a bit of the birth story...

sorry it has taken so long to get on here and update the blog - life with baby is good - but Alex got flu and my best friend from UK showed up - as a surprise on Thursday Feb 26th, which was lovely - but we were out and about and adjusting to schedules and not blogging! it was a total surprise as she wasn't going to come and stay as she had planned in the end - she flew in thursday and my sis picked her up and she stayed there... they brought her round friday a.m. i was brushing my teeth and alex said all your family is here - i said well they have to wait for me to brush my teeth - so he came back in with the camera and said look at this great pic of seb... so i look at the display and its a pic of lizzi with seb - well it took a few secs for me to realize it meant she was here - so i start crying - then she comes in the loo crying then i hear mum crying and saying 'i knew she'd cry'... i am in a nursing bra and disposable knicks and a giant pad for all this...

anyhow - i wanted to get a bit of birth story info on here...

the birth went well - i went in for my stress test the a.m. of Wednesday Feb 18th, and my amneotic fluid had dropped from 10 to 5.2 in 3 days... so they had a ultrasound tech from my perinatologist come and do the fetal test thing... baby was fine, but my fluid was low so they wanted to keep me in and induce before it dropped more... they 'checked me into' L&D and broke my water... we had already agreed with my doc that i could eat drink and not have an IV - he was going to just break my waters to star with.... the nurses that admitted me argued that they were not going to let me eat or drink and i could go on ice chips - i said look - i've been here since 7 a.m. and have not eaten and doc Y (my jamaican doc X's partner) said i could - then they brought in the iv and i burst into tears and refused and they argued.. i said doc sullivan said just a hep-lock and no iv needed as i was allowed to eat and drink. i said why are you making me do these things - and they said - well its just what we do - exactly what they said... so flex said well you need to check with doc Y as we made a point of asking these things when he said i was being admitted... so they called him and he came down from triage and said - yes she can eat and drink as she is fine and baby is fine - alex go to the cafe and get her what she wants - and he said - she does not need an iv as she is going to drink through her labour...

round one achieved... we got our assigned nurse D - lovely - she read our birth plan and was fine with it and brought me in the birth ball and a rocking chair - despite the fact that every room was full we lucked out and got one of the 2 big rooms with a shower - score...

Doc Y broke my water and said he would be back in 4/5 hours... Flex went home to get my case, snacks and laptop... when he got back nothing was happening still... so doc Y came back - my nurse had to go help with someone pushing and at the end of labour so a nurse called nancy (evil nancy) came in - she was someone we had for one of our stress tests and i didn't like her then... oh god - she was AWFUL... had obvious disdain for our birth plan - when we said our doula was on the way she made a face... we had heard doc sullivan saying i only needed a low dose of pitocin - and to only take me from 2 to 6... well once he left she kept upping it... Laura our doula was here by now... and we all said to stop - i was having contractions by then - hard core... was swaying and breathing.. she kept saying i wasn't having contractions - they weren't showing on the monitor - i kept telling her she had the monitors on my fibroids and that was why - she argued and had me up to 14 pitocin... well i got on the birth ball and she came in and said - people fall off those and hurt themselves.... everything she said is negative... awful awful... anyhow - i was getting myself all upset, so Laura asked her if the shifts changed at 6 still and she said yes... it was 5.40 so we just let it go...

then Christine my nurse for the rest of my labour came on -----and she was marvelous... they put her on the natural birth plan births... so it went on... my contractions were coming every minute and 20 secs thanks to the pitocin and a couple of times i thought i was going to have to take something - but then i would then think get through it and rest in the minute off - so i would. i spent most of the labour on my feet just rocking and doing gentle lunges...

apparently between 9 and 10 and i collapsed - all i remember is the lights going on - the call button being pushed to summon dr X - who was now on duty - and people running around - then lifting me into the bed and putting me on oxygen... both mine and the baby's heartrates had dropped... once they got the oxygen on we both came back up - the oxygen mask sent me into a panic attack though as i was trying to breath through a contraction and the mask was sucking onto my face... so i was trying to rip it off... anyhow - i then said i wanted my mum so flex ran off to call her.... my lovely big sis brought her in and she and sis stayed with me - i was half way through transition and had the need to push so they told me to go with my body and i did - then i told flex to go get his mum who was in the waiting room as it wasn't fair to have one granny and not the other - so i had mum and flex on the left leg, sis on the right and MIL putting cool cloths on my head... it was actually great to have them all there - although as mum had never been at a birth EVER (sis and i are adopted) she kept trying to have weird conversations with me or tell me jokes when i was contracting and pushing and sis had to keep telling her to shut up as i was in a zone and concentrating... looking back i remember it all, but at the time was focused inward... pushed for an hour and sebi came out - 8lbs 6 oz - god - i was horrifed - and ny va-j-j was traumatized... dr X sewed me up for almost an hour (he has a rep of doing plastic surgeon quality repair work) - turns out i tore slightly during the birth - but the little bugger grabbed hold of my perineum with his hand on the way out and tore it more... UGH...

he latched on to each boob for 15 mins and then they showered me off and washed him down - did it all in the L&D room - i drank 2 big bottles of gatorade to rehydrate. Meanwhile flex recovered as he cried and almost fainted after Seb came out - he got to announce the sex which was cool...

went up to mother and baby - all the nurses were so lovely and said it was exciting to have someone go for natural as no one did it anymore and people like us made them keep coming back to the job... was really nice...

stayed in hospital this night and the next and then home...all the neighbours have brought round gifts and had all the friends visit in hospital... family have been great and lots of people have brought meals... alex has been amazing and very hands on - taken over lots of the household duties and keeps the place organized so i don't get stressed out with mess...