The Big Update
Oct. 16th, 2008 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jaelieNot sure really how much more I can say about this past week that Matt didn't cover, so some of this will just be a repeat for yall. ^_^
Fri 10/10: Friday started out very much a normal day. Work during the day, etc. Friday afternoon, though, I noticed that I had an intermittent back ache and thought "Ah, maybe this is what they mean by 'back labor'," so when I got home, I started timing the ache. Sure enough, by the evening the ache was a full fledged back pain that came and lasted for a minute or so, then subsided for another eight to ten minutes. Woo!
When the pains were roughly seven minutes apart, I called the midwife (Becky was the one on call that evening), to let her know and also to verify that it was indeed early labor. She confirmed it cheerfully, and told us to head to the birth center on the next morning, providing of course that the contractions were at least five minutes apart. Sweet!
So, I had a pretty restless night, as the pain and excitement were both keeping me awake.
Sat 10/11: Saturday morning, after timing several contractions to five minutes, we grabbed our stuff and headed to the Allen Birthing Center. After checking mine and the baby's vitals, she checked my cervix, which was only at 2cm. Since they don't check in laboring moms until they're at 4cm, Becky sent me off to walk around and hopefully get things progressing.
Becky, the awesome midwife that saw me through most of my labor
I walked around a LOT, with Matt by my side the whole time. Let me just say that without Matt, there is no way I could have gotten through the next few days. He has been my rock through this whole thing. He held me while I was quivering with pain and never once complained about the demands I put on him.
We went back in to the birth center around noon to see what my status was - still under 4cm, so Becky sent us off and we headed up to Anna to spend the evening with my brother Rob and sister in law Siouxsie. I didn't really want to go home, because I wanted to be close to help and experience. I mean, I had never done this before! I knew I'd have questions, and my sister in law is the perfect person to ask. Plus she loves me and was totally welcoming when I asked if we could hang out there.
Since I really couldn't sleep, I stayed up all night watching episodes of Heroes, which I had never seen before. Finally, around 5AM, I was able to doze a little between contractions.
Sun 10/12:
Sunday morning we headed back to the center. Still no 4cm! Gah! So I walked around a lot more and finally hit the mark. Becky admitted me at around 1PM and we got comfortable in one of the upstairs birthing suites. Woot! Active labor! That usually means a baby in 20 hours or so and I was ready to meet my little passenger.
Me in active labor.
Pretty much all of Sunday was spent pacing around, waiting for my water to break so things could really get going. Progress was really slow, but I think (don't remember exactly) that I was at 6cm by the end of the day.
Sunday night I attempted to doze during the night, but with the contraction pains lasting about a minute each and moments of no-pain were still varied from two to four-ish, it made for another restless night.
Mon 10/13:
Monday was pretty much a repeat of Sunday. Walking around, hurting, not really seeing any progress. I was pretty confident, though, that my nephew Lex would get a birthday present. But he didn't! I was astounded and disappointed when midnight rolled around and I still hadn't delivered.
Tue 10/14:
Tuesday morning, we had a very serious discussion about the progression of my labor. Which is to say, my dilation stalled out at 7cm and there was no progression. She mentioned breaking my water as an option to really get things going (no, my water had not broken even though I had been in active labor for two whole days already). She presented the pros and cons, and I had really wanted to let my water break naturally, because I knew that when the water was broken things would really start hurting. I mean, things hurt before, but after the water breaks, it's a whole new pain.
After taking everything into consideration, I decided to go ahead and let her break the water. Based on my mom's and sister's births (statistically speaking, a woman's labor is usually very similar to that of her mother's), that would mean that I could have my baby around an hour after the water broke. I was thinking since it had taken so long to get this far that it would be more like five hours.
Apparently my bag of waters was really strong because it took a bit of an effort and a tool that looked like a knitting needle to break the waters, but break them she did around 5AM. And I was right, it was a whole new level of pain. I thought it was worth it though as long as I could have my healthy baby at the end of it.
Becky finally went home for some real rest. She was truly a blessing during all my labor, answering questions, offering suggestions and caring support. I was sad that she wasn't going to be there for my lil one's appearance, but she really had pulled her share of the load. She switched off with Amy, one of the other midwives at the center (all three of them AND their staff are awesome. Great people, cheerful demeanors, professional and competent).
