So the second time around I scheduled the week before I was due off of work, mostly so i wouldn't be tempted to go to the hospital prematurely just to get out of work. This time I went with a 'midwife' (CNM). She was good and I liked her, but I honestly waited longer for her appointments than the ones with a doctor. (Honestly as longs as two and half hours one time). She didn't seem quite so paranoid and make me take every test and precaution possible, which was nice. Due to the fact that I had already had one healthy delivery, that makes sense, though. I had 90% made up my mind not to get an epidural and really wanted to try it naturally. Didn't want to use Pitocin, either.
The night before the due date we were hiking around at about 8:30 pm and i was feeling my stomach flex every five minutes, not painful, though. Because we were going to have to leave Cowboy with a neighbor, we thought it would be more polite to drop him off then, than at 3 in the morning. So we went ahead and dropped him off at our friends and then took our time and headed over to the hospital, checking in around 10:30 p.m. I was told I was dilated to a 7! Within a half hour my midwife said I was a 9 and then broke my water. Then it started to hurt - a TON, plus she told me that I was actually only a 7, she could tell better after she broke the water. Well with that 2cm of wind leaving my sail, and being in more pain than I had ever been in my life i asked for an epidural. A nurse had me stand up and then baby came down and, did I mention contractions REALLY HURT - they forced me back on the table (Ouch! that hurt the lower back a LOT) and I pushed once - Hubby is silently freaking out because he can see our daughter's head and there is not a nurse or doctor in the room. The nurse had ran out to grab another doctor - my midwife had run over to the other hospital to deliver another baby. A doctor I had never met runs in, puts on gloves, I push a second time and he catches my daughter, then plops her straight onto my lap (I love that!). I get to hold her and nurse her and love her and it was awesome (and such a relief to be done!) By now it was midnight - yes, an hour and a half after we checked in 'early', or so I thought. Oh, and the epidural doctor had come in to give me the epidural right about the time Lady was crowning, so he said "uh, never mind" and walked back out.
(Just look at that fat belly! She was a full two pounds heavier than her 'big' brother,
weighing in at 9 pounds 4 ounces).
Lady nursed like a pro right away, was a very content, peaceful baby. Cowboy 'wasn't gaining enough weight' the first week of his life and took a couple days to really nurse. Lady was sleeping through the night in less than a month. Cowboy only took 2 months. I know, where did I get these perfect children, right? So they were both very happy, content babies - the delivery itself affected maybe the first week of their life. But who knows, Cowboy definitely had a lot more sleeping problems than Lady and 'separation' problems even until now, three years later.
What i would change...and will with the next birth: Do not labor while lying on my back, possibly not get my water broken, plan for a natural birth...at home
Less than 24 hours after finding out I was pregnant, I asked my sister-in-law (who already had two children), "Now what do I do?" This illustrates pretty well how clueless I was on the whole birth thing. I did exactly what she suggested, made an appointment with her doctor and went to this doctor every four weeks until Cowboy was born. I read most of one book, "What to Expect When You are Expecting", lent to me be another sister-in-law, and went to a birthing class at the hospital with my husband (who was relieved that we at least didn't have to practice breathing exercises and laboring positions).
12 days before I was due, at a regular check-up, i was informed after taking a stress test that I was in Labor. "Uh...what? Isn't it supposed to hurt or something?" I thought. "Well this here monitor says you are having regular contractions." So I think, "Sweet! I won't have to go to work tomorrow and I will get to meet my son two weeks early! Nothing wrong with that, right?" So we head to the hospital that evening. Upon arriving at the hospital, I am immediately given Pitocin, which I think nothing of. The sooner this baby is out the better :) Everything is hunky-dory. I occasionally hear blurbs like"his heart rate is a little high" and "he is not getting quite enough oxygen" so "we are going to give you some more Pitocin." The Pitocin does exactly what it is supposed to do and I get seriously painful contractions and then ask for an Epidural (which I had not made an extremely firm decision about using or not at that point). By the time it is time to push, according to doc, I can't feel a thing. So I push for the most exhaustive hour and a half of my life and accomplish approximately nothing and Cowboy is eventually pulled out with a vacuum. I catch a glimpse of my long awaited first baby, who is not breathing great, so they put an oxygen mask on him and take him down to the NICU, and I wait another EIGHT HOURS until I get to hold my son for the first time.
During that eight hours? Of course I am exhausted and sleep on and off, wait for the epidural to wear off and try to walk again, and deal with all the fun aftermath of birth and tearing and what have you. But to top it all off, my darling nurse does some regular testing, including my blood pressure, and says,"Your blood pressure is a little high, so I am going to give you this drug to lower it." I reply, "High? I have only ever been told it is on the low side. That is strange." Checks a few minutes later, still high, more drugs. Then she has me get up and go to the bathroom and I proceed to throw-up for the third time in my entire life, and pass-out twice. She unplugs the BP cuff and plugs it back in, checks me again, and what do you know, my blood pressure is now dangerously low (due to the BP lowering drug)...uh, yeah. Shall we listen to the machine or the patient?
Anyway, my darling son is a perfectly healthy, rambunctious boy and I love him more than anything. All is well that ends well, right? I can't change the past, it is how it is. I think even if I had educated myself a lot better at that point in time, I still don't know how much I would have changed about the whole thing. What I strongly believe, though, is if we would have just waited until Cowboy was ready to come, instead of unnecessarily inducing him into the world, the whole birth would have gone a whole lot smoother.
Moral/What I would change...and will with the next birth: Let baby pick day to be delivered (not me, not doctor, not machine), do not get induced, no unnecessary Pitocin, no unnecessary epidural
