From: krages@ohsu.edu (Kathryn Krages)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Birth Story (Very Long!)
Date: 22 Jan 1993 15:15:04 GMT
Organization: Department of New Announcements
Distribution: world
Reply-To: krages@ohsu.edu
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Originator: krages@ohsu.edu
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Bert and Kathryn Krages proudly announce the arrival of:

Meredith Scott Krages
Born at 8:14 p.m. Pacific Standard Time
January 14, 1993
5 lbs. 13 oz.         18 inches
Apgars:  8 and 9
Good Samaritan Hospital
Portland, Oregon
19 hour labor

Overall theme = I had almost every medical intervention possible for labor and
delivery (except a C-section), but I'm not disappointed and very happy to have
a daughter.

Two days after my due date I woke up at about 1:15 a.m. with these pains which
I had not felt before in my pregnancy.  So I spent an hour wondering if these
were contractions and finally decided that they were.  I woke up my husband at
2:30 a.m. and he said I should try to sleep.  But I couldn't so I got up and
walked around and began timing the contractions.   I had some problems telling
when they ended; it seemed as if there was some residual pain after the main
contraction.  By 4:00 a.m. the contractions were about 5 or 6 minutes apart so
I called my obstetrician.  Also a freezing rain was coming down and we were
concerned about driving to the hospital.  So after my husband took a shower
and fed the dogs, we were off to the hospital.

We arrived at 6:30 a.m. and when the nurse examined me I was 100% effaced and
4 centimers dilated.  Three days before at the doctor's office I had been 1-2
centimeters.  The nurse said she thought I would have the baby by noon and
unfortunately I believed her.  We had decided to use a birth assistant so she
arrived at the hospital about a half hour later.  They put the fetal monitor
on me and I lay on the bed for a while.  I thought the contractions were
getting rather painful and wondered about an epidural if I really was going to
have the baby in the next few hours.  The nurse said the anesthiologist was
doing a C-section at 8:15 a.m. so I needed to get an IV in right then if I
wanted the epidural before 8:15.  Otherwise I would have to wait until 10:00
after the C-section.

So I got the IV which was not as bad as I thought it would be.  But I decided
I wanted to keep going for a while without the epidural.  So they put me on a
telemetry unit for the fetal monitor.  Then the birth assistant and I kept
walking the halls and my contractions got stronger and more frequent.  But
when I would come back to my room and sit down or lay down the contractions
got wimpier and farther apart.  They never became all that regular.  When the
nurse examined me in the late morning I was still only 4 centimeters, which
was somewhat discouraging.  And I still wasn't dealing with the pain that
well.  So much for a baby by noontime.

So around noon I asked for some NuBain (analgesic) which they put in my IV.  I
had to lay down because the NuBain was making me somewhat spacy.  My doctor
came in around 12:30 and examined me and decided to rupture my membranes in
hope that it would speed up my contractions.  I had heard that the NuBain
would take the edge off the contractions but I felt like it wasn't doing
anything.  And even though my membranes had been ruptured, my contractions
were still wimpy and irregular.

So I decided to go for the epidural and my obstetrician recommended that I
have pitocin after that.  Around 1:30 the anesthesiologist came in and gave me
the epidural.  It went better than I thought, just like the IV.  (I'm a person
who doesn't like needles.)  But mentally I was freaking out by the fact that
my legs were getting numb.  They also decided to put an internal monitor on
the baby because the external monitor kept slipping off.

They put me on pitocin and I had to lie on one side because of the epidural.
I had taped the premiere episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine the week before
and hadn't watched it yet so while the pitocin was working and I couldn't feel
the contractions, my husband and the birth assistant and I watched Deep Space
Nine on the VCR.

My obstetrician came back to check on me in the late afternoon and by 6:30 I
was fully dilated at 10 centimeters.  It was time to push.  But I couldn't
feel anything because of the epidural.  So my husband watched the fetal
monitor to tell me when I was having a contraction, the birth assistant would
pick up one leg, the nurse would pick up the other leg, and I would hold my
breath and push and hoped I was pushing the right muscles.  This went on for
about an hour and a half.  They had turned down the anesthesia in the epidural
and I began to feel the contractions in my upper abdomen but I still couldn't
feel my bottom and I didn't have the urge to push.

So about 8:00 p.m. my obstetrician suggested that she use a vacuum extractor.
I had pushed the baby partway down the birth canal but she wasn't coming all
the way out.  So I had an episiotomy and they used the vacuum extractor and
out came Meredith!!  They let me hold her for a few minutes and then took her
over to the bassinet to examine her.  She wasn't crying too much so the nurses
used the little chest thumper to get her to cry more.

Meanwhile I was lying there getting stitched up which seemed to take an
extremely long time.  But I still couldn't feel anything fortunately including
the uterine massage the nurse did.  About a half hour after the birth I got to
feed Meredith for the first time, which went OK.

It took a very long time for the epidural to wear off, about six hours until I
could really feel my legs again.  It was strange to be lying in the dark
during the night with Meredith nearby, my husband sleeping in the foldout
couch, and me still withouth sensation in my legs.  But finally feeling
returned about 3:00 a.m.

We had a birthing room where I did it all: labor, delivery and recovery.  I
realized when I left the hospital two days later that I had spent about 48
hours from the time of the epidural until the time of discharge in that room
without ever going outside of it.

Now we're at home and Meredith is one week old today.  She is very sweet and
cute and sleeps almost all the time and seems to be a good eater and not too
fussy.  I think both she and I are finally getting the hang of breastfeeding.
I am very happy and my husband is trying to learn songs that he can sing to
the baby.  I am also not as sore as I thought I would be.  My husband's mother
is here to help out -- I don't know what I would do without her.

Thanks to everyone who answered all my pregnancy questions over the last few
months.  Misc.kids has really been an encouragement to me during pregnancy and
I'm sure it will continue to be so as I adjust to motherhood.  It is so nice
to know that I am not the only person with a certain problem or situation.

Please send any messages to me on e-mail.  I am at home and I know how to get
e-mail from home but I haven't learned how to get on the net from home.  I was
supposed to learn the day I went into labor.  My e-mail address is
krages@ohsu.edu.                                        --Kathryn Krages