Muffin's Birth Story

My Muffin Turns 4 today.  Below is her birth story written  3 days after I gave birth to her.

Thursday night I went too bed in hopes of getting a good night's sleep so that I could wake up in the morning and give castor oil a try. I figured I could try and have Muffin more naturally then an induction at the hospital on Saturday. Woke up Friday morning sicker then a dog. Every muscle ached, I had a runny nose ans a cough that made your whole body shake. Ok so there was a new plan in place. It was time to get better. I rested a lot, napped all in hopes of beating this cold. Except for running to the store in the evening to pick up a couple last minute things I was home all day. Once I got Monkey to bed took my last long hot bath and off to bed I went myself since we had to be at the hospital at 8 am.

Had a pretty good night's sleep and woke up feeling much better, not 100% but way better then Friday. Off to the hospital we we went. Monkey woke up just as we were leaving so I got to say goodbye and give her a present from mommy and daddy letting her know we still love her and so it would act as a distraction while we were gone. She loved her aquadoodle bear.

Got to the hospital and they hooked us up to the monitors and listen to baby after an hour the Dr came in and examined me and I was 2-3 cm but still had a longish neck on my cervix. She inserted cervadil in me and had to go back on the monitor for another hour. After that they had us walk around the hospital for an hour in hopes that it might get things moving. The Dr doing the induction was the Dr on call but from what my OB told me and the nurses she took a more natural approach to childbirth like my OB did so we really lucked out having her there. After we walked around we went back to be checked and since nothing was happening we were sent home with instructions on what to do and when to come back. Basically we were to return either in labour or 10am the following day.

Came home, had some lunch and went up to bed to nap. I figured that 1) I needed to rest to try and feel better and 2) I needed to rest in case I went into labour. I tried to sleep but it wasn't really coming. I kept drifting in and out of sleep but I did rest for 2 hours. Rock had joined me for the last hour and snored away. My parents were over and watching over Monkey while we rested. Woke up in time for dinner and for contractions to start about 5:30pm. They were uncomfortable but very bearable. Not very predictable, no pattern to the yet. I ate my dinner on the birthing ball and would get up to lean against the wall and sway my hips during contractions while moaning. It took me a while to eat dinner. After dinner I went up and took a long hot shower, my mother stood guard in case I needed help and told me I was taking too long. I told her no one asked her to stand watch and she could go and sit down. After the shower I went to lie down with the Ipod and rest while labour began to establish itself. As things got stringer I would chant through the contraction "They are not stronger then me, they are me". Around 7:30 Monkey wanted me to nurse her to sleep. I obliged and nursed her down in our room. Just as she fell asleep, things got more intense for me. I continued to lay on my side and work with my body. Things were getting pretty intense so I went on the computer and started timing my contractions with a website I found. they were about 3 minutes apart and lasting about 40 seconds. I figured we should probably start getting ready to go as things were getting intense. This was around 9pm. We gathered our things and my dad drove us to the hospital as it was snowing quite badly out. On the way there I remember about using my combs as pain relief. So I pulled out my combs and placed them on the acupressure points. They did help relief some of the discomfort. I yelled at my dad for speeding in the snow. I told him this is still going to hurt weather I'm in the car or at the hospital so take you time driving because I don't need to be in a car accident while in labour.

We get to the hospital and get assigned the most awesome nurse in the world. She brings me into a L&D room. Unfortunately it was one of the smaller older rooms because they are so busy. She checks me out and I'm only a good 3cm dilated. I am so disappointed. I thought I would be at least a bit further along. They hook me up to the monitor to check baby out and she was checking if another room become free. Once we were told this is the room we were stuck with I got my dad to get the bags from the car. Called my mom and let her know what's going on and told her it would probably be at least a few hours before anything would happen. Called Rock's parents and told them the same. Rock went down to get me an egg salad sandwich from Tim Horton's as I was hungry and it was time for my snack and I figured I needed to keep my strength up since we still had a while. The Dr came in and checked me still 3, both the Dr and the nurse said I was doing very well and that I would have no problem doing this naturally. They said I was coping very well with the contractions especially since they were coming pretty close together (a side effect of the cervadil). The Dr said that I had a high tolerance for pain since I didn't flinch during the internal exams. I told her I thought they were rather uncomfortable and I thought I was being a wimp. She gave me a choice if I wanted to speed things up and ensure I had my natural birth she recommended we break my waters to help things move along. I asked her if she thought it was best and she said it would speed up labour and ensure that I had my natural birth. They were very supportive of me and having my natural birth. Even when things pick up later on the nurse keeps reminding me that I wanted to do this naturally and I really don't want the epidural but now I'm getting ahead of myself. I go to the bathroom and come back and get my waters broken. Just after that was done Rock and my dad get back in the room. I tell them that the waters were broken. This was 10:50pm. The nurse tells them were to put the bags out of the way in case things pick up and they need to get ready to deliver, I wanted to eat but they wanted to monitor the baby a bit. I get on my left side, with my combs in hand, Ipod on and alternating between moaning and chanting between contractions.

