Last week I was still having contractions on and off all the time, but they would never get intense enough to put me into active labor. Because I was uncomfortable and Tabatha seemed to be healthy, my doctor agreed to induce me on Friday morning; I was 39 weeks pregnant on Thursday. Thursday night before the induction, I took Tylenol PM hoping to get a good night of sleep before labor began. At 1 am I woke up with painful contractions that were coming every 3-4 minutes. I knew we were scheduled to go to the hospital at 6:30am so I just waited things out at home until then. When we got to the hospital I was still having contractions often, but they weren't intense enough so the doctor gave me pitocin to speed things up. By 10am he broke my water and then from 10-11am I had intense and painful contractions. Thankfully, at 11 I got an epidural. We had a few complications getting the epidural in, but once it was in I felt great!
In the next hour and a half things moved so quickly that my blood pressure dropped a little and Tabatha's heart rate went down. The nurses stopped the pitocin and gave me oxygen which seemed to help. I also changed my position several times until Tabatha's heart rate was stable again. Thankfully, that was short lived and then, after about 15 minutes of pushing, she was born!
When Charlie was born, he wasn't fairly stunned because of the cord being around his neck so he didn't cry and the nurses took him right away to make sure he was responding. I remember being very scared and worried that he was not okay. Tabatha's birth was a much different experience. She had a healthy cry right away and I was able to hold her on my chest for a little while and then, after the nurses weighed her, I fed her. She was wide awake for the first hour and a half; it was a blessing to spend those first precious moments with her.
Here are some photos from last week Friday...
Mark seems to be handling the contractions well :)
1 comment:
She is beautiful! Congrats again! I don't have any advice for the transition for Charlie... time does wonders though! The first month home w/ our new baby was the hardest for the girls and then all was well again.
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