Finally: The Birth Story

Where to start?
Well for the stories that lead up to this story check out the previous posts: Getting there , The first day of the rest of my life & The Story.
Those all pretty much lead up to where we are today.
This pregnancy started with another round of fertility treatments in May/June of 2010. I was certain that this time was not going to work. It was taking to long for my eggs to grow to the correct size we even had to draw out the treatments a few more days which meant buying 3 of the Gonal-F pens at 900.00 bucks a pop. With doctors visits and other drugs this cycle came out to about $5000.00 total. I give the numbers not to say look at how much this kid cost but as a price for any other couple out there going through the same thing.

Pregnancy Test taken Saturday June 26, 2010.

I can tell you that Connor was conceived on June 15th 2010 via Intrauterine Insemination. I took a home pregnancy test on Saturday, June 26 and got a positive! I was so excited! terrified that we would lose this baby again or that the test was wrong. On the 29th (Also the same day Eclipse came out.) we went to the Doc for conformation to find out that yes indeed I was pregnant and the numbers were good!

So we wait another 5 weeks for the first Ultrasound to see if there is a heart beat. We go in and low and behold we see what was missing from the first pregnancy, a heartbeat! It was the most beautiful sight on the planet!!!

After that I officially left the Reproductive Endocrinologist and moved to normal every day OB! This was a huge step for me. At 8 weeks I officially felt pregnant, I couldn't eat anything! I wasn't sick or nauseous I just wasn't hungry. This my friends lasted the first two trimesters and was a blessing in disguise! I already had my doc picked out but didn't get to see him until 11 weeks. When we went in for our 11 week apt., Dr. Z. came in and asked all the normal questions and then listened for the heartbeat. My heart sank because he couldn't find one, I thought this was it that we were going to lose this one as well. He however had not lost hope and went to get a portable Ultrasound machine. Then there on the screen showed up my baby doing karate kicks and moving all over the place. I had never been so happy or relieved in my life.

Ultrasound 20 weeks Oct. 22, 2010.

Life continued on at 20 weeks we had our anatomy Ultrasound and found out that we were having a sweet little boy. The child true to form just had his twig and berries out there for the world to see. :) All went well until just after Christmas when I was diagnosed with Gestational Diabetes. BUMMER!!! I was able to control it all with just diet modification. While this is a good thing there is nothing WORSE than a pregnant woman not being able to eat what she wants! Its a cruel trick I tell you.

This brings us to the fun part!

On January 27 I turned 30...ugh! On January 28 I was admitted to the hospital. I was 34 weeks and 3 days. I woke up with horrible gas pain around 5 am. I had had this pain before but this time it was different I managed to puke up my birthday dinner and had gas pain in my back and chest worse than anything in my life. After about 6-7 pukes and inability to breathe I told the husband that we needed to go to the hospital. So off to the hospital we went. It was 8AM on Friday morning, not much was going on. At first they thought that I had HELLPSyndrome and were going to have the baby that day. This was not cool! I had a baby shower that afternoon!! Needless to say, I only made it to one of four baby showers that I was supposed to have! I honestly thought that I just had food poisoning and that they would give me something for the pain and send me on my way. I was very very wrong.
I had Pre-Eclampisa, and thus spent the next week and a half in the hospital.Nothing happened, nothing changed so they sent me home on Tuesday(2-8-11) on strict bed rest.
On Friday I went to the doc for an NST and my BP was to high so back to the hospital I went. It was the same drill as before except my kidneys went working right so at 11:00PM Saturday night (2-12-11) they came for me, and started the induction.
First thing they did was the epidural, then a cath in both my bladder and my cervix. As far as drugs I was given magnesium and pitocin and I'm sure a bunch of other drugs. By the time they were done with me it was 2AM. The Mag was awful! in short: hot flashes, cold flashes, inability to focus, and sleeping off and on. I'm sure there were other side effects but I don't remember them.

Me seeing Connor for the first time. Sexy I know!

by 11:00AM the cath in my cervix had be dilated to 4cm. The Docs saw this as a good sign since it didn't take to long. Well by 3:00PM my water still hadn't broken so they broke it for me, hoping this would speed labor along. I was having contractions off and on all day but none were that bad since I had the epidural. about 7:00PM the baby started having some dcels so they stopped the pitocin for a while. Once he was alright about 8 or 9 they started it back up. This is when my contractions got really bad, they had to come back in and upped the epidural. About 10ish they came back to check on my progress, I was only at 5 cm and they found some meconium in my discharge and that was the end of it. We were going in for a C-Section. This was the last thing that I wanted.They took me in to the OR and had be get on to a 2 foot board and told me to spread my arms out on the table. I couldn't tell if I was in the Jesus pose or if I was getting a lethal injection. I was shaking so bad and I don't know if it was from nerves, or drugs or a combination of the two. Then they doped me up full of more drugs, I was so terrified of feeling something that I kept telling them that I could feel stuff they told me this was normal but still scary none the less. They let the husband in a bout 15 min later and he was with me behind the curtain. After some time (I honestly have no clue how long) I heard "the head is out" then "11:31 or 11:32" and then nothing. No cries or anything, honestly this was the worst part. Then I could hear some cries from a room attached to the OR but I didn't know if that was my baby or someone else's I kept asking the husband if the baby was OK and he kept saying I don't know.


Nick holding Connor for the first time in the NICU.



Finally I heard them say do you want to go and get Dad. I figured at that point the baby was ok. They let him go back and then he came to be and said the baby was perfect.

After that I relaxed a bit and went to sleep while they put me back together. While I was in recovery the husband told me that they had to take Connor to the NICU just to check on him since he was early. (He was one day before term.) I know while I was still in recovery Nick went up to see Connor I have no clue of time or anything thing else at this point. So that is the birth story up until his birth. I was on Mag the whole next day and Connor was in the NICU so I wasn't able to see or hold my baby for the first 24 hours. Poor Nick was up and down the whole next day trying to spend his time with me and Connor. Finally at midnight they took me off the Mag and at 1AM I was able to see and hold my baby. It was the most wonderful moment of my life. The next morning I was up there as soon as I could and we started breast feeding and kangaroo care. Connor was in the NICU for less than 48 hours and was only there because he was having issues keeping his temp up. Once we started the Kangaroo care he was fine!

Connor and I were finally released on Thursday 2-17-11.

So there you have it my birth story :)