Sadie's Birth Story

Here is Sadie's birth story that I wrote two weeks after she was born.  These are just the facts as I remembered them.  I eventually will do did a blog post about my feelings on how the events unfolded and what I would have done differently.

Dad & Mom staring down with the same look of adoration

Sadie's due date, Feb 8th, 2012, came and went. After it passed I began desperately trying everything I could to get labor started. I wanted a natural birth so I really was hoping things would get started on their own before 42 weeks which is when an induction would be scheduled.

I was thrilled when I started getting regular contractions around 10 pm on Saturday, Feb 18. I was 41 weeks + 4 days so she was coming just in time. I had regular contractions all night lasting around 45 seconds every 6-7 min. I got absolutely no sleep because of the pain and the excitement. Around 8 am Sunday morning I called my parents and let them know that today was going to be the day. Kevin usually works weekends so he called off and told them he would be taking his week long vacation starting that day. But then around 10 am the contractions basically just stopped.

Rather than getting some sleep on Sunday, I spent the day trying to do things to get labor going again. Around 11 pm Sunday evening the contractions started back up. I spent the whole night up again and this time it they seemed to be getting stronger and a little tiny bit closer together.

By Monday morning they were about 5 minutes apart. I hadn't slept for 2 nights but I was so excited I couldn't even tell that I was tired. I had a doctors appointment scheduled for 11:30 that day, so at 8 am I called the office to see if I should still go to it or if I should just head in to the hospital. He told me to take a shower and rest for a few hours and then just head to the hospital. It was hard for me to rest though. I managed to eat a small bowl of yogurt and granola. We headed to the hospital around 11 am.

They examined me and I was at a 4. This was encouraging to me considering at each of my prior exams I had never been bigger than a 1. They went ahead and checked me in and took me to my room. 

So Monday from around 11:30 am until 6 pm I labored in my room with Kevin. I felt extremely weak and tired since I hadn't slept for days and they wouldn't allow me to eat or drink. I kept begging for food and they brought me popsicles which didn't help at all. The nurse examined me at 6 pm and told me I was at 6 cm. I couldn't believe in all that time I had only dilated 2 cm! She said my bag of waters was bulging and ready to break at any moment. She said it was so ready to break that she could have probably broken it with her finger-tip and asked if I wanted to call a doctor in to break it. I told her to hold off, that I wanted to think about it. 

After about an hour I decided my labor had to start progressing so I called the nurse and told her I did want my water broken. She said she would call this doctor in to do it (not my doctor). At about 8 pm they broke my water.

That is when things got really intense. The pain of the contractions got really really bad. After about an hour I started feeling extremely ill. I felt really weak and felt like I was going to vomit and actually did a little bit. This went on until around 2 am Tuesday morning when they checked me again. At this point I was only 7 cm. I couldn't understand how that could be. In six hours of the most intense painful labor I had only gone up 1 cm??? This is when they told me I would need to start pitocin. I had really wanted a natural birth but at this point I was so sick and miserable I wanted to do whatever I could to have it be over. I decided there was no way I could get pitocin without an epidural so I told them to give me both.

So around 2 am Tuesday morning I got both an epidural and got started on pitocin. I fell asleep immediately. From 2 am-8 am was a weird haze of chills and fever dreams. I kept waking up and complaining that I was cold. The nurse said it was probably from the IV. I had my husband put a bunch of blankets on me and turn up the heat in the room. The next thing i remember is the nurse waking me up telling me that I had a fever of 104 and that they were going to give me antibiotics. I was really confused and I have no idea what time this was. 

At 9 am they woke me up to check my dilation. They said I was finally at a 10 and that it would be time to start pushing soon. My doctor came in and told me I had developed chorioamnionitis (a bacterial infection) after my water was broken which is why I had the fever and was feeling so ill. Around 9:30 am I started pushing. I still felt really sick and weak so it was difficult. Despite being on pitocin all night my contractions were still really far apart. I had to wait 5 minutes after pushing for another contraction to begin. Around noon my doctor informed me that despite having pushed for 2.5 hours, no progress had been made. He said that I could try pushing for another hour or I could elect for a c-section. By this point I didn't even have to think about it. I was so miserable and also worried about the health of my baby because of the infection. I told him I wanted to do the c-section.

At 12:36 pm on Tuesday Feb 21st Sadie Elise was born. They let me see her for just a second before rushing her off to the NIC unit. I had a couple nurses tell me it was a good thing I decided to do the c-section when I did. They told me the infection had gotten into her stomach and her lungs. They put her on a 7-day course of antibiotics and did a bunch of tests to make sure she wouldn't have to stay longer (all of which she passed with flying colors). By day 2 she was acting like a 100% healthy baby girl and from there on out it was just a waiting game until the 7th day so she could be released.