Macayla's Day of Birth

I realized that with all the hustle and bustle and with a 5 day hospital stay I never wrote about our long, long day of labor and delivery.

As most of you know, we went in on Monday morning at 6:30am to be induced. The process of dialation was slow starting. At 1:00 the doctor broke my water. By about 2:00pm I was finally about 5 cm dilated and becoming more effaced. Around 3:00 or so the general pain medicine was not doing enough so the epidural was ordered since the contractions were getting much stronger and about 1-2 minutes apart. It took until 7:00ish before I was 10cm dilated and 100% effaced. We started pushing around 7:15ish. After about 2 hours of pushing, I was getting SEVERE cramping pain in my lower abdomen that wasn't letting up like contractions do for moments. In addition to the pain, I was still having the contractions which were feeling stronger and stronger each one. Eventually I was in so much pain that I just couldn't push anymore. The called the anethesialogist on call and he came after about 20 minutes, although if felt like an eternity because like I said each contraction got stronger and the severe cramping pain continued to get worse. He gave me more medicine, but by the time the pain lessened even a little and I was ready to push again, the progress that was made in the 2 hours of pushing (which was already not very much progress) was gone.

The nurse called the doctor on call to see if she could help create more progress. Another hour of pushing with the doctor, still not enough progress was being made. At 10:30 the doctor decided we needed to go ahead with a c-section. Jason did not like this idea. He pleaded, "are you sure? Isn't there something else that we can do?". The baby was not dropping and Macayla was not in a good "position" (too high and facing the wrong direction). Even though c-sections are a procedure done regulary...both Jason and I were very scared.

All the appropriate doctors/nurses were called in and by 11:15 I was wheeled into the surgery room. I was told including Jason and I there were 13 people in the room. They gave me a spinal and after a few moments pricked me with a pin to see if I could feel it...I could still feel the sharpness of the pin. They waited a little longer and I could still feel it. So I had to have a SECOND spinal :(. Jason was finally let into the room once the second spinal took effect. Jason stayed right by my head holding and rubbing my hand the entire time. Occasionally he would peak around the drape to see what was being done. Although what he saw made if very uneasy, he never showed it on his face while near me.

At 11:57 we heard a cry and Macayla Michelle Starke was born. For the first 10 minutes all I heard was "look at that hair" "she is so cute" "look at her wiggle" from all the staff. After she was cleaned up a little bit they handed her to Jason. Jason then brought her close to my face so I could give her a kiss and then close to my hand so I could touch her. Jason and the nurse then had to take her away as I got stiched back up.

After being stiched up and wheeled to the recovery room...I did not get take back to my room until 1:45am. During this time Jason spent time in the nursery with Macayla while the proud grandparents watched from the window. It is the hospital's policy that the baby must stay in the nursery (with dad only) until mom is brought back from recovery. So eventually at about 2:00am, I was able to have Macayla lay by my side.

Needless to say it was a very long, tiring (physically, emotionally, mentally) day. Jason was incredible throughout. I could not have asked for a better coach. So that is the long and short of it.