by the return of what I thought was my old cold with the nasty cough that I'd been fighting all through December. Additionally, I was having really bad heart palpitations and was finding it hard to concentrate on anything. I got the go ahead on three fronts (my boss, my doctor and the occupational health nurse on duty) to go home early that day. Over the next 24 hours, my fever spiked to over 102, my cough got worse and worse and my palpitations refused to let up. I became worried for the baby because I knew how much stress it was all taking on my own body. I ended up calling the doctor and going to the hospital. The long and short of that was that they didn't have any good idea why I had such a high fever because I wasn't obviously sick yet and so they admitted me. I ended up spending 2 nights, had an echocardiogram (which I never got the results from, so it must've been normal) and was ultimately diagnosed with Influenza A (Damn me for not getting a flu shot!). Jeff also came down with the flu and Jack ended up with a mild case as well. We're all still coughing 10 days later.

So I got sent home once they sorted me out and was given a prescription for something to shorten the duration of the symptoms. Terrific. Jack stayed with my Dad for an additional night so Jeff and I could try to recover, but I felt so guilty about sending him away that I had to have him back for Tuesday night. At that point we weren't sure if he had the flu yet because his symptoms were so mild so I was torn between my guilt at sending him away and my guilt for almost definitely infecting him with the flu just to satisfy my other guilt (does that make sense?).

So Tuesday night Jeff slept in Jack's room on the floor so that I could get some sleep in our bed without having to worry about Jack getting up several times through the night and coming in to wake us up. As it was, Jack slept fine up until I had to disturb them--even with the flu. About 1 AM I woke up having some slightly stronger contractions than what I normally have, but they still weren't painful and they were too close together for me to think I was in labor. After all, labor that starts on it's own is supposed to be a gradual process, right? I wasn't sure what was going on, but I wasn't too concerned. I got up to use the bathroom and when I got back in bed, I felt the unmistakable sudden burst of wetness under me. I stood up, and there was no denying it. My water broke. I went back into the bathroom and to my further surprise (well, kind of--I was afraid that this was the case due to my sickness), the fluid was green-brown in color. Meconium... I had felt the baby move earlier that night, but now there was nothing and I was really afraid for her for quite a while. I'd read so many things about how the instances of unexplained stillbirth after week 39 are significantly higher in women who have had a previous C-section and I'd been stressing out about that for the past few weeks. I really wanted to go into labor before week 39, just to not have to worry abou it. That, and in my recent hospital stay there was some evidence that the placenta may have been wearing out because the baby's heart rate dropped a few times with my weak braxton-hicks contractions. I had plently of cause to be alarmed.

So, I got Jeff up, and accidentally Jack as well, called my dad to come over and called the doctor for the go ahead to go back to the hospital. By about 2 AM we were finally under way and I was already having strong, painful contractions that were about 3 minutes apart. So much for a gradual onset of labor... When I got to the hospital I was only dialated to 3 cm, which was so disappointing to me considering how much pain I was in and how much I was contracting. I thought I might try going without the epidural, but there was just no way. As soon as they would give it to me, I took it and I had them boost the dose twice (my epi wore off during my C-section with Jack--I was not about to have that happen again). After what seemed like hours (but was probably only 20 minutes or so), I finally felt better. When they checked me around 05:30, I was 9-10 cm dialated, just waiting for a little bit of my posterior cervix to disappear. I also feel the need to mention that I had the "labor shakes" BAD all through this time. Jeff was pretty worried about my shivering through all of that, but once I hit the full 10 cm, it went away. By 6 or 06:30, I was there. There isn't much after that; I sat up for about another 40 minutes, trying to get the baby to come down as much as possible before I began to push. I pushed for about an hour off and on at the nurses' conveniences and Rowyn was born at 08:22.

It took them about an hour to clean her up and make sure her lungs were clear of any meconium. Once again they suspected infection in both of us, so I got the obligatory IV antibiotics and they put an IV in her and took blood cultures. Finally around 09:30, I was able to hold her.

And the rest is history. Everything about the hospital stay was pretty standard and she is a wonderful little angel baby. She doesn't care much for her sponge baths or diapering, but besides that, she doesn't cry much--only a little bit when she's ready to eat.

Look for future entries regarding recovery, C-section vs. VBAC, breastfeeding and Jack's stay with his grandparents... Hopefully I'll get to it all.



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