Things start to get a little intense, the contractions at this point are starting to come one on top of the other I'm starting to to be able to handle the pain, I'm starting to scream through contractions they are so intense I start to BEG for an epidural the pain is too much to bear.Rock  tells me to chant and starts to massage me. In not so polite ways I told him not to touch me. I tell the nurse I want the epidural, the nurse reminds me that I'm doing this and I didn't want the epidural. I tell her if I could have a break between contractions then I could do it but there is no rest. She tells me an IV needs to be run before she can get me one. She takes her time getting the IV pole and tells me she needs to check me before she starts the IV to see how far along I am. At 11:30 I am 5-6cm. I am literally screaming through each contraction at this point. My body starts to push on it's own. The nurse asks me if I'm pushing, I told her I think I am. She told me to stop I told her I can't my body spasmed  that way. She checks me again it's 11:40 I am 7-8cm. I told her to screw the epidurall at this point we're doing this. Again my body spasms and I push, she checks me again at 11:45 I;m fully dilated. They help me turn onto my back, call the Dr in and tell me to start pushing. I start to push, they tell me to stop screaming and use that energy to push. I scream, I push, it burns as the baby crowns. 11:51 Muffin literally shoots out of me. They put her on top of me We delay clamping and cutting but I feel the cord tugging. They clamp cut and my placenta comes flying out not even 10 minutes after Muffin was born. I had no tears just a lot of swelling. Poor Muffin's face was all bruised from her fast arrival into the world. I was still trying to process everything that was going on. While I was pushing my mom was calling my dad to come and pick her and Monkey up because Monkey woke up and wanted to come to the hospital. She woke up as her sister was being born. My dad had finally gotten to see a birth of his grandchild. He left to go pick up Babcia and big sis. I tried to digest what just happen as they cleaned me up. Rock makes some calls I look at my baby girl and can't believe she is finally here. They leave us alone for a bit. Big sis comes to meet her sister about 20 minutes after she was born. We get moved into a recovery room around 2am.

Just as we get into the room the fire alarm goes off and everyone is trapped in the room until the all clear is given an hour later so no sleep fr the new mommy. Nurses keep coming in to poke and prod both of us because of the diabetes.I get about 1 1/12 hours sleep. I was ready to go home right away but hospital policy is you have to stay at least 4 hours. Unfortunately be cause of the diabetes we needed to stay 24 hours at least to make sure Muffin is ok. Her blood sugars were borderline and a 2 were low so we ended up staying longer then 24 hours. There was some issues with how the hospital handled that and I HATE the fact that they try and bully you and use scare tactics to keep you there because they say they are so concerned but their actions don't echo their words. they told us at the 24 hour mark we couldn't go home because of the prior test results and they needed to do a few more test and we had to stay. So we did stay and not a single test was done. A very strongly worded letter will be going out to the hospital and I may take some other actions in regards to this because I'm sick of the medical community invoking panic for no reason.

We are all finally home and even though mom and big sis are sick ( we had to go to the Dr right after coming home from the hospital because of this) we are adjusting well as a family. Tandem nursing is interesting. I think it's harder because of the fact that Monkey is sick and wants that comfort from mommy. My milk came in last night which delighted both girls and now I can go bra shopping for some nice fancy nursing bras. So this is the long version of the birth I think it took me longer to type this then the actual active labour (but I did have my nursling on hand while accomplishing this).