From: jschwarz@lonestar.utsa.edu (Jan A. Schwarz)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: "Waiting" Grandmother's birth story
Date: 27 Jan 93 22:13:04 GMT
Organization: University of Texas at San Antonio

Hi, ya'll.  I don't know if anyone is interested in this but I had fun
reading about everyone when my daughter was expecting and gathering
information for her regarding diapers, formula, breastfeeding, effacing,
etc.  I received messages from lots and lots of people with very helpful
information.  She did have a very difficult delivery but we all made it.

So, here goes.  She was due Jan. 12.  About a month before every time she
would go to the doctor her blood pressure was steadily creeping up and she
was starting to have quite a bit of swelling.  He never thought she would
go 40 weeks - always said probably around 38.  But, the time came and
baby Brittany still wasn't here.  She had started effacing mid December
and the baby was down.  As the time got closer the effacing seemed to
not be progressing and the baby was moving back up.

A week after her due date he decided to put her in the hospital and try
to soften up her cervix with some kind of gel (don't know the name of it).
Anyway, she went into the hospital at 6:00 a.m. on Tuesday (19th) and after
four applications of the gel (all at about 5 hour intervals) we went back
home the next day at around 10:30 a.m.  Her cervix did soften and shorten
but she still wasn't dialating.  The contractions were pretty strong but
not bad enough for medication.  Needless to say, she was tired and very
depressed.

She went home and slept and then they went to the mall and walked.  She
started to loose her mucus plug while walking at the mall.  (Excuse me if
some of this is misspelled, I don't want to take time to look up any words.)
The doctor called that night and told her to come in the next morning and
he would check her and possibly send her BACK to the hospital.  So, she
did and was dialated to 1.5 cm - and having contractions on her own.  She
was so excited!  They hooked her up to everything and he came in about
12:30 p.m. and broke her water.  Her dialation went at a snail's pace
but the contractions were pretty steady and pretty hard.  She was on
demerol for the pain and shse and her husband counted through all of
the contractions.

Finally by 10:30 p.m. she had dialated to a good 3 cm and they gave her
the epidural.  Oh, I think I forgot to say that some time before this he
put her on a tiny bit of pitocin.  After the epidural she was quite
comfortable.  She said that the epidural wasn't as bad as the I.V. they
put in.  Then they speeded up the pitocin.  Dialation was still VERY
slow and she was getting really tired.  I was just sure by this time
that she would have to have a C-section.  The bad thing was was that
one time the monitor came off the baby's head and the heart rate dropped
real low so they took my daughter off of the pitocin.  She lost about
4 hours of progression when this happened.  They had to give her oxygen,
etc.  (Really scarey.)  Then they had to start everything up real slow
again.  By 6:00 a.m. she was 6-7 cm.  They had until 12:00 noon to get
the baby out since he had broken her water 12:30 the day before!  I
figured there was no way she would ever dialate in that amount of time
but by 8:00 a.m. she was complete and ready to push.

I finally thought - THIS IS IT!  But, she pushed every 2-3 minutes (4
sets of pushes) for the until 11:45 A.M.  I haven't bothered to count
how many times this is, I think I would faint if I did.  She was so
totally exausted from the two days before and then all the time this
took that she could hardly move.  My heart broke for her but she was
a real trooper.  By this time she was running fever.  Her blood pressure
had to be monitored very closely because she had PIH.  It was really
a very traumatic sight.  Then, after all that, the nurse came in and
said that the doctor wanted them to take her down to surgery and he
would try and use the forcepts and suction and if that didn't work
she would have a C-section.  I thought I was going to collapse after
hearing that.  I just thought, after all this and going to have a
C-section afterall.  I felt so sorry for her.  But, they wheeled her
away (her husband and I went with her) and within about 15 minutes
the baby was born.  He did have to use forcepts and the suction.
The baby had a few marks on her but it wasn't bad.  They cleared
up pretty quick.  She did have a cone head, though.  I about died
when I saw this but they assured me that it would be back to normal
within days.  And, it was!  I couldn't believe it.

Then, after she delivered her placenta would come out and they had
to really force it out and she hemmoraged quite a bit.  She was in
recovery for about 4 hours.  She isn't nursing and can't take the
medicine to dry up her milk so she had to bind her breasts.  She
is dealing with the pain of that right now.  I really don't know
what to tell her to do, just wait it out, I guess.

Anyway, the baby is beautiful (course this is coming from a proud
Grandmother) and my daughter is going to be fine.  She actually did
mention a baby brother or sister for Brittany some time in the future.
I wasn't sure she would every talk about another one after all this.

Thanks for everyone's messages and support and I'm sorry if this was
so long.

Regards,

Grandma Jan
Newsgroups: misc.kids