Our blog is the only form of family history that happens in this house. It has been bugging me that I never blogged about Ethan's birth story so here it is....5 months later. Better late than never right?!? Be warned it is not the best writing. I just wanted to get the details down quick.
I was pretty nervous about having a vbac, but my doctors were very supportive so that was the plan. I did not want to go through labor just to find out I needed a c-section like I did with Parker. Earlier in the pregnancy one of my doctors had talked to me a lot about eating healthy. He said that it was the only thing I had control over and that maybe this baby would be smaller and the delivery would go better. I am happy to report I gained 10 less pounds with Ethan. I was hoping between the decreased weight gain and (fingers crossed) him coming early the VBAC would go fine.
On June 29th, I was 38 weeks and 6 days pregnant. I went in for my 39 week appointment and at that point I had only random single contractions. Nothing too exciting. I asked the doctor about the possibility of having my membranes stripped. And he said we could. I don't remember giving him the ok. He did the physical exam and let me know that I was dilated to 4cm. Then came the pain. Maybe I am a wuss, but membrane stripping was as awful as it sounds for me. However, once he finished the pain was over. Whew! An amazing neighbor was watching Parker for me. We had lunch together when I picked up Parker. She was convinced that I was going to go into labor at anytime so she kicked into mother mode and took over. It was awesome. Low and behold she was right! A couple of hours later (around 2pm) she was driving me to the hospital. Dan left class and met me there.
The contractions picked up pretty quick. Before they got me all setup I was having contractions every 1-2 minutes. I wanted my epidural, but of course the doctor was busy. I eventually got an epidural and it initially felt better than the one I had with Parker. I love epidurals! With the epidural in they broke my water. I was pretty sad when I started feeling the pain on my left side again. The same thing happened when I had Parker. More drugs please! The nurse thought that maybe I was progressing too fast so the epidural didn't take well so she checked me and I was complete. This was around 6pm. The doctor from my office had just left to go home so we got an on-call doctor from another office. We pushed for a long time and it was not looking so good. Ethan was doing fine, but he wasn't moving down much. My belly looked really funny when I was pushing. It looked like he was sticking his butt straight up in the air. Poor thing was stuck. The epidural wore off on the left side again. It hurt so bad! I was ready to give up. He wasn't moving down and I was in a lot of pain. After they fixed the epidural I got to take a "nap" for about an hour and then push some more. He still wasn't coming out. The doctor came in and noticed that my contractions were weakening so they weren't helping him out enough. They put me on some pitocin. She also suggested we try a vacuum. I was so tired and wanted to be done. I asked her if she thought it would work or is she just wanted to try. She said that she knew she could get him out. And she did, but it still took a lot of work! He was born a few minutes before 11pm. He was a lot bigger than any of us thought he would be. He weighed 8 pounds and 11 ounces. He had some problems breathing at first so we didn't really get to be with him for about 4 hours. I wish I could say I had gotten a good nap in that time, but it was hard to sleep.
The delivery was not a fun one. Talking to my doctor afterwards she adviced me to have a c-section with the next one. Even without her advice that is the plan.
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