Amy
I spent the next several hours pacing through the contractions and leaning on my husband through the pain. By about 3PM I was totally beat. I couldn't focus, there was still no progression with the dilation thing, and I was just plain exhausted. Matt asked me about pitocin, which is a drug that induces labor, and then we had another talk with the midwife. Matt knew that things weren't quite right and after he and I talked about it, we decided to transfer to the local hospital and get some medical help, as clearly it was not possible to do this the natural way that I had hoped for and planned for.
Luckily, though, during one of my last visits with the midwives, I had asked them all about their transfers and about the hospital and I had prepared three different birthing plans: one for the natural birth that I really wanted, one for a medically assisted vaginal birth, and one for the case of a c-section. However, due to my current status, several things were changed on the plans - the main one being that I knew I needed pitocin and I knew I didn't have the strength any longer to actually bear the pain of pitocin-induced labor so I was going to have an epidural.
I can't say how disappointed in myself that I felt. Of course I know I have no reason to feel that way, but I was very, very disappointed and felt like such a failure because I wasn't able to give my baby the natural birth that I knew would be best for both of us. Matt was still my rock, though, and was able to help me through that. I was just too exhausted to think clearly or even control myself during the contractions any more. Each contraction had me whimpering and poor Matt would just hold me through them.
So off to the hospital we went. They hooked me up with the epidural and although I didn't really like the electric shocks up and down my right leg, the shocks went away shortly and for the first time in days, I had no pain at all. It did take them forever and like ten pokes later to get me hooked up with an IV, but once we finished all the paperwork and answered a bajillion questions, I promptly fell asleep.
Four hours later, they woke me up with some not happy news. Even after four hours on pitocin, my body had not progressed past the 7cm. In fact, my cervix had swollen! This is when the remaining options were laid out for us. The hospital and midwives didn't know what was wrong with my labor - my vitals and the baby's vitals were strong and healthy. It was only in the past four hours that the baby was actually showing some small signs of distress.
The options they gave us were we could continue for another four hours with the pitocin and hope that would do the trick. There were no guarantees that after four more hours of pitocin that either I or the baby would be still in such good, non-distressed state, though. The other option was we could elect to have a c-section and get Vee out now.
We thought about it, although the decision didn't take long, and we opted to have a c-section right away rather than wait for either myself or the baby to come to danger. So, the c-section wasn't by any means an emergency, thank goodness. Necessary, yes, but not an emergency. It certainly wasn't quite the birth I envisioned for myself and the baby.
In the course of the surgery, we discovered that Vee had her arm above her head the whole time, plus her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, so she definitely didn't want to be born any way except the way she got here. Too bad she didn't tell me sooner. ;) If you want the gory details of being awake during a major abdominal surgery, let me know. Having had a c-section now personally, I can honestly say I hope to never, ever go through that again. Major unpleasantness.
Virginia Ragan was delivered on Tuesday October 14 at 9:41 PM, weighing 8 lbs 8 oz and 21 inches long. Of course, I think she's absolutely beautiful but I know I'm biased! She's got a tiny bit of black hair and dark blue eyes that will probably be a beautiful dark brown.
My little Vee:
Wed 10/15:
I spent Wednesday relaxing and recovering. I certainly didn't move much. Some of my friends and family came to visit us, too. Yay!
Lots of pictures with family:
with her cousin Kyrie (my older brother Rob his wife Siouxsie's daughter)
with her very excited cousin Lex (my sister Annie and her hubby Dave's son)
with her very excited Granny (my mom) and of course the Lex
Thu 10/16:
Admiring the toeses
The proud Daddy
Thursday morning we got some not so good news. My recovery was going super well, but poor Vee was developing a pretty big case of jaundice. My milk hasn't come in yet, so she wasn't getting much food. Normally no big deal, but she wasn't passing all the icky stuff that newborns usually pass. Plus jaundice is ascerbated by the drugs they put in the epidural, so her chances of getting it were already pretty high.
