Big Baby Blog

Today my baby Elsa is two weeks old, and I think I have aged about 2 years. :) The following is her birth story, my grey hairs and a bit about how we all are doing.

We went into the hospital Sunday night to start Cervidel but were sent home as I seemed to be doing well enough on my own. We happily drove the 20 miles back home and woke at 2AM to return to the hospital. At 4AM they wheeled me up to my room and started poking and prodding me. I had my first panic attack with the IV (standard behavior on my part) and had to get a puke trough. Ron kindly smuggled me some water to wash the acid vurp back down my throat. Soon after, they started the Pitocin.

Here I am being interviewed by Ron that morning:



Ron never did a follow-up because after this video, things got more intense. Talking wasn't something I did readily.

About 10:00 AM my doctor came in, checked me and broke my water. That doesn't feel good, I'll just be honest. Not the worst thing I've done but it really didn't feel great. And the amount of fluid coming out felt like gallons. Ron took a look and said "yuck."

Around this time, Ron flipped through the channels and what did he see?? Army of Darkness! We took it as a sign from God...and Bruce Campbell.

Paralyzed, from my hospital bed, I was crowing about how Bruce Campbell retweeted me. It took me at least 10 minutes to type my Tweet, in between contractions. That's how hardcore, I mean nerdy, I am.

After my water broke I was told to go through at least a half an hour of regular, consistent contractions before I could have an epidural. I thought that was the longest half an hour of my life, at the time. It feels like knives going through your lower abdomen, quite frankly. And then the very crabby epidural person came in and lectured me on having a lower back tattoo. I guess there is a risk of your ink being pushed into your spine and causing an infection. I really didn't have the presence of mind to tell her that she had no right to be so pissy when I was the one being ripped apart from the inside by my zombie baby. It was no picnic trying to sit up and sit still for her to put a needle into my spine but whatever. After a couple tries it was in and I thought the worst had passed.

Before bad contractions:

I kept waiting for this magical epidural to kick in and take away all my earthly pain. Tick, tick, tick...the clock kept moving, the contractions kept kicking my ass and the epidural continued to mock me. Oh sure, my feet and legs were mighty numb! If my chief complaint that day had been arthritis of the knees and ankles, boy I would have been happy. So now I can't move around and I feel like Freddy Krueger is making minced meat out of my innards. The bitchy epidural lady ran in a few times, injected more solution into my pipes but nothing changed other than my legs became heavier and heavier. (Luckily we discovered that her husband is also a Bruce Campbell fan. Finally, some common ground!)

Shortly after, I experienced a really strong contraction and it felt like the baby punched me very hard in my upper belly. I didn't know it at the time, but Ron and his mom saw the baby's heart beat drop rapidly. The nurse came in and then the doctor. The Pitocin was stopped, I was thrown on my right side and had an oxygen mask slapped on. I was told my placenta may be rupturing and if baby's heart rate dipped again, we'd be in for a c-section. At this point I started to tear up because I really didn't want that. I was afraid that if I had this surgery, it would take me a long time to recover and I didn't want to be bed ridden. So I had an hour to recover and then try again.

Soon after the possible rupturing:

With the Pitocin shut off, the contractions were very bearable. I thought, perhaps, the epidural had finally kicked in. Hooray!

Then they turned the Pitocin back on. Wah waaaaaaaaaah. No dice: the pain came back with a vengeance. I believe this was now around 11:30 AM.

Thankfully, her heartbeat did not go down again. They inserted an internal monitor which fell out during another bad contraction and another "punch" to the gut. At around 1:00 PM I called back in the nurse and told her that I felt EVERYTHING and I could no longer take the pain. Please please please give me SOMETHING to help with the pain. She examined me and announced I was 10 cm and we could start to push. They called my doc and put me on my back. It was finally time!!

I'll save you the gory details and the video where she actually was born. However it took about 35 minutes and Elsa was here! I was unable to hold her for about half an hour because the cord was wrapped around her little neck, possibly causing her heart beat to drop earlier in the day. And I was a little torn up inside, requiring some stitches to stop all the blood loss. So here she is while I was being worked on:



Ron and I bawled when she was born and we were so happy to see her.

Elsa Kimberleigh, 6 lbs, 7 oz and 19 inches long. Born November 21st.

We are all doing great, we are all tired as hell and happy too! Everything is still new and different for us and I thank you all in your patience while we adjust. Once we start sleeping more regularly, I imagine I will be more in touch with people again.

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving! Tschus!