After a week of elevated blood pressures and the diagnosis of preclampsia Dr. Lowe decided to send me on over to be induced. It was kind of a surprise I went to the office for some blood work and when the nurse took my blood pressure she told me she was going to have to notify Dr. Lowe since it was high. In comes Dr. Lowe and she says "Lets go have a baby, you really need to be delivered". I was nervous considering I was 37 weeks but ready to get things moving I had been feeling pretty horrible the last week or so and knew something was up. Needless to say I called Marcus and we headed to the hospital. Once we arrived we notified the family to be en route seeing as they were traveling 4 hours.
We we arrived I was greeted by a familiar face Kelly a nurse that had taken care of me on a previous admission so my nerves were calmed some what as I got into my lovely hospital gown. We arrived at the hospital at 10:15 am on July 23, 2009, after my IV was going, and my pitocin was started I began to have contractions. Not terrible ones but never the less contractions. I was already 4 1/2 cm and 90% effaced in the doctors office so I was expecting to go pretty quick, boy did Xavier have other plans for his arrival into this world.
At about 12 Dr. Lowe came in and broke my water, that got things moving, but I was still comfortable enough to update my facebook status and talk on the phone. The contractions were pretty regular and increasing in intensity, so I decided after talking with Kelly the nurse to get my epidural. Well that whole process was a nightmare to say the least. It took 6 attempts to finally get the epidural in, it was worse than the contractions I was having, at that point I was in tears and really upset. Finally after the epidural set in and my blood pressure stabilized (it dropped really low) I took a nap. It helped calm my nerves and give me some much needed energy. During the nap the nurse adjusted my pitocion numerous times finally at 4:00 she checked me and I had progressed to 6cm. So some progress was being made. My mom and dad as well as Marcus' mom and brother arrived at around 4:30.
Over the next few hours my pitocin continued to be adjusted and I was kept comfortable, at about 7:00 my new nurse Delma arrived on duty. She was another wonderful caring nurse I had during my stay. She checked me and I was not making as much progress as we had expected, considering I was 4 1/2 cm when I arrived and had been that way for nearly a week. I was only 7cm and my pitocin was on pretty high. After a few more pitocin adjustments in comes Dr. Lowe and the nurse, Xavier's heart rate was begining to dip letting us know he was in a little distress. So they decided to place an internal monitor on to monitor him more closely. No more than 20 minutes passed and in comes Dr. Roncone one of Dr. Lowe's partner's and tells me his heart rate is not reassuring and we need to stop my pitocin to give him a break, so on went the dreaded oxygen mask. Up until this point I had been a patient now I was beginning to panic and be a nurse thinking of Xavier and what could go wrong. Delma checked me again and I was still hanging on to 7cm.
Well I finally got to 9cm at 10:30 after literally getting on all fours (while numb from my epidural) for an hour and numerous pitocin rest for his dropping heart rate, Delma never left my side. At 12 when Dr. Lowe checked me I was still 9cm and he was just not descending so Dr. Lowe made the call to do a c-section. He wasn't handling the contractions well, my BP was dropping, I was running a fever, my epidural had worn off, and things weren't progressing. So Xavier finally arrived via c-section on July 24, 2009 at 1:05 am. He was 7lbs and 20 inches long!
So my birthing experience wasn't the beautiful moment I had envisioned and I didn't get to enjoy his first few hours of his life due to some complications with the c-section (they ended up knocking me out) but I will never forget the moment my eyes met his for the first time. What an amazing experience regardless of how he got here. I'd do it again in a heart beat. So we found out he was sunny side up and had his neck turned so he was stuck. Poor baby had bruises on his head, ear, and neck from the laboring process.
