Our Birth Story..Half a year later! Part 2

I never was scared of the pain of childbirth.  When you have a miscarriage, you know that the result of the pain is only greater pain because you have lost something that is so important to you.  When you go through the pain of childbirth, you know that the end result is a beautiful baby, so it's completely worth it. 

In the week leading up to my induction, I developed this irrational fear of bleeding to death.  Once again, don't ever leave a 40.5 week pregnant lady with  a computer and LOTS of time to kill...I probably googled every possible thing that could go wrong during childbirth.  No, I didn't bleed to death, but other complications did arise, which gave me a good scare and made Dustin and I look at each other and say "maybe this will be our only child" (I can't say we agree with that statement anymore).

At about 12:30pm, my nurse came in and said it was finally time to start pushing.  She warned me not to get too excited because most first time Moms push for at least 2 hours.  I guess I was the exception...not only did I push for 2 hours, I continued to push for 3 hours and 15 minutes.  I was exhausted.  I had nothing left in me.  Having a drill sargent for a nurse didn't help much either.  Dustin can attest to this; she was all business.  No cracking jokes, no laughter...let's just get this baby out.

 She finally called my doctor into the room.  I wasn't making any progress; I feared a c-section.  I looked at my doctor, said I couldn't push any longer and that she needed to get this baby out of me.  I didn't even hesitate when she asked if she could use the vacuum.  Then, 3 good pushes later , Elijah came into the world (at 3:46pm) with his arm up above his head and his umbilical cord wrapped around his neck three times!  Did I mention that half of the nicu staff was in the delivery room with us at this point?!  Talk about scary.  Dustin distinctly remembers one of the nurses counting aloud as they unwrapped the cord from Elijah's neck; I never heard it.   I no longer think that I wasn't strong enough to get him out, but rather, he was stuck.

I didn't get to hold Elijah right away because they had to make sure he was ok. Dustin immediately got some pictures.

8lb, 8oz, 22 inches long!

 As for me, they couldn't get my placenta to come out.  I felt like my worst nightmare about childbirth was about to come true.  I'll spare you the details, but my doctor tried to remove it herself, piece by piece.  She thought she had gotten it all out, but later we find out that quite a bit was still in there.

Overall, Elijah was a healthy guy, but his low blood sugar was a concern.  Of course, we tried to get him to eat, but couldn't get his numbers up.  The rest of the night was a blur. They eventually moved us to a regular room.  Susie, Roger and Ross came and sang Happy Birthday to Elijah.  

Elijah's first cake!

 I don't even remember them taking Elijah to the nicu.  I remember calling my Mom and telling her that he was in the nicu and that they couldn't get my bleeding to stop, but I don't remember them taking him away.  Now that I look back, it was probably better that way.  They were concerned about his blood sugar and my bleeding.  

They decided to hook me back up to pitocin (oh joy!), hoping that it would start contractions again.  They also gave me a bazillion shots.  I remember the nurse coming into the room for about the 100th time, and she said "one more shot"...Dustin and I both thought she was kidding.  This was all in an effort to get my placenta out and restrict the bleeding.  Each time they came in, they also would push on my stomach, hoping to make the rest of the placenta come out.  I kid you not, this hurt worse than giving birth.  It was now about 9pm, Eli was in the nursery and I could barely keep my eyes open.