I am officially a mom. Such a weird and awesome thing to say. Adalynn Elise Ko arrived on Thursday, 2/4/16 at 11:32 am, one day before I was scheduled for induction the next morning! She was 40 weeks and 6 days when she was born. This is my birth story. Official labor contractions started on 2/3/16 around 5:30 pm. I had no idea what to expect since this is my first child. Everyone describes them as menstrual cramps that consistently become stronger and closer together, and boy they are right. Mild period-like cramps to start with that over time became increasingly stronger and more frequent. Around 9:30 pm they were getting more and more intense, we called L&D (labor and delivery) and let them know we were on our way to at least get checked. We got there around 10 pm and they checked me into their labor triage room where a nurse and doctor checked me. I was 3-4 cm dilated, 100% effaced and definitely having labor contractions and they let me know that I would be staying. Eventually the contractions stared getting much stronger and longer. It was around 1 am when I felt like I couldn't take the pain of the contractions any longer on my own. I had already planned to get an epidural so I was ready.
I got my epidural at 2:30 am when they were finally able to open up the delivery room (they couldn't give me the epidural until I was moved in there and it was a busy night for deliveries). The epidural was like magic! Initially I could still move my legs well and still feel a little. After a couple of hours though I couldn't feel a thing or move my legs very well. I got to 7 cm at 4 am and my water broke on my own at that point (I didn't even know it broke). 30 min after my water broke we noticed her heart rate would drop into the 80s when I had contractions, but would always come back up after the contractions were over. They discussed the possibility of a c-section if they felt the baby was in danger (persistent bradycardia). They eventually gave me Terbutaline to try to slow down the contractions so that they could add fluid back into my uterus to see if that would get her heart rate back to normal because before my water broke there were no issues with the heart rate. I don't know that it worked because I still had consistent contractions. A couple of hours later I was shaking/tremoring sooooo bad and I developed a fever. I also felt nauseous and threw up! Apparently nausea and shaking can be a sign that you are about to have the baby per the nurse. I slowly dilated on my own and was at 10 cm, 2+ station by 9 am. After they had put fluid back in my uterus she only had the slow HR occasionally and not with every contraction. Since I was 2+, they had me start to push. Since I wasn't 3+ yet, they changed my position to see if she would come down further and we could try again. By 10 am, she was 3+, so I finally started pushing. They put a mirror for me to look at my progression. Initially I thought it was never going to happen, but eventually I could see the top of her head slowly starting to become more and more apparent. I pushed for 1.5 hours and she was finally out at 11:32 am!
She did have the cord wrapped around her neck (they think this could have attributed to her low HR during contractions) and some time during the pushing there was a little bit of yellow/brown colored fluid that came out which they wondered if was meconium. So they had NICU on stand by to check her out. Since she was breathing rapid and shallow, the NICU team assessed her as soon as she came out. They decided to take her to NICU for observation because they were worried about her breathing, so I didn't even get to touch or hold her. It was kind of sad I didn't get to do skin to skin with my baby right away.
They had her on oxygen via CPAP and did bloodwork on her. Her white cell count was elevated and she had a fever, so they decided to keep her on antibiotics for 2 days, meaning she had to stay in the NICU... They didn't want me to try and feed her initially because she had a nasal tube giving her oxygen and the nurse said she wouldn't be able to breathe well trying to nurse with the nasal tube. I started pumping to try to get my milk to come in so we could give it to her later. We had to start her on formula so that they could discontinue the IV dextrose and keep her sugar level up with the formula. So she was essentially on formula for the first few days of life. I tried to mix in whatever I could pump, which was just a few drops every time I pumped. They also took an x-ray of her chest because once they tried to wean her off oxygen, her oxygen saturation dropped. Initial x-rays showed suspicion for pneumothorax on the right caudal side of her chest. They did follow-up rads the next day though and it looked normal.
We had to wait for her blood cultures to come back before they would release her from NICU... FINALLY, the blood cultures came back and they were negative so we got to take little Addie home on Saturday night, 2/6/16.
The first night was crazy and spastic. We no longer had the help of the nurses at the hospital and we felt a bit disorganized. It was very difficult to sleep the first night because I would wake and look at her at every noise she would make. Now I know that newborns are very noisy sleepers, which is normal. The first night was the hardest, but after that, we started getting the hang of it.
She is actually a really good baby. She sleeps 3 hour stretches at night time, which means I usually only have to get up once between midnight and 6 am. I've been very lucky to not be too sleep deprived. I'm sure things can change over time though, so I can't keep my hopes up too much! We did also have one night from 6-10 pm where she was cluster feeding and wanted to eat every 45 min-1 hour, and that was really rough. Thankfully it didn't last into the late hours of the night.
There's lots more to write about but I wanted to at least document her birth story. More to come! Before I go though, a few of my favorite photos...
Karen
