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Week by Week

Ashley Nicole

From 31 weeks on I had pre-term labor and pre-eclampsia. Needless to say we made many trips and had many overnight stays in the hospital stopping labor(I believe it totaled seven). At this point I was never to be left alone, not even for a moment as they were really concerned about my Blood Pressure. Finally at 38 weeks they said that I would be allowed to go at any time..and wouldn't you know it, the serious contractions seemed to stop. Just my luck. Finally on July 26th they decided that they would schedule an induction for Wednesday morning.

On the morning of Wednesday, July 28th we went to the hospital bright and early to be induced. We were settled and had started the Prostaglandin Gel by 7:00am. A short while later, the nurses came running in, shoved my husband and mother out of the way, laid me flat on my back (which was extremely uncomfortable), put oxygen on me and started an IV. Apparently, the baby's heartbeat was dropping dangerously low, and they were afraid that the baby was going into distress. As it turned out, she had just rolled over on her cord(so they think). Around 9:00am, I started feeling contractions, but they weren't too bad. The only bad thing was that the baby was very stubborn, and did not like being monitored. They were constantly trying to keep her on the monitor and spent more time chasing her than they were able to monitor her.

Shortly before 1:00pm, my doctor came in and decided to put on an internal fetal monitor since they could not monitor her externally, and they had the scare early in the morning. At 1:00pm he broke my water, and left saying that he would see me in the morning. But jokingly said that he was only 6 minutes away as long as he did not get stopped by a train. At the time I was only 1 cm dilated, and 100% effaced, so we thought that we had a long way to go. About 5 minutes after he left as they were getting ready to start the Pictocin, I was hit with a whopper of a contraction. They started at 5 minutes apart lasting aprox. 60-90 seconds. (At this point they decided to hold off on the Pictocin.) Within 30 minutes, I was in severe pain, could not talk, and was on the point of being delirious. In my birth plan, I had specified absolutely no pain medication and boy did my doctor follow that one. He knew just how serious I was about that so I truly went natural. I had back labor the whole time. My poor husband didn't know what to do for me. But he was wonderful. I could not have made it without him.

At 4:00pm my labor nurse came in to say that I would have another nurse while she was next door delivering twins(did I mention that they had a full house and were short staffed?). At 4:25pm the new nurse, who was awful came in an did an internal and pronounced me at 4cm. Around 4:35pm I had a very strong urge to push which I had a very hard time fighting. My husband called the nurse back in who proceeded to tell me that I was being stupid, to grow up, and deal with it. My husband followed her out of the room and demanded that she examine me to give me peace of mind (as I seriously thought that I was going insane). After some grumbling, she did indeed come in, check me, and go running out of the room. My mother followed her to ask what was going on, and she said that she had to call the doctor, that we were about to have a baby. She came back in at 4:45 and said that the doctor was stuck by a train, and that they were trying to find him an alternate route. He finally arrived at 4:55pm, popped his head in, asked if he had time to change, or if he need to just replace his shirt. Being the person that I am, told him to change. He arrived back into the room at 4:58pm and told me to push. One short push, and her head was out. He suctioned her nose, and before he gave me the okay, I pushed again involuntarily, and out came the rest of her at 5:00pm. My husband was holding my hand and watching our beautiful daughter being born. When he said "It's a GIRL!" my husband started crying. It was such a beautiful moment.

I was able to see her for about 5 minutes before my husband went with them to take her to the nursery for test and a bath. Normally, they wouldn't have moved her so quickly, but the doctor told them to clear out the room. Since she came so fast, they did not have time to do an episiotomy, and I had a 4+ Degree tear. He later teased me that it was a good thing the he had played football in high school, that it was the fastest delivery that he had ever done. He had been stitching me up for about 10 minutes when I kicked him, I was able to feel everything that he was doing, and was in severe pain. It turned out that the awful nurse never gave me the pain medication that he had ordered after delivery.

A hour later, I was reunited with my beautiful daughter Ashley Nicole. I couldn't take my eyes off of her for hours. She was a very sleepy baby, and when we tried nursing for the first time, the nurse tried everything to wake her up, even running an ice cube along her foot. When she finally did, she latched on right away and nursed like a champ. She was and is the most beautiful creature I have ever seen(I'm not biased am I?) In a few months, we are expecting our second child, and looking forward to it.

Dawn - Mom to Ashley Nicole 7/28/93 7lbs 10oz 20 ½ in.