The thing that upset me, though, and had me almost bawling was the fact that they wanted to put my baby on formula. This I did not want at all (and yet again I felt like a terrible mother for not being able to give my baby a natural birth which most likely would have removed that problem). Luckily my sister in law Sioux had an epiphany and reminded me that her sister who lives like two blocks away from her just had her baby (duh. I read her blog, I just never would have thought of it) and she was pretty sure that Terri would be happy to help.
Sure enough, Terri was glad to help and donated some of her milk to my baby, which relieved me to no end. In fact, I am so grateful to Terri for her gift that thinking about it brings me to tears.
The pediatrician decided to have Vee put under some UV lights in an incubator to treat the jaundice, so without further ado, I was released from post-partum and we were moved to pediatrics so that Vee could be treated properly, as jaundice isn't even usually a problem for newborns.
So they removed the staples on my tummy and we moved all our junk to our new room in pediatrics.
Not done cooking - even after 41 weeks in the oven, Vee still needs more time
Fri 10/17: So here we are. It's Friday and I'm finally getting online to recount my busy week. I'm feeling good but still tired. They wake me up every few hours in the hospital to check my vitals so real sleep isn't on the menu. Over all I feel well, just really sore of course in the abdomen, so I'm kind of hobbling around slowly. Recovery time will be not fun, and certainly not the kind of pain I was expecting to have post-partum.
Vee is looking good and they may release us today. The pediatrician will let us know her status at noon and we'll make our decision then. But over all, things are well with the Ragan family and we are totally in love with our new little family member.
Fri 10/10: Friday started out very much a normal day. Work during the day, etc. Friday afternoon, though, I noticed that I had an intermittent back ache and thought "Ah, maybe this is what they mean by 'back labor'," so when I got home, I started timing the ache. Sure enough, by the evening the ache was a full fledged back pain that came and lasted for a minute or so, then subsided for another eight to ten minutes. Woo!
When the pains were roughly seven minutes apart, I called the midwife (Becky was the one on call that evening), to let her know and also to verify that it was indeed early labor. She confirmed it cheerfully, and told us to head to the birth center on the next morning, providing of course that the contractions were at least five minutes apart. Sweet!
So, I had a pretty restless night, as the pain and excitement were both keeping me awake.
Sat 10/11: Saturday morning, after timing several contractions to five minutes, we grabbed our stuff and headed to the Allen Birthing Center. After checking mine and the baby's vitals, she checked my cervix, which was only at 2cm. Since they don't check in laboring moms until they're at 4cm, Becky sent me off to walk around and hopefully get things progressing.
Becky, the awesome midwife that saw me through most of my labor
I walked around a LOT, with Matt by my side the whole time. Let me just say that without Matt, there is no way I could have gotten through the next few days. He has been my rock through this whole thing. He held me while I was quivering with pain and never once complained about the demands I put on him.
We went back in to the birth center around noon to see what my status was - still under 4cm, so Becky sent us off and we headed up to Anna to spend the evening with my brother Rob and sister in law Siouxsie. I didn't really want to go home, because I wanted to be close to help and experience. I mean, I had never done this before! I knew I'd have questions, and my sister in law is the perfect person to ask. Plus she loves me and was totally welcoming when I asked if we could hang out there.
Since I really couldn't sleep, I stayed up all night watching episodes of Heroes, which I had never seen before. Finally, around 5AM, I was able to doze a little between contractions.
Sun 10/12:
Sunday morning we headed back to the center. Still no 4cm! Gah! So I walked around a lot more and finally hit the mark. Becky admitted me at around 1PM and we got comfortable in one of the upstairs birthing suites. Woot! Active labor! That usually means a baby in 20 hours or so and I was ready to meet my little passenger.
Me in active labor.
Pretty much all of Sunday was spent pacing around, waiting for my water to break so things could really get going. Progress was really slow, but I think (don't remember exactly) that I was at 6cm by the end of the day.
Sunday night I attempted to doze during the night, but with the contraction pains lasting about a minute each and moments of no-pain were still varied from two to four-ish, it made for another restless night.
Mon 10/13:
Monday was pretty much a repeat of Sunday. Walking around, hurting, not really seeing any progress. I was pretty confident, though, that my nephew Lex would get a birthday present. But he didn't! I was astounded and disappointed when midnight rolled around and I still hadn't delivered.
