ANNOUNCING

IVY DANAE

My due date was January 8, 1998. We didn't know whether we were having a boy or a girl. Either way we had to keep it, right?

On January 7th, I was having some contractions that weren't painful but were coming about every 3-5 minutes. I laid in bed for about an hour timing them until Russell's alarm went off. I told him I was having some, and he decided not to go in to work that day. (He works for my dad doing electrical.) Well, of course, he wanted to go right up to the hospital and I wasn't sure. We wound up going up and they admitted me. Unfortunately, I was only fingertip dilated and not really effaced. Pretty disappointing. They kept me until about noon and sent me home. I still wasn't having painful contractions and hadn't shown any signs of progressing. They said I was probably just a little dehydrated and to get plenty to drink.

So my due date came and went. Now because I was over, I had to go to the Dr's 2x's a week! By this point I really was beginning to wonder if I'd ever have this kid. They told me that they would induce me on January 22, two weeks after my due date. I kind of just started figuring that that's when I was going to have my baby.

Then on Tuesday morning, January 20, when I woke up to use the bathroom I was bleeding. It looked heavy to me. Not the kind they tell you to look for when you're losing your plug or dilating. Russell had already left for work, so I called my Mom. She came over to get me and take me up to the Dr's. I called Russell, the Dr, took a shower and started worrying. I was so worried that something was going to go wrong at this late point, I had a hard time not crying. At the Dr's office, they put me on the monitors to check if everything was alright. It was thankfully. Russell got there after I'd been there about half an hour. (Which really was a record time since I had probably only called him about 45 mimutes before and he'd made a drive that normally takes an hour, plus stopped at our house and changed and picked up my bag!) I was also having regular contractions (about every 5 min) but they weren't hurting. The Dr did tell us that we wouldn't be going home without having this baby, though. At this point I was sent next door to the hospital for an ultrsound to check where my placenta was attached. (They wanted to make sure that my placenta was attached to low to do a normal delivery since that could have been the reason for the bleeding.) It was only the 2nd ultrasound that I'd had. The Dr had never order one for me, but we had a friend who works up there and she had us come in one day to "take a peek". Well, everything was okay and it was back over to the Dr's for more monitoring. So after they monitored everything (heartbeat, movement, etc) for a while, they gave me one of those lovely internal exams. I was dilated to about 2 cm and about 50% effaced and still bleeding.

Finally, I am admitted to the hospital. Now it was close to noon and I was getting hungry. My Dr said it would be all right to have a regular lunch, but didn't tell the nurses apparently, because I got a liquid lunch only after making Russell ask for something. Skip ahead to about six o'clock. The Dr came over to check on me. Nothing new was really happening. Still about 2 cm and 50% effaced with painless contractions every 5 or so minutes. He decided to break my water and see if that would start things going. Well in a couple of hours I could definitely feel those contractions! All night we had contractions about 3 minutes apart. My husband was the best. He breathed me through every one!

The next day I had the midwife instead of the Dr. I was happy because I had wanted the midwife anyways. She decided sometime that morning to give me a shot of Stadol to help me relax and see if that would move things along a little more since I was only at about 3 cm by then. Well, that really knocked me out! I was awake for the contractions still, but way out of it in between. Sometime in the early afternoon, I was dilated to about 8 and she suggested I get in the shower to try to relax. (Yeah right!) I stood that as long as I could and got back into bed. I was having some pretty painful contractions. I never really noticed any symptoms of transition except at one point I did sit up and throw up all over my bed!

Finally she said I could start pushing. I was about 9 1/2 cm with a lip that she held back when I pushed. Well, that went on forever! Three hours in real time. (I found out afterwards that they don't normally like to let you go beyond two hours but they were using the monitors and the baby and I were doing okay so they let me keep trying.) Since I had made no progress, she decided to call the Dr to try using vacuum extraction. Well, that brought the head down, but the shoulders got stuck. That's right, the head was out but the body wasn't budging! (shoulder distocia, sp?) At this point the Dr became very agitated and my legs got flipped up onto my stomach and nurses were pushing really hard on the top of my belly. At 5:07 PM, January 21, she decided to come out! I was really exhausted and out of it now. They flopped the baby on my stomach and went to work trying to deliver the placenta which also didn't want to come. I got some pitocin at this point to encourage uterine contractions and they were massaging my stomach which hurt just as bad as anything I had just been through. After about 45 minutes it finally came out. By this point I had lost way too much blood and there were tons of people in the room. My blood pressure had really dropped. I had torn really bad because of her shoulders being stuck and was pretty much a big mess. Anyways, they poked me and prodded me in every way shape and form, stitched me back together and I can't remember what else. At some point the had taken Ivy away from me. (I think when I was losing so much blood and everyone was working on me.) They got her cleaned up a little now and brought her back to me, but I was so weak I couldn't even manage to hold her. (Let alone get her to the breast within her first hour like all the books said!) So Russell held her and after a couple of hours I held her. They kept coming in every little bit to raise my bed miniscule amounts until I was finally sitting up, kind of. A little after 11 pm they came in to try to move me to my room. The first time I sat up, I almost passed out again. But they got a wheelchair and about 3 nurses to move me over. One of the nurses wanted to get a guerney.

The Dr said I had lost about 2 quarts of blood. Between that and all my stiches, I could barely move. I was up in the hospital for three whole days after the delivery. When they sent me home, my blood count was only about 5.5 which is about half what they like it to be right after childbirth.

Anyways, it only took me about 3 weeks to be able to walk again without feeling like passing out! By my six week appointment I felt pretty good, stitches all healed and blood count back to normal again. They told me that if I ever have another, they won't be letting me go over. Nobody expected me to have such a big baby. The way I carried and everything most everyone (Dr's, midwife and nurses) all thought I'd have around an 8 pounder! Guess I showed them. Anyways, Ivy is great. And I've learned that the human body is incredibly resilient!!