I was expecting Isaac to come early. At 34 weeks I breathed a sigh of relief when the baby was still inside me and healthy. At 36 weeks I felt pretty confident that the baby would be fine if he were born.
At 37 weeks I was ready to be done with the pregnancy. By 38 weeks I was climbing the walls.
At my 38 week appointment on Oct. 14, we tentatively scheduled an induction date for the following Wednesday because the baby hadn't been reactive during a non-stress test that I had as part of the visit.
My blood pressure, although slightly elevated, still wasn't in the truly worrisome range, and I didn't have any of the other signs of preeclampsia. The doctor decided to have me come in the next morning for another NST, just to make sure that the baby's heart rate was reactive.
On the morning of Friday, October 15 I went in for the non-stress test. After rolling and kicking for 45 minutes while I sat in the waiting room, the baby slept through the NST and the doctor decided to induce because they said he was non-reactive.
I got checked into L&D and the doctor decided to start pitocin without doing a cervical prep first. I was 50 percent effaced, 1.5 cm dilated, and –1 station at the time.
We spent most of the afternoon watching slowly turning up the pitocin, and for a while, it looked like it was going to work. After three or four hours, the contractions completely stopped. My belly was as hard as a rock all the time but I stopped feeling any pain.
So the doctors decided to stop the pitocin and do a round of cervidil instead. We got started with the cervidil around 8 pm on Friday and it needed to stay in place for 12 hours.
When they checked me the next morning, I was still 50 percent effaced and 1.5 cm dilated, but a little softer and a little lower. I was surprised because cervidil had worked really well with both of my other inductions, but the doctors were reluctant to start pitocin this time since I hadn't changed much.
The residents suggested doing a round of cytotec, and I told them (for about the 10th time) that I didn't want to do it. They went back to talk to the consultant, and he sent them back to convince me it would be the best thing for me. I reluctantly agreed.
After four hours, I was 2 cm and about 80 percent effaced and they decided to do another round of cytotec. By the time those four hours were up, I was in hard labor (4cm, 100 percent effaced and +1 station).
Since I had been having consistent contractions for about 12 hours at that point and hadn't slept the night before, I decided I wanted drugs. By the time the anesthesiologist finished with the epidural, the doctor broke my water and I was 6 cm.
At this point, things got crazy (this seems to be a running thread with my deliveries). First of all, the epidural only took on one side, so I felt every contraction, and they were coming right on top of each other.
When I was 7cm (about 15 minutes after I got the epidural) the drugs stopped working completely and the baby's heart rate started to drop. The doctors realized I was hyperstimulating (the reason why I didn't want the cytotec in the first place) and gave me terbutaline to stop the contractions.
I got wheeled into the OR for an emergency c-section (I was about two minutes away from general anesthesia) when I noticed that the baby's heart rate was back up in the 130s.
The doctors checked me and I was complete, so they let me push instead of doing the c-section. My baby was born after about four minutes of pushing (and a pretty decent episiotomy, ouch!).
Despite the scary decelerations, Isaac Paul Miner arrived in perfect health at 8:15pm on Saturday, Oct. 16, weighing 6 lbs., 14 oz. and measuring 19 3/4 inches.
We got home today and Isaac is perfect. He's my best nurser by far and seems to be a peaceful baby. His big brother and sister are wild over him! We're really glad that he's safely here and that he's part of our family. The funny thing is, I actually miss being pregnant!
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