so here is the whole story of Sam:
he was born may 18th at 1149 pm, at 6 lbs 2 oz, 20 3/4 inches long
just a caveat: this contains way too much information, so feel free to stop reading now and just scroll down to the cute pictures:)
we went in for induction since the last ultrasound we had showed that he had fallen off the growth curve. the ultrasound we had three weeks prior showed everything was going really well, he was at the 50th percentile (totally average) for size, but the last ultrasound showed that he had stopped growing at the appropriate rate and was now at the 16th percentile for growth. the perinatologist felt that my placenta had started to 'tire out" (who knew that could happen?) anyway, we were almost 39 weeks and my ob felt that we shouldn't risk waiting given the possibility that the placenta was no longer doing its job and the risk of stillbirth would go up the longer i was pregnant.
anyway, so thursday evening at about 6 pm i went in for 'induction' but was actually already contracting too much for the first type of medicine they were going to give me (cytotec) so they just went ahead and started me on IV oxytocin (a hormone that is naturally secreted to augment contractions in spontaneous labor). anyway this got my contractions going in earnest all through the night and throughout the next day. at about 4 pm on friday i ended up with an epidural since my cervix had not dilated enough and i was looking at several more hours of some pretty brutally painful contractions. i think if i had dilated and thought it was only going to take a few more hours til delivery, i would have tried to tough it out, but after almost 24 hours of this, i just couldn't bear the thought of 5-6 or more hours to go.
anyway, the epidural took the edge off nicely, i could still feel them but they were no longer the 'whole-body-ripping apart-unable to have coherent-thought' type of pain....which was good :>
also, the whole time i was also having 'back-labor' since he was face-up and the epidural didn't change that pain at all.
so over the next couple of hours i dilated all the way except for an 'anterior lip' of cervix
and he was still face up...which makes it harder to deliver since the chin and back of the head can get caught up in the pelvic bone.
and that is when the calestenics began. so they rolled me from side to side, got me up on my knees, bent me over, etc to try to get my very stubborn child to turn so i could deliver. i couldn't push through that tiny lip of cervix since it would probably tear and that would be a bad thing. it is one thing to need an episiotomy, an entirely different matter to injure the cervix in that way.
so nothing worked, the kid didn't turn, my water had been broken for over 12 hours and i was developing a fever, which made the baby's heart-rate increase significantly and my doctor laid down the law and off we went to c-section.
i was pretty heart-broken at first when she made the decision to take the baby surgically since i had been hoping for an as-natural-as-possible childbirth, even with the induction to start it off, and things could not have gone more the other way in terms of medical interventions. but honestly i was totally over it the second i saw him, after all here he is and he is perfect and healthy and safe and it really doesn't matter one bit how he got here.
we are home and doing really well. he is truly the most awesome thing in the entire universe and i don't think it is possible to love anyone more
