Hey friends! I know it's been quite a while since I've updated my blog. Almost the entirety of my pregnancy was rough, and I felt that everyone wouldn't want to hear me "complain" about it after wanting to be pregnant for so long. Beggars can't be choosers right?
That being said, I'd love to write a little snippet about the birth of Austin. In typical Megan fashion, it did not go without a couple little hiccups.
On September 19th, Sean and I checked in at the hospital around 3pm. Unfortunately, I was only dilated 1cm. The nurses helped me with a variety of techniques, in hopes of dilating further. However, hours passed and there wasn't much movement. Therefore, my doctor made the decision to put a balloon in. That helped me go from 2cm to 4cm in a matter of minutes. Finally at 4cm, I was started on Pitocin to move the birth along. As mentioned above, we came in at 3pm on the 19th. After the balloon process, and a few more hours being stuck at 4cm, it was now 8:30am on the 20th.
At 1pm on the 20th, the doctor came in and broke my water. The Pitocin did not seem to be working, but I did start having some heavy back labor pains. At 3:15pm, I was still at 4cm and an epidural was started for me. At 3:19, the nurses had me sit straight up in bed and my blood pressure dropped drastically- 80/50 (instead of the normal, 120/80.) I had lost all color in my face, was overcome with nausea, and felt like I was going to lose consciousness. The nurses were called back in and they gave me some medication to help because apparently, some people have reactions to epidurals.
As the hours went by, day turning to night, it was now 9:55pm on the 20th and I was still stuck at 4cm. The nurse that was working with me, was bound and determined to help me dilate further. I had strong wishes to have a vaginal birth, rather than a C-section. I was doing constant crazy positions and different techniques that were supposed to help- and they weren't fun or comfortable. However, I did finally move from 4cm to 5cm.
Baby boy was "sunny side up." So in addition to trying to move the dilation along, we started trying different things to flip baby boy (as his head was facing my belly button, rather than my spine.) Though it's not impossible to give birth like that, they prefer the baby to be facing your spine. Additionally, we found out that his head was lodged sideways, which was another reason we were "stuck." Finally at 6cm, the pain that I was in continued to increase. We found out that the epidural wasn't working for me, so I was just breathing through the labor pains.
At 5:30am on the 21st of September, we were still stuck at 6cm. Due to the lack of speed in which the labor was proceeding, the doctor told us that we were going to need a C-section. From that moment on, everything happened so fast. We were rolled back and baby boy Austin was born at 6:09am on September 21st.
In typical Megan fashion, as mentioned above, this did not go smoothly. After Austin was born, the doctor was speaking urgently to another nurse. Apparently I had something called a "sticky placenta." This literally meant that my placenta was stuck inside me. As they were trying to pull it out, I was losing too much blood and had to be put under anesthesia. Since I was "out," I'm not super sure what happened next, but I know that Sean was sent with Austin and was not allowed back in. He told me that he did ask about me and limited information was being passed to him. This worried him- and if you know Sean, not much worries him.
The doctor and nurses placed a JADA device inside me (like a balloon device to collect excess blood) and the next thing I knew, I was awake again. There are pictures that were taken, where Austin was placed up to my face after he was born; but I'm unable to remember any of that.
22 hours of labor (NOT including the 17 hours before the Pitocin was started, when I was on Cytotec.) So a grand total of 39 hours of labor, but worth every second.
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