My Shabbos HaGadol baby is finally here!

Helani

Thu, Apr 19 2007, 1:25 pm

Thank you everyone. Smile

Here is the short version of my long birth story.
I went in for false labor at 37 1/2 weeks...and nothing happened. I had contractions on and off since then. Got ready for Pesach and started getting very impatient. As I started getting to 42 weeks, the topic of induction came up. Things that worked to get the labor started with my other two didn't work, just brought on more contractions. the baby was perfectly happy where he was. Finally, after signing couple of "against medical advice" papers and being disqualified from using the birthing center (attached to the hospital) we scheduled the induction for 42 weeks and 3 days. I went into labor Monday morning, but again the contractions never picked up enough . I got about 3 hours of sleep that night. So, I went to the hospital in the morning. Throughout the day we tried everything to get the labor to pick up-walking, sitting on the ball, stripping membraned, breaking the waters...but the contractions never went closer that 5 min together (although I was almost at 7cm). Finally by 8 pm the midwife said we should ever try the breast pump (for 4 hours) or pitocin to get things moving. I was so exhausted by then I just asked for an epidural before the pitocin would be started. The got everything going around 9pm, I rested a bit and by 10:30 I told my doula she better call the midwife. Well, he was right there and instead of crying as soon as he was placed on my stomach he picked up his head and started looking for food.
He had his hand against his cheek, and as far as we know that caused the bad positioning that didn't allow his head to press down enough to allow the labor to progress. I ended up with only a couple of small stitches and was up half an hour later. since we were doing great they let us go home next day at 1pm, and I could finally get some decent sleep in my own bed. I have lots of help set up, and we are all enjoying him.