Friday:
5:00 am - Alarm Clock rings
6:00 - arrive at hospital. One contraction in the parking lot
6:30 - Pitocin drip starts 5mL/hr. External fetal and uterine monitoring.
7:30 - Pitocin drip to 10mL/hr. Whitney and I take a 30 min nap.
8:30 - Pitocin drip to 15mL/hr. Mild contractions.
10 - Pitocin drip to 35mL/hr. Interesting contractions. Labor seems to be established. IV removed. Maria has significant heart-rate deceleration (a “decel”)
12 - Contractions slow down.
2pm - Contractions stopped.
4:30 - Water broken by midwife. Better contractions 3-5 mins apart.
6:30 - No change in dilation or station. Pitocin augmentation begun again, at 15mL/hr, upped every 20 minutes.
6:30 - 7:30: Transition 7cm to full dilation. Contractions at 100+, 2 mins apart. Whitney breathes through them like a champ.
7:30 - “Get Melody! I feel like pushing”
7:30 - 9pm: Pushing, in various positions.
9pm - Whitney’s exhausted, Maria transverse at -2 station. Her head is wedged 90 degress from her body. No position (Hands and knees, etc.) has helped. To this point, still no pain meds. Epidural offered, accepted, and the on call anesthesiologist paged.
9:30pm - Epidural placed. (Aside: This guy was GOOD…placed an epidural in a woman having contractions 40 seconds apart, exhausted, and barely cooperative.)
9:45pm - pushing attempted with epidural placed. No change. Signficant heart-rate decels. I decide we’re going for a C-Section. I’m scared to death I’m going to lose both my girls. Whitney’s BP is rising fast, she’s hemorrhaging, she’s exhausted, and Maria’s heartbeat is failing.
10:30 - O.R. team in place. Operation begins.
10:40 - Maria born
10:50 - I follow her with the pediatrician back to the nursery. Whitney goes to recovery.
11:30 - Whitney back in her room
* * *
That, ladies and gentlemen, was the 18 hour ordeal of my daughter coming into the world.