[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by footfootfoot

5/31 at 11:15 am, the docs are always late.

It would appear that footfootfoot was closest in the pool, however he is suspected of having a hot tip from an insider, and his winnings will be frozen pending the outcome of the investigation. Meanwhile, Beestie gets an honorable mention for having an almost perfect timestamp, if an incorrect date:

Originally Posted by Beestie

May 28th at 4:37pm CST

Only seven minutes off! Bonus points were also awarded for noting the correct timezone.

So here's how it all went down (and very much not according to plan, as babies are often known for doing):

Tuesday night, I go in for the beginning of my induction. This part of the process is mild, and I'm expected to just sleep with the dilation medication overnight, and then hopefully very early in the morning start contractions, either on my own or with a second more aggressive drug.

So I get there, and the night doctor tells me that first off, I've dilated "significantly" in just the 5 hours since my afternoon appointment (with my real doctor) to verify that all was on track for the evening induction, and secondly, I'm actually having small contractions even though I can't feel a thing, so it would appear that I've miraculously gone into labor completely on my own at the exact time they were going to begin induction. I ask what "significantly" means, and they say a full centimeter, which doesn't sound so significant to me, but I'm not a doctor. Cancel the drugs, I'm going to have a textbook delivery.

Just a couple hours later they tell me the contractions are 4 minutes apart, and though I feel uncomfortable overall I seriously doubt I would have considered these to be regular contractions had they happened at home. A nurse informs me, however, that the baby's heart rate is slowing dramatically for 5-10 seconds after every contraction, which indicates he isn't getting enough oxygen during those times and they may need to speed up my delivery just a tad in order to make sure he's not subjected to that stress for too long. So they rescind their previous prognosis, and re-order the second drug, Pitocin, to hopefully push me over the edge into real labor right away.

I sleep for awhile, and a few hours later I can definitely feel the contractions and they're about 2 minutes apart. However, no increased dilation at all. The night doctor confers with my real doctor, and admits that they were probably feeling the same thing and just estimated it differently. But at this point the dilation drug won't work fast enough, so my real doctor takes over and breaks my water.

As he's talking to me through the procedure, you can hear the sudden change in his voice, though he tries very hard to be casual about it. "O-kay, that's unexpected--nurse..." (Gross description of a common complication taken to the extreme. Apparently my amniotic fluid is full of meconium. Not just a little coloration, but Linda Blair pea soup style. Everyone has to change clothes by the time they're done.) This indicates the baby has been in distress, probably for days. But the contractions are less than a minute apart and full delivery-strength, so they make an effort for awhile to give me extra oxygen, and do some fluid transfers, in the hopes of still delivering normally. But no dice. I'm still only 4 cm dilated, and it becomes clear that a C-section is inevitable.

From that point, however, everything went very smoothly. After he came out they whisked him away to do some emergency triage and make sure everything was okay, but he was breathing and crying on his own from the start, and after a minute everything calmed down and they began the typical weighing and assessment procedures. 7 lbs., 14 ounces--a huge baby considering my measurements; earlier estimations had put him at around 7 lbs., if that.


Of course having a C-section meant we had to stay a couple extra days, but I'm feeling pretty good considering, especially with some help from my friend the Vicodin prescription. It's amazing--I bothered to go back and count, and I've only slept about 2-3 hours a day (total, including naps) since Wednesday. But I'm alert and chipper--I could be trying to sleep now, for example, since Gideon just went back down after feeding (I typed the entire first half of this post with one hand, phear my leet multi-tasking), but I don't really feel like it. Obviously I'm high on adrenaline and hormones, and they tell me that in another few days that will wear off and I will crash hardcore. But in the meantime I will leave the snoring to those who do it the cutest: