Cora Fluff - Birth Story

Sun Aug 19, 2012 5:47 pm

Baby's Name: Cora Analeigh
Due Date: August 5
Birth Date: August 12
Gestational Age: 41 weeks
Weight: 9lbs. 8oz.
Length: 21.5 inches

Story:

When trying for a VBAC, most doctors recommend at least 19-24 months after the last CS. Because there are only 18 months between Ailey and Cora and 14 since I was fully healed, my options for delivering Cora were limited. Despite that, because I was making what my OB described as good progress, she was willing to attempt a gentle induction instead of going straight to a CS, but felt like we couldn't safely go past 41 weeks without taking some action to get Cora here if I had not gone into spontaneous labor. We waited as long as possible and scheduled a gentle induction for last Saturday (40 weeks 6 days). I got to the hospital early, was checked in and got an IV and the penicillin I needed for my GBS. My OB broke my water at noon. I labored for a few hours trying to encourage contractions (walking, nipple stimulation, etc) before she checked me again and determined that while I had progressed a little and was having contractions, they were still irregular and the progress was slow. At that point, we decided to start a very low dose pitocin drip and slowly titrate it up over an extended period (normal next step for gentle induction). Over the next several hours, my contractions got stronger, longer and more regular and I continued to slowly dialate. Going into evening, progress was slowed and the contractions were getting to the edge of what I thought I could tolerate for an extended period. My doctor believed that we had a long labor ahead and was concerned for my energy level when it was time to push, so we tried some IV phengran which didn't help. After a few more hours, we were both feeling like in order to continue, we needed to do something more in terms of pain management, so despite some significant reservations, we decided to place an epidural. My birth plan had also included placing one in the case of an extended labor so it would be ready if we needed to quickly change to an emergency CS and we had reached that point. I don't know what happened with the first epidural, but something went very wrong. When the anesthesiologist gave the first numbing agent, it burned and the rest of the time he was placing the epidural, I could feel everything, but more pronounced. It was like he was cutting up and down my spine the entire time. He finally said it was over, but it left me with really bad back pain that hadn't been there before on top of the contractions that kept getting progressively longer and stronger as though nothing had happened. After half an hour, he said the epidural had failed and he would have to remove it and start everything over. I have major depression with anxiety and my biggest trigger is needle sticks. I have panic attacks and fainting spells when they are needed. Needles in my back are uniquely bad and the first epidural had been so much worse than my spinal with Ailey (which I was told should be comparable) that the thought of having to do it over with no particular reason to think it would go better triggered a panic attack and I spent the next half hour or so curled up sobbing in the corner of my bed. I finally forced myself to accept a second placement and this one worked. I spent the next several hours with the pitocin dose being slowing increased while the epidural bought me some rest. My doctor said I was making good, but slow progress and we expected that Cora would arrive vaginally in the early morning. At around 2:00 Sunday morning, I felt a large gush of liquid. I thought it was amniotic fluid, but when my nurse came into check, the bed and I were covered with blood. The nurse said that Cora's heart rate had dipped on the monitor around the same time I felt the gush. She started my on oxygen and called my doctor. The doctor checked and said I was at 7 cm, 90%, and station 0. That was about the same as my last check 45 minutes earlier. My OB said that the bleeding and dip in heart rate could be normal, but they could also mean Cora wasn't getting enough oxygen. Because we were 15 hours into a risky induction that would become higher risk the longer it went on, Mark, my doctor, and I agreed that we needed to prioritize protecting Cora and began preparing for a CS so that we could have time to do a little bit more planning for safety. She did say if Cora had been a little closer that she would have made a final attempt at a vaginal delivery, but as it was, Cora was born at 3:16 a.m. by repeat CS.
My doctor ended up doing a higher incision to make it less likely to develop the kind of pressure my first scar did. She also put a drain in so that a seroma is less likely to develop and is leaving my staples longer than last time. Finally, she did internal layers of absorbable sutures and was kind of shocked that it wasn't done last time, so I feel like she set me up to have a better chance of a good recovery. However, she also said that there is a lot more scar tissue than she expected from my first surgery and some major adhesions between my scar and intestines. That means that I will never have a vaginal birth and all future CSs will be difficult and more risky than what they should be given my history if the first surgery had been handled better.

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Mon Aug 20, 2012 12:31 pm

[quote="rgle14"]Baby's Name: Cora Analeigh
Due Date: August 5
Birth Date: August 12
Gestational Age: 41 weeks
Weight: 9lbs. 8oz.
Length: 21.5 inches

Congratulations on your baby girl.

*♥**♥**♥***(ړײ)***♥**♥**♥*

Pia Pickett
Babyzone.com
Pia.Pickett@Disney.com

Wed Aug 22, 2012 11:41 am

Congrats, she is beautiful.

Sara
K is 7 and N is 5
baby K is 1

Sat Nov 03, 2012 3:56 pm

Well I guess it's good that you ended up with that repeat c-section or she'd never know how bad it was in there.

Congrats on the new baby girl!!!

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