I figured I would go ahead and post about my labor experience. I have had a lot of people ask how it went and to be honest it was possibly the worst experience EVER! The end result was obviously worth it and yes I would do it again for Brandon, however, I can honestly say my one and done theory will stay intact. There will be no more pregnancies for me.
Last Tuesday I went in for a doctor's appointment and my blood pressure was elevated again and I was swelling pretty badly. They were going to induce me on Thursday anyway but with all the issues I had been having decided it would be best to go ahead and induce that day. We ended up at the hospital around 11:30am where I was admitted to labor and delivery. For the first hour they were to just monitor me to check to see how many contractions I was having and to go ahead and get some blood work done. I had only 4 contractions within the 1st hour so they proceeded to give me Cervidil which is used to "ripen" the cervix. I had to keep this in for a total of 12 hours. For the majority of this process I was feeling okay. Contractions weren't that bad and I could still get up and move around.
Around 10pm that night I actually started to feel some cramping and realized that the contractions were starting to become fairly regular and stronger as the night went on. By the time they removed the Cervidil my contractions were about 5 minutes a part. They decided to go ahead and check me before starting to pitocin to see if I had dilated any; I hadn't. I was still at 1cm but I was starting to efface. Around 1:45am I was administered the pitocin and within 10 minutes my water broke. I started progressing pretty rapidly at that point and my contractions were much stronger and much closer together.
Around 3am I started telling the nurses that I wanted to go ahead and get the epidural. I was 5cm dilated and everything was moving along great but I was in some serious pain and wanted to get some relief. Well, this is when I was informed that I couldn't have an epidural because my platelet count was well below the threshold. I guess if you are below 130 they will not administer any type of spinal block due to the fact that it could have caused a brain bleed and I could have died. My platelet count was hovering around 100 so I wasn't even close. To say I was upset at this point was an understatement. I started to realize that I was going to have to do this sans pain medication.
After about a 10 minute freak out session I decided to try to work with the pain and just take it one contraction at a time. This worked okay for a while but by early morning my contractions were so close together it was like I never got a break. I was having continuous contractions with peaks that were going off the charts.
At around 8am, Dr. Hennessey came in to check me and I was at 9.5cm dilated and almost completely effaced expect on my right side. For the next 3 hours this is where I stayed. I never progressed any further. They finally decided to do a c section at 12 noon; however, since I couldn't have an epidural I had to be put completely under with general anesthesia.
From what Nick said I was only gone for about 20 minutes. They were quick. They brought Brandon to me in the recovery room and I remember him laying next to me and just looking at him. Nick says all I kept saying was "He's perfect." I don't really remember this because I was still a little out of it but I could definitely see myself saying that.
They originally were going to put me in ICU but I was not having that because I would not have been able to see Brandon at all. We were finally given a room in postpartum after much negotiating on Nick's part with the head of the department.
All in all, I was in the hospital for 4 days total. When we were finally allowed to go home on Saturday I was fully ready. All I wanted was to be in my own space around my own things. The staff at FWBMC in the labor and delivery department were wonderful to work with and helped me through such a trying time. It's pretty funny when everyone that had to work with me during my labor stopped by afterwards and kept saying how what I went through isn't normal.
I guess I can always use this story on Brandon when he gets older and needs to know just how much pain he put me through. LOL
Oh, and just FYI...nothing that we learned in the birthing class helped. Total waste of time.
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