The Fredrickson Minute: The Journey to becoming a Mommy: Part 2: The Induction

***** WARNING - - -This post will contain some slightly graphic details, and some of them may make you hurt when reading them*****

We walked into the hospital at 5am. We had to check in through the ER. An admissions person came in and was uber rude, but I suppose I'll let her slide this time. She looked pretty sleepy. We walked up to labor and delivery. It was a weird walk because the hospital was totally deserted and also because I knew the next time I would go down the hallway would be with a baby on my lap. We got to our room and the nurses came in to get us checked in. We had our regular nurse and the charge nurse. She was in there because she had taken care of us Sunday night and wanted to help get the induction started.Then they checked my Cervix, my cervix hid a bit which made the checking of it quite painful, but I was 3 1/2 to 4cm dilated!!! Then they started the IV. This wasn't bad because I really don't mind needles. Then they started the ~~devil~~ Pitocin. Mom and Dad got to the hospital and then Shelley arrived shortly there after. I was contracting every 2-3 minutes but they were not hurting yet, just really tight. Dr. Moralas came in to check on my around 8am. He checked my cervix and said I was 5-6cm dilated! He decided to break my my amniotic sac to get things moving faster. It was so gross! He made a huge mess (well I guess technically I made the mess, but he caused it!). There was pools of amniotic fluid pooled all the way down at my feet! And to make matters worse, Makenna had decided she wanted to have her first poop while she was still in Mommy, so the amniotic fluid was gross looking. They were not surprised to see the meconium in the fluid since I had been in labor so long. Makenna was stressed out because of it. They kept having trouble monitoring Makenna's Heart rate because she was being so active, so after he broke my water he put an internal fetal heart monitor on Makenna. He also put in a sort of catheter and a contraction monitor in me. About 1-2 hours later I began to really feel the contractions. It was very strange because they went from tight, to slightly uncomfortable, to kind've painful, to painful, to OH MY GOSH painful in less then an hour. I didn't expect the intensity to ramp up so fast. I tried moving around the bed, went to the bathroom a few times, and then got on the labor ball. This was a pretty good position because I was able to curl over and Michael and Mom would rub my back during the contractions. I lasted this way for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours. The contractions on the monitor were a level 6-8 at this point and lasting about a full minute. Before I even went to the hospital I had told everyone not to try to get me to get an epidural and to not let me decided to get one in the midst of a contraction. During an especially bad contraction I said the words. "I think I want the epidural." Mom immediately said "OK!" and Michael followed with a firm "NO!" So I toughed it out. About 45 minutes later the contractions were spiking at 10, coming every 1 to 1 1/2 minutes and lasting over a minute long. I decided I needed to go to the bathroom again and once I got to the bathroom I got hit by the most painful contraction yet. I told Mom that I just wanted to die. Everyone kept telling me to breath through them, but I was literally in so much pain that I wasn't able to breath. Then BOOM another one came. After it was over I was decided. I wanted the epidural. Shelley and Michael tried to talk me out of it, which is exactly what I wanted them to do, and Mom pointed out that I said I wanted to discuss it rationally before making that decision. After the next contration was over I thought about and decided I was 100% sure I wanted the epidural. So we got me back to the room and Kristy (AKA THE BEST L&D NURSE EVER) came in and checked me. I was only 6-7 dilated. This just confirmed the decision. Kristy warned me it would be a little bit before anesthesia would get to me, so I settled in for the wait, and by settled in I mean I huffed and puffed and cried through each contration. Less then 10 minutes later, in walked an angel (AKA the CRNA) She got me prepped really fast, the anesthesiologist came in, and 8 minutes later I had my epidural. This CRNA likes to give an extra big bolus of the medicine to make the pain go away faster (have I mentioned that she's an angel?). 10 minutes later I was getting nice and numb. Shelley helped me get repositioned in bed and asked if I could move my legs. I said "of course I can" and tried to move my leg. it promply fell right off the bed! It was really funny! Then Kristy came in and told me my blood pressure was a little low and asked if I felt funny. I felt great! The pain was all gone! I told her this and she said that while I felt fine, Makenna didn't like my low blood pressure and was having some varibles in her heart rate. She put me on Oxygen and had me lay on my left side. She also gave me a shot of ephedrine to get my blood pressure up. My blood pressure didn't come up. I asked her a few times what my blood pressure was, but she wouldn't tell me. She did tell me that She would tell me when it was time to worry and until then for me not to worry. Dad and Grandpa gave me a blessing and in the blessing Dad said at one point that everything would be ok. Kristy ended up giving me 2 more doses of the ephedrine before my BP stabilized. It was still low but stable. Makenna's heart rate also began to stablilze. So I took a nap. After the crises was over I asked Shelley how low my blood pressure got. She said the lowest it was able to read was 60s over 30s, and a few times it wouldn't even pick up my blood pressure at all. Mom said she thought I was going to die. Pretty scary stuff. The fact that I was able to stay awake and talk with my BP that low is pretty amazing. I thought I felt fine, but once I really felt I was able to look back and see that I wasn't fine. At one point I was trying to text my boss about what was going on, and it took me over 10 minutes to get a 3 sentance text out because I was simply not able to spell anything right. I think I deleted it and retyped it 7 times before I gave up.
Back to the story... my BP and Makenna's HR was stable and I sat up in bed and rested and visited with people. Mom, Dad, Matt, Grandma and Grandpa and Shelley were there. I got checked again and was at 7cm. Then Post Partum got so busy that Shelley had to clock in and help them. She was gone for a little over an hour. by 4pm I was 9cm dilated, but Makenna just wasn't moving down like she should be. The word C-Section started getting tossed around. Kristy kept checking me and I wasn't getting past 9 and Makenna still wasn't moving down, She even had me push a few times to see if that would get Makenna moving, and it didn't. At this point I was totally maxed out on Pitocin. I was starting to feel the contractions again because I had been afraid to push my epidural button because of my blood pressure. Kristy let me push it so I was happy, and my BP didn't drop this time! Around 5:20 I got REALLY sick to my stomach and had a MAJOR hot flash and started vomiting. Right after I got done puking, Dr Moralas came in. He basically said it's time to go the C-section route since Makenna wasn't coming down and I wasn't dilating that last bit. Michael went across the room to call his parents and update them while Dr. Moralas checked me. He siad I was still at 9cm and started to try to reduce my cervix (basically pull it open). Then all heck broke loose. Makenna's Heart Rate dropped to 60 (it's supposed to stay around 120-160), then it dropped to 30, then nothing at all. All the L&D Nurses came rushing in and got me hooked upto more IV fluids and was getting me unhooked from stuff and Dr Moralas said to prep for emergancy C-Section and to page anesthesia STAT. He then touched my belly and asked if I could feel it. I could because I had been being so conservative with the epidural button. I was going to have to get put under since I wasn't numb. They were about to wheel me out of the room when I realized that Michael wasn't by me and didn't know what was going on. He was across the room on the phone. I yelled for him to come kiss me, he put on the phone, kissed me, told me he loved me, started crying and I was taken out of the room. I was calm during this, but was totally freaking out on the inside. When They wheeled me out of the room I was so afraid I would never get to see Michael again. But the thought was pushed out of my mind quickly because the nurses were having me sign consent forms as they were literally running my bed down the hall to the OR.

Hooked up to the monitors, the external monitors are hiding under my gown.