Cowgar Family Adventures

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Henna's Birth Story

I said I'd get to writing this out, and I need to, before the memory starts to fade away.

I had a doctor's appointment on December 1, 2011 @ 10:15AM. (I was even awake early, at 8AM, anticipating that I may be in the hospital later that evening, I was cleaning things) At that point in time, I was 40 weeks, 1 day. I had gone naturally with Lexi at 38 weeks, arriving at the hospital already 6cm and not even knowing it. Total labor (that I know of), 16 hours. With Lilly, I had my membranes stripped at 39 weeks and went into labor that evening. Total labor, 12 hours. With Avery on the other hand, we waited and waited, and at 41 weeks, we got an induction. Her induction started by breaking my water and starting pitocin at the same time. Total labor, 4 hours. Avery was only a half ounce shy of being 9 pounds,and my placenta had shown signs of being overdue, so my doctor agreed with an induction at 40 weeks with Henna. She had an induction scheduled already at Dunlap (we had delivered the other 3 in Wooster), so we decided we would meet at Dunlap at 5PM and just break my water and see what happened.

So about a 5:45PM on December 1st, my water was broken, and I awaited labor. Start problem #1... Henna was not dropped down in the uterus very well, even after breaking the water, so I wasn't allowed to move from that hospital bed. They feared she may drop on her umbilical cord if I got up and moved, so I even had to use a bedpan. Labor never did come, despite having some contractions off and on throughout the night. We didn't get a wink of sleep. I was so uncomfortable not being able to move out of that bed. I had wanted to try their water birth tubs, but that wasn't gonna happen (and I found out that you can't even get in them when you have pitocin running, which I didn't know at the beginning). We watched some horrible Sci-Fi stuff and then National Treasure 2 throughout the night.

At about 4:30AM on December 2nd, pitocin was started, and I was actually told I could move around slightly. Start problem #2...Henna's heart rate dropped VERY low with every contraction. This went on for a few hours, despite adjusting the pitocin all over the place and even stopping it, and the talk of a C-Section became a very real option. After being up for 24 hours, facing a C-Section, and in some lovely pitocin induced pain for over 4 hours, somewhere around 8:30AM-9AM, I received my very first epidural. My doctor even said that I was one that did not complain, (I had 3 kids already...) and she couldn't believe how this was all turning out.

Start problem #3...the epidural partially failed. It seemed to work OK on my left side, but not my right side, so now I'm thinking they are gonna have to knock me out for a C-Section, because how in the world is a spinal going to work if the epidural didn't? While the epidural doc screwed around with settings and gave me the option of redoing it (one needle to the back is enough, thankyouverymuch!), my doctor decided to do that amniofusion thing where they circulate water back through the uterus, hoping it would even out her heart rate.

Amazingly enough, this worked! She evened out. Eventually I got to the point where the music had changed, and we knew we must be close to the pushing phase. So in about 2 minutes with 3 or 4 pushes, Henna Orion Cowgar was born on December 2nd, 2011 @ 12:21PM. She was 7lbs, 15oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She was perfectly healthy. She didn't really have a cone head since she hadn't been sucked down very long, she had tons of fuzzy hair everywhere, and very long fingers! My placenta on the other hand, wasn't so graceful. I believe the doctor actually sent it to the lab for tests. That thing was old! I'm glad we didn't wait as long as we did with Avery. That could have posed a greater threat to Henna if we had. And believe it or not, she was smaller than not only Avery, but Lilly also!!

This was certainly the farthest thing from the birth experience I was hoping for, and I get a little sad when I think of how this went since she is our last, but we both made it, which is a lot to say! My only regret is that stupid epidural. I should of just had them pull the thing out when it didn't work right, because my left leg was swollen up for days after, and my back twinged for about a week after she was born, right where they had put that needle in. That darn thing was useless. I made it through 4 hours of intense pitocin contractions with Avery, and what I felt with that epidural was just as bad as those were, so I could have just saved the insurance some money and not gotten the thing if the big C-Section word hadn't been thrown around so much. My doctor even said, if I had been in Wooster, I probably would have ended up with one, because she would have been going between Wooster and Orrville with her other induction as well.

I will also note, that the horrible sci-fi movies had ended long ago, and Mr. Mike Rowe and the Dirty Jobs crew got to be a part of my birthing experience this time:)

In the end, we ended up with our fourth little princess, and the other 3 absolutely adore her:)