Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Alexis Dayne's Birth Story

I know not everyone is interested in the birth story, so that is why I made it a separate post from the general update. So, I checked in to the hospital at 8pm on Sunday, September 8. The nurses were waiting for me and told me that I was their only patient for the night! I got all settled in my room, met with the anesthesiologist, the OB and my nurses. Throughout the evening I also met some of the NICU staff and some of the CICU staff. The OB checked me and said I was 3-4 cm dilated already, and because of that she didn't want to start any Pitocin or anything until in the morning, since I had explained how quick my labor with Levi was. So, Jason and I went to sleep knowing that the plan was to get up at 4:45am to get things going. I think I slept for 3 hours total, between being hugely pregnant and drinking a half gallon of water so we could avoid needing a bunch of IV fluids. ***** At 4:45am we were woken up and things started happening. My Pitocin was started and we were good to go. The OB came back at 6am and broke my water, at which point she said I was a solid 4cm and 75% effaced (the cervix has to thin out before it can dilate, so it was 75% of the way to completely thinned out). After she broke my water I started feeling the contractions. By 7:30am I was in a huge amount of pain so I decided to get an epidural. I can see why people love them! It instantly made the pain go away and, although it made my whole body a little bit tingly, I was able to rest and relax. ***** At 9am I was 6cm dilated. At 9:15 I was 7-8cm and by 9:35 I was feeling a TON of pressure. I called for the nurse, she checked me and, sure enough, it was time to push! She had me do a practice push and thought it looked adequate, so she called in the rest of the team. There were about 15 medical professionals in the room with me when I started pushing, as well as Jason and both of our moms. The epidural was set to such a level that I could feel the contractions as pressure but not pain, which is good because pushing in and of itself was painful enough! I pushed for about 15 minutes then saw my beautiful baby girl open her eyes as Jason cut the cord. She started crying right away and everyone made comments about how big she was and how great her lungs sounded. Alexis Dayne Schneider was born at 9:58am, weighing 7 lbs 2 oz, 20 in long. ***** While they were working on her, the OB delivered the placenta and then I was able to hold her for just a moment. They then took Alexis to the stabilization room where they attempted to put in some umbilical catheters to get her medicine going. While they did that the OB stitched me up. Apparently Alexis came out with her hand on her face, palm out, and ripped me pretty good when her elbow popped through. The NICU team was not able to place all the lines they needed to in her umbilical stump, so they brought her back to me for just a few minutes then had to take her to get the IV put in somewhere else. She looked completely normal, except her nail beds were a little blue. It was so surreal that she was actually here! ***** They took her down to the Cardiac ICU (CICU) to place the lines, and I sent Jason with her. I was able to get up a little while later and go down to see her, too. She was all bundled up and had a ton of lines on her, both medicines and monitors. It hit me right then and there that she was, indeed, sick. There is nothing we can do to make her better except pray and have her go through surgery. So, that is the plan!

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