Siempre Mire Arriba

I was scheduled to be induced Thursday at 6:15 in the morning. I definitely didn't want to be induced because of fears of pitocin. After talking with my friend who used to be a midwife, I decided to try drinking castor oil to see if it would get labor started for me. Wednesday morning I went to my midwife and she stripped my membranes again. At that point I was about 2 centimeters and 50% effaced. (btw I'm not leaving any gory details out so if you don't want to know, don't read :) ) I went to walmart afterwards to get a few things. Then I came home and went for a long walk. I wasn't feeling any contractions at this point and started gearing myself up for some castor oil.

I called Lynn, who got her labor started using a certain concoction. So at 1pm I drank 1 ounce of vodka, 1 ounce of castor oil, and 1 ounce of crystal light. (hence the pictures in my previous post) It called for orange juice, but I can't drink that with my sugar free diet. I mixed it all together as well as I could and tried to get it down relatively fast. Well after about ten minutes nursing my cocktail I threw it up. Yuck! Since it pretty much all came back up, I drank another dose of it. But this time it stayed down. I was so glad. After the combination of alcohol and a long walk I needed a nap and layed down for an hour or so. Then I took another dose of it (this time without the vodka) and things seemed to start happening. That is sitting on the toilet off and on for the next couple of hours and having some cramping and some minor contractions.

It was kind of hard to tell between contractions and my stomach sickness from the castor oil. But by 6 pm we knew that I was definitely in labor as my contractions were a minute long and 4-5 minutes apart. We called my midwife around 8pm and she said it was up to us when to come in. I was so paranoid about going too early since we went back and forth from the hospital with Caleb's labor 3 times. But Bob reminded me that we weren't going to be coming home if it wasn't "time" because they'd just keep us and induce in the morning if for some reason things would stop or slow down.

We got to the hospital about 8:30 or 9 and Dave came over to be at the house with Caleb (he was asleep already; another answered prayer that things would work well timing wise with Caleb, he went to sleep for the night just when contractions were getting harder) My parents arrived at the hospital about an hour after we did. This was another prayer answered as I really wanted my mom here for the delivery, but they live 8 hours away. They were already on the road because I was to be induced in the morning. So that worked out great!

I was 4 centimeters when I got to the hospital and decided to walk the halls for a while, spending some time in the bed being monitored. My midwfe was great, there for me, but also gave us time to ourselves, which I liked. I tried different things to relax, nice music, the whirlpool tub, walking, birthing ball etc. I went into this birth thinking I'd probably get an epidural but wanted to give it a try without one. When I had Caleb I was dead set against it, but was so exhausted I couldn't do it anymore. But this time my main goal was avoiding a c-section and so I figured that if I made it to 7 or 8 centimeters and got an epidural that risk would drop significantly. So I labored through the night and got to 7.5 centimeters. I physically knew that I still had energy to relax (unlike Caleb's labor) but I just didn't want to anymore. I was also really scared of the pains of transition and pushing. So I got the epidural.

One common misconception about them is that once you say you want it you get it right away. Not true. I had to wait through a bag and a half of IV fluids. For some reason the fluids were going really slowly, this was so frustrating. But I got the epidural about 5 am and as you know Alice was born at 5:48 am. So once I had it I progressed very quickly.

Its weird, with both my labors when I got to about 6-7 centimeters my contractions start to spread out a lot. (like 4-5 minutes apart) So when it came time to push, they were literally standing around waiting for another contraction to come. I pushed through 2 contractions and then my midwife, Laure, had me push when I wasn't having one. It didn't quite register at the time, but afterwards she told me Alice's heart rate was dropping and we didn't have the time to wait for another one.

I had a mirror this time so I could watch Alice come out. That may sound gross to some of you, but it was the most amazing thing! I'll never forget getting to see her be born. Once her head was out we saw why her heart rate was dropping, the cord was tight around her neck. Laure quickly clamped it and still had Bob cut the cord which was cool. But it was so close to her neck, I was a little nervous. Then Bob was able to catch the rest of her coming out. It was great! She was briefly put on my tummy, but since she still wasn't crying and looked a bit stunned and pale they took her over to the warmer to stimulate her into crying. It took about 2-3 minutes but when I heard her cry it was just incredible. I couldn't see her from where I was but hearing her, well I can't describe it.

When the placenta was delivered Laure said it had calcifications (which means it had started to break down) and she had to go in to retrieve membranes that were left behind inside of me. She was literally up to her elbow sweeping my uterus out (too much info for ya?). She said at the time I should be very very glad that I had an epidural as that would have been extremely painful without one. I could tell that, as I was in pain having to breath through it WITH the epidural. A friend of mine said she has had friends who said that process of retrieving membranes was more painful for them than labor was. Its dangerous to not get it all so they have to be really thorough. Laure also said she had never pulled so many membranes out of someone before. Anyway, I was super thankful I didn't have to go through that without pain medicine.

After about 10 minutes they brought Alice over to me and it was just amazing! I remember being so surprised that she didn't look much like Caleb at all. It didn't help that she was so pale at the time from delivery. But she was still so beautiful and precious. She nursed one side within 30 minutes of delivery and stayed on for 20 minutes! What a difference from Caleb. She really nursed well in the hospital and continues to do so well. I'm so thankful for that. You have to see the one week pictures on Bob's blog of Caleb and Alice and look at the huge difference in their cheeks. Caleb was just so much skinnier. Seeing those big cheeks on my baby girl is so comforting to this mama. Thanks to all for praying that nursing goes well. Please continue to pray as I'm having a lot of trouble with my back and fibro seems to be returning like it did after Caleb was born. Though overall things are just so much less stressful than when Caleb was born. I'm really enjoying Alice, time with her is so precious! Though I do miss Caleb, but we'll adjust eventually.

Well I think this is my longest post ever. If you're still reading, I'm impressed! Hopefully more posts to come, count on Bob's blog for lots of cute pictures etc. My parents left yesterday afternoon and Bob's come this evening. Can't wait for them to meet Alice. What a sweetie she is.