I’m catching up on posting, so there are a couple of posts for today.  I actually wrote this on 8/30/11, so there is even more to add to this later.

As you all know, the last couple/few months have been fairly stressful for me.  Moving while 9 months pregnant is no fun!  Baby’s due date came and went and still no baby. I was again getting stressed out, because the 21st is Monster’s birthday, the 22nd is our anniversary, school started for Monster and Princess on the 22nd and my “baby” Bean was starting kindergarten on the 23rd. I really wanted to be there for his first day of K, but it didn’t happen.

So, there I was trying to sleep in a bit on 8/20 and my water broke in bed. I quickly woke up hubby  (who was momentarily confused) and called my OB. My last pregnancy went very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that Ian almost didn’t survive the contractions. The midwife called me back and said to give them another call when the contractions were regular and less than 10 minutes apart. Within 30-45 minutes, my contractions were 3-4 minutes apart and it was time to go. My mom made it to the house and hubby and I left quickly.

We live about 5-7 minutes from the hospital, so we arrived in no time, got in and went straight up to the birthing center. I was able to stand just enough to get weighed and got to my room, but I wasn’t able to get changed or do anything else. My contractions immediately started to “camel-back”, which is to say, they peaked, then barely backed off, then peaked again before they would go down for about 30-40 seconds. I literally had no break from them and no time to breathe. I had planned on doing everything naturally, but I since couldn’t breathe and I asked for an epidural. I refuse to be disappointed in myself for that. I feel strongly that I would have had another c-section if I hadn’t gotten the epidural. Anyway, my OB ended up giving me something to slow down the contractions, because baby’s heart rate was being affected by them and to give me a better chance of a VBAC (vaginal birth after Cesarian).

Things slowed down a bit, but not too much. I was still having contractions 3-4 minutes apart and was dilating quickly. Finally, it was time to push and that lasted for over 1 1/2 hours. Baby’s heart rate was still dipping with every contraction and I could tell that everyone was really nervous about it. My OB said that one part of my cervix was refusing to move away for baby’s head. She also made a decision that he needed to come out, and it couldn’t wait. So, I ended up with a fairly large episiotomy and they vacuum-suctioned Baby out, which all went really fast.

So, now I am a bit sore and can’t do much for a couple weeks and baby has a nice size cone on the top/side of his head. We are both doing well, for the most part. I definitely feel better than when I’ve had my c-sections, but am still in some pain. Plus, I’m not sure what happened, but I’ve breast fed both my other babies with little to no difficulty, but for some reason, I’m having a really hard time now. By day 2, I could tell that something wasn’t right and by day 5, I was so cracked and bleeding that I couldn’t do it any more. This is what I am having the most troubles with. I rented a pump from the pharmacy and am pumping every 2 1/2-3 hours, but I’m still having to supplement with a bit of formula. Baby and I had an appointment with a lactation consultant, who said that we should still be able to re-latch once everything is healed, which it almost is. We have another appointment with her tomorrow to give it another go. I’m really nervous about it, mostly because I was in so much pain before I started pumping. Being able to breast feed again would make things so much better. Pumping then feeding takes twice the time and work, but he’s worth it, so I’ll do what I have to, to make sure he is getting the best nutrition I can give him.

But, the most important thing is that baby is doing really well. He’s beautiful and perfect! I already can’t imagine life without him! It’s funny how things change so quickly. Someone enters your life and, BAM, everything is different forever.

So there you go…  some of it not so pretty, some of it absolutely beautiful!  I got the VBAC that I wanted so badly, even though it didn’t go as planned, I still was able to avoid a 3rd c-section.  (Does anything ever really go as planned?)