Tue 10/14:
Tuesday morning, we had a very serious discussion about the progression of my labor. Which is to say, my dilation stalled out at 7cm and there was no progression. She mentioned breaking my water as an option to really get things going (no, my water had not broken even though I had been in active labor for two whole days already). She presented the pros and cons, and I had really wanted to let my water break naturally, because I knew that when the water was broken things would really start hurting. I mean, things hurt before, but after the water breaks, it's a whole new pain.
After taking everything into consideration, I decided to go ahead and let her break the water. Based on my mom's and sister's births (statistically speaking, a woman's labor is usually very similar to that of her mother's), that would mean that I could have my baby around an hour after the water broke. I was thinking since it had taken so long to get this far that it would be more like five hours.
Apparently my bag of waters was really strong because it took a bit of an effort and a tool that looked like a knitting needle to break the waters, but break them she did around 5AM. And I was right, it was a whole new level of pain. I thought it was worth it though as long as I could have my healthy baby at the end of it.
Becky finally went home for some real rest. She was truly a blessing during all my labor, answering questions, offering suggestions and caring support. I was sad that she wasn't going to be there for my lil one's appearance, but she really had pulled her share of the load. She switched off with Amy, one of the other midwives at the center (all three of them AND their staff are awesome. Great people, cheerful demeanors, professional and competent).
Amy
I spent the next several hours pacing through the contractions and leaning on my husband through the pain. By about 3PM I was totally beat. I couldn't focus, there was still no progression with the dilation thing, and I was just plain exhausted. Matt asked me about pitocin, which is a drug that induces labor, and then we had another talk with the midwife. Matt knew that things weren't quite right and after he and I talked about it, we decided to transfer to the local hospital and get some medical help, as clearly it was not possible to do this the natural way that I had hoped for and planned for.
Luckily, though, during one of my last visits with the midwives, I had asked them all about their transfers and about the hospital and I had prepared three different birthing plans: one for the natural birth that I really wanted, one for a medically assisted vaginal birth, and one for the case of a c-section. However, due to my current status, several things were changed on the plans - the main one being that I knew I needed pitocin and I knew I didn't have the strength any longer to actually bear the pain of pitocin-induced labor so I was going to have an epidural.
I can't say how disappointed in myself that I felt. Of course I know I have no reason to feel that way, but I was very, very disappointed and felt like such a failure because I wasn't able to give my baby the natural birth that I knew would be best for both of us. Matt was still my rock, though, and was able to help me through that. I was just too exhausted to think clearly or even control myself during the contractions any more. Each contraction had me whimpering and poor Matt would just hold me through them.
So off to the hospital we went. They hooked me up with the epidural and although I didn't really like the electric shocks up and down my right leg, the shocks went away shortly and for the first time in days, I had no pain at all. It did take them forever and like ten pokes later to get me hooked up with an IV, but once we finished all the paperwork and answered a bajillion questions, I promptly fell asleep.
Four hours later, they woke me up with some not happy news. Even after four hours on pitocin, my body had not progressed past the 7cm. In fact, my cervix had swollen! This is when the remaining options were laid out for us. The hospital and midwives didn't know what was wrong with my labor - my vitals and the baby's vitals were strong and healthy. It was only in the past four hours that the baby was actually showing some small signs of distress.
The options they gave us were we could continue for another four hours with the pitocin and hope that would do the trick. There were no guarantees that after four more hours of pitocin that either I or the baby would be still in such good, non-distressed state, though. The other option was we could elect to have a c-section and get Vee out now.
We thought about it, although the decision didn't take long, and we opted to have a c-section right away rather than wait for either myself or the baby to come to danger. So, the c-section wasn't by any means an emergency, thank goodness. Necessary, yes, but not an emergency. It certainly wasn't quite the birth I envisioned for myself and the baby.
In the course of the surgery, we discovered that Vee had her arm above her head the whole time, plus her umbilical cord was wrapped around her neck, so she definitely didn't want to be born any way except the way she got here. Too bad she didn't tell me sooner. ;) If you want the gory details of being awake during a major abdominal surgery, let me know. Having had a c-section now personally, I can honestly say I hope to never, ever go through that again. Major unpleasantness.
