Gabriella's Birth Story

At almost 41 weeks I gave birth to my beautiful baby girl on Tuesday afteroon at 12:28pm (8/17/10). She weighed in at 7lbs 7 oz and is 19 1/2 inches long.

They admitted us at 7 pm Monday night and by 7:30 I was on the fetal monitors for about a half hour, to monitor her heart rate and my contractions. Which apparently I was having some (even though I didn't know it). They then gave me a cervix ripening pill called cytotec. I was in bed for an hour and just starting to feel some contractions.

When the nurse checked me I was dilated to about 1cm. Mike and I walked around for awhile and played cribbage. The contractions weren't bad at this point, more pressure and uncomfortableness, but no pain. At 11:30 they hooked me back up to the monitors and checked me again and I was dilated to 4cm. Because of that they decided not to give me the 2nd dose and let me progress on my own. Which was great, because that meant that I might not need the Pitocin in the morning. They did give me some morphine and a sleeping pill at midnight. I tried to sleep but didn't get much because the contractions were starting to pick up. At 3am I thought I was going to throw up (didn't). They checked me again and I was at 5 to 6 cm. Around 5 am I labored in the tub for a good hour and a half. It was super nice to be in the tub, and at this point this was all of the experience of a water birth I was going to get, so I wanted to take advantage of the huge tub.

By 7 am the contractions where picking up in strength. I hated being in the bed it made the contractions worse. I wanted to walk around but instead went on the ball. My Midwife arrived and checked me and I was around a 7 to 8 so we decided to forgo the Pitocin and just let labor progress.

By this time I was on 2 pumps, one with Saline and Penicillin (the Penicillin was for my Group B Strep - I had to have two doses of it), the second one was for the insulin. They were taking my blood sugar every hour (it was awful to have my finger pricked every hour), because it was above a 130. Later on I progressed to almost 9 cm and at this time I felt I couldn't handle the pain anymore, I didn't want an epidural, but we decided that I could have a dose of Fentanyl to take the edge off the pain.

When I had the Fentanyl I had to go back into the bed and also be hooked up to the oxygen sensor which was annoying. Apparently while this gave me a chance to rest, it also let me sleep so deeply that my oxygen level was dropping. So Mike would wake me up and I would get annoyed with him. This was also the time when she broke my water. It was a strange feeling, but because of the drugs it didn't hurt.

My contractions were still only 4 to 5 minutes apart so we needed to speed them up, my Midwife decided to give me some pitocin, just enough to get them closer together. They gave me another dose of Pitocin and by noon I was ready to push.

This was an experience I was not prepared for, it was the most difficult part of the entire birth and I give credit to all the women out there that have had to push for longer than I did. I was lucky and pushed the little one out in no time flat. I had her out in 30 minutes. I was also pretty lucky that her head was small, I tore a little but only because she came out waving. After her head was out her hand and arm came out and waved to my midwife, Mike and the Nurse. I wanted to watch her be born, but I couldn't keep my eyes open while pushing and concentrate.

It was the most amazing experience to see her finally after all that work. I was lucky for a first time mom with only a 10 hour labor and 30 minutes of pushing, but I worked hard for all of it and to see my little one after 9 months of carrying her and the labor it was the most amazing thing!

My little one - so not wanting to be weighed...

Getting to hold her again after her being weighed and cleaned up a bit.