VT Mamateurs

I have two goals for today:

1. To post about Piper’s birth

2. To get out of the house by noon

Since it is 2:50pm I guess I am only going to get one of these done. That is okay because my rings fit again and Piper is a boobhound.

First I want to thank everyone for all the love, well wishes, and congrats. I feel blessed to have so many wonderful people in my life, even if many of you are cyber mamateurs! Hopefully we can all meet one day, preferably at a bar… in Vegas… sans kids:)

Now to condense the 48 hour birth journey of Little Miss Piper Mae. From the time I found out I was pregnant I thought I would go early. Having had pre-eclamspia with the twins I knew I was at a higher risk of redeveloping the condition. So I was surprised and very happy when I hit the 37 week full term mark! My focus of worry then moved to whether or not all three of my kids would have the same birthday. That came very close to being the case, all of 5 hours made the difference.

So onto the day that our world changed. I woke up Thursday April 26th with a horrific migraine and a face the size of the Pillsbury Doughboy. While I suffer from migraines I just knew something was wrong. I feared the worse, that I was actually developing pre-eclampsia…again. I was two days shy of my due date. I called my midwife as well as my OB and they both suggested going straight to the L&D.

Something told me I wasn’t coming home again to a family of 4 and that the next time I drove up my driveway it would be with my daughter. I cried thinking how things were going to change, in a good way, but there is something very permanent about it. I kissed my twinkies and squeezed them extra tight. I then called my hubby, my mom, and my sister. I threw my bags in the back seat and I drove with tunnel vision to the L&D.

As suspected I was pre-eclamptic. My blood pressure was very high. I had protein in my urine and my platelet count was scary low. My dreams of a VBAC were disappearing before my eyes. I was scared to think another C-section was imminent. The only cure for pre-eclampsia is to deliver and I wasn’t anywhere near laboring. The discussions were back and forth. My husband was amazing. Could we stall out until the morning before I had to begin Pitocin and the horrific devil’s blood known as Magnesium Sulfate? Could I see my twin boys on their birthday? I was getting sicker and I could tell from the doctors faces that I wasn’t the patient they were hoping to have for the weekend.

We were able to talk the docs and nurses into starting the Pitocin and Mag the following day, the boys’ second birthday. All the staff was wonderful and I can’t say enough about the level of care I received. I savored the sleep and woke up at 5 am to what I thought was the sound of balloons popping, however it was my water breaking instead. I was so happy that things looked like they were starting to progress on their own. They started the Mag and Pitocin. Within the hour the contractions started and boy did they pick up fast. Pitocin has a way of doing that for some people. I wasn’t able to walk around or labor in the tub as I had hoped. I needed a catheter and the Mag makes you very weak, horribly hot, and uncomfortable. Anyone who has had to have that treatment knows how god-awful it is. The contractions were two-three minutes apart and we were convinced that the little miss was coming. Then I got checked and no cervical change!  I was still at 1.5cm, 2 hours later I was 2 cm, 5 hours I was 2.5 cm, 10 hours 3.5 cm, by hour twelve I was still only 5 cm! I just wasn’t moving along.

That was the icing on the cake for me. I was sweating, puking and in a lot of pain. Please send in the Epidural Man….Momma is about to lose her mind. Once the epidural was placed I was able to relax a bit and my thoughts were flooded with my little men. We convinced the staff to allow them in with ice cream cake, which was torture for me since I couldn’t eat, but it was so worth seeing their beautiful two year old faces. It was the gift I needed, next to that epidural.

Fast forward another 8 hours and I still wasn’t progressing very much. The epidural slowed down the contractions, as they often do, so while I wasn’t in as much pain I was still exhausted and getting worried that the towel was soon to be thrown in the C-section bucket. It wasn’t until the day after I delivered Piper that my husband told me that the doctor pulled him into the hallway to discuss the baby’s heartbeat and the bleeding. Apparently I was a ticking time bomb. By 1 a.m. I was about 6cm. I wanted my family to come to the hospital. Unfortunately for them it took until 5:25 a.m. for Miss Piper to make her debut.

My mother, sister, and mother-in-law were all there for her birth along with my amazing coach/masseuse/breathing instructor/rock of a husband… Andy. I was able to pull Piper up to my chest and immediately nurse. Her name fit her face perfectly, even though I heard my beloved mother refer to her head first entry as resembling a pot roast.

So I had my VBAC! Everything about the second time around has been easier, the recovery, the pain, the lack of needing strong meds. Now if only I can get the boys to realize she isn’t going Bye Bye and the remote will in fact bounce of her head and cause her to scream. Wish us luck. We are crazed, tired and running on Keurig but we are very much in love with our new family. Life is Good, Babies make it Beautiful!

-B