On March 13th of 1995 I felt some intense pressure and tried to ignore it. No contractions just pressure. I went through my day and at one point mentioned to Jason that I probably should get checked. That night I finally called the doctor and went in to be checked. I was a 4 and they were showing contractions on the monitor so they kept me. I progressed to a 7-8 and the entire staff thought I was in labor for I was showing serious signs of that. I began to be asked questions about my due date and if I was really 6 weeks early and then the stories on what may happen to my baby since he was so early. I was told to relax and wait for the doctor. The doctor took forever to get there and when he finally did he said I was dilated to a 7 and all pressure and contractions had stopped,and he didn't want to break my water because I was 6 weeks early so he wanted to see if the baby would wait a few more hours. My baby did wait. I slept all night and was surprised it was morning when I woke.
The morning of March 14th, I was checked again and the doctor said I was back to a 3-4 dilation. I can't remember what he called this, but he said it's weird to go back and forth and puts a lot of pressure on the baby. By the night of March 14th I had dilated to an 8 again and was given shots for the lung development. I was told to just wait and relax. I was checked multiple times and never felt the pressure again that I did on March 13th.
March 15th I woke up that morning and was checked again. This time I was a 3 once again. Weird. The doctor said he only sees this super rarely and had decided that he would break my water sometime that afternoon if I did progress to an 8 again.
I was so confused at this change in dilation backwards and forwards. The doctor explained it like this:
When the baby is putting pressure on the cervix, you dilate, when the baby decides to not put pressure on the cervix you shrink in dilation. Weird and very rare, but it happened to me.
At around 6:55 p.m. my doctor broke my water. The pains were enormous and I wanted an epidural, but it was much too late for now I was ready to push almost instantly. I asked for nubain and they were dragging their feet getting it to me. They finally brought in the nubain while I was pushing for the second time. Daniel flew out and just when he did come out the nebain took affect and I felt super sleepy. Basically I did this labor without drugs because they didn't take affect until after he was out. I didn't realize how close I was.
They set Daniel on my chest and I got to hold him for a little bit when the hospital staff realized he needed to be in the NICU. They took him away because he couldn't hold his temperature and he couldn't suck and they were worried about his lungs.
Turns out his lungs were GREAT. However he spent 10 days in the NICU because he couldn't hold his temperature and he couldn't suck so he wouldn't nurse. He was gavage fed through a tube. Finally after 10 days he got his sucking reflex and we were able to take him home.
Daniel was 6 pounds 8 ounces and 19 inches long. He never did nurse. I had to pump milk for him for over 6 weeks and feed him with a bottle.
Daniel ended up thriving as a baby, he developed right on schedule and became a fat baby and oh so cute. Here is a picture of him taken in October at a race we talked him into doing with the family. I need more pictures of him, but as a teen doesn't like to be in pictures.
1 comment:
Love birth stories!
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