With everything happening with the baby this week I didn’t do a very good job of posting stuff to my blog. The next few posts I’m going to review this week, starting with how labor went.
Kim always said she wanted to have an epidural with all her babies. She didn’t see a need to go through all the pain and suffering that having a baby entails when modern medicine allows you to go through the whole process in some sort of comfort. I gotta say, I’m with her on that one. I wouldn’t want to go through all the pain if I didn’t have to. With Ausin she had an epidural and she says the she can honestly say that labor with Austin was a good, positive experience. With Adeline it was different.
We got to the hospital at about 2:30 in the afternoon. They started her on a potosin drip soon thereafter. I guess with potosin they start you off with a little and then gradually increase it until it peaks at a maximum dosage and then they decrease it over time again. It’s supposed to start the uterous contracting and induce hard labor. Well…it hardly did that. At 7:00 Kim still hadn’t progressed towards labor any more than she was at 2:30 when we got to the hospital.
At 7pm they decided to call the doctor and have her come and break Kim’s water which she did. She got there at 7:15 and promptly broke her water. She also told Kim that if she wanted an epidural, she should probably not wait too long. Right then, she said she wanted one so the nurse called the anesthesiologist.
By 7:30, Kim had progressed from a 4 to a 6. (If you understand…great. If not, you will some day.) The anesthesiologist wasn’t there yet. By 7:35, she was completely effaced (a 10) and it was too late for the epidural. The anesthesiologist had missed the boat and got there too late. I guess that was also partly the doctors and nurses fault for not telling Kim to get the epidural earlier, but who was to know that she would progress so quickly.
Well, between 7:35 and 8:00, Kim endured the pains of natural labor. It was tough. Very tough. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’m super proud of her for enduring that like she did. She had some rough spots, but overall she did very well.
At 8:03 the baby was out and all was better. The doctor pulled her out and threw her onto Kims stomach (where there was already a towel waiting). She cried immediatly which was a relief. The doctor then clipped off the umbilical cord and handed me a pair of scissors to cut it. I didn’t really expect that but did it anyway. It wasn’t as big of a deal as I thought it would be.
She came out, all purple and perfect. We’re so happy with her.
Like the doctor warned us, she has had some breathing problems. She has stopped breathing a few times which were very scary for us. She wasn’t gasping for air or anything, she just stopped breathing and her face turned blue. We have gotten her to start breathing again each time she’s done it and I’d guess she’s come out of it a few times on her own when we didn’t catch her when she stopped breathing.
What a joy she is.