Virginia Ragan was delivered on Tuesday October 14 at 9:41 PM, weighing 8 lbs 8 oz and 21 inches long. Of course, I think she's absolutely beautiful but I know I'm biased! She's got a tiny bit of black hair and dark blue eyes that will probably be a beautiful dark brown.
My little Vee:
Wed 10/15:
I spent Wednesday relaxing and recovering. I certainly didn't move much. Some of my friends and family came to visit us, too. Yay!
Lots of pictures with family:
with her cousin Kyrie (my older brother Rob his wife Siouxsie's daughter)
with her very excited cousin Lex (my sister Annie and her hubby Dave's son)
with her very excited Granny (my mom) and of course the Lex
Thu 10/16:
Admiring the toeses
The proud Daddy
Thursday morning we got some not so good news. My recovery was going super well, but poor Vee was developing a pretty big case of jaundice. My milk hasn't come in yet, so she wasn't getting much food. Normally no big deal, but she wasn't passing all the icky stuff that newborns usually pass. Plus jaundice is ascerbated by the drugs they put in the epidural, so her chances of getting it were already pretty high.
The thing that upset me, though, and had me almost bawling was the fact that they wanted to put my baby on formula. This I did not want at all (and yet again I felt like a terrible mother for not being able to give my baby a natural birth which most likely would have removed that problem). Luckily my sister in law Sioux had an epiphany and reminded me that her sister who lives like two blocks away from her just had her baby (duh. I read her blog, I just never would have thought of it) and she was pretty sure that Terri would be happy to help.
Sure enough, Terri was glad to help and donated some of her milk to my baby, which relieved me to no end. In fact, I am so grateful to Terri for her gift that thinking about it brings me to tears.
The pediatrician decided to have Vee put under some UV lights in an incubator to treat the jaundice, so without further ado, I was released from post-partum and we were moved to pediatrics so that Vee could be treated properly, as jaundice isn't even usually a problem for newborns.
So they removed the staples on my tummy and we moved all our junk to our new room in pediatrics.
Not done cooking - even after 41 weeks in the oven, Vee still needs more time
Fri 10/17: So here we are. It's Friday and I'm finally getting online to recount my busy week. I'm feeling good but still tired. They wake me up every few hours in the hospital to check my vitals so real sleep isn't on the menu. Over all I feel well, just really sore of course in the abdomen, so I'm kind of hobbling around slowly. Recovery time will be not fun, and certainly not the kind of pain I was expecting to have post-partum.
Vee is looking good and they may release us today. The pediatrician will let us know her status at noon and we'll make our decision then. But over all, things are well with the Ragan family and we are totally in love with our new little family member.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 04:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 04:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 04:51 pm (UTC)EW! You SAW your abdomen open????? I get the heebeejeebies over child birthing in general, but that right there is just Crazy!
I'm glad you are doing alright and I hope you and Vee can come home soon. I can't wait to meet her!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 07:56 pm (UTC)Remember, I'm available at anytime. You need me, call, Ben and I will be there in a snap!
Hugs and we love you all...of course, we love Vee more!
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 08:36 pm (UTC)Sunshine in small doses is great for jaundice as well.
always,
ivy
You truly are my hero.
Date: 2008-10-17 08:58 pm (UTC)Is there any treatment they can give you to help your milk come in? I thought there was. I know there are some herbals, I bet you could ask the birthing center...hold on:
http://www.earthmamaangelbaby.com/experts/zieman_herbs.html
There they are...that might help.
And Vee will be fine :) Jaundice isn't as bad of a diagnosis as it used to be.
<3 you guys!
Re: You truly are my hero.
Date: 2008-10-18 07:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-17 10:25 pm (UTC)I mentioned little Vee to my mom on the phone the other day. She is very happy for you as well. I mentioned that you'd had to go the C-section route and she said "C-sections are really easy... on the baby."
Mend up good and strong, Darlin'. And may you all get home together safe and sound soon.
(no subject)
Date: 2008-10-18 02:11 am (UTC)