Clara's Birth Story

My birthing story:
Wed March 30th in the evening I started having contractions that were strong and coming quickly, but only lasting 10-30 secs. Even though they were coming close together, we waited out going for about an hour, but then the contractions were coming 3 mins apart and were unbearable, even though they were still only lasting 30 seconds, so we headed to the Birthing center. The drive there was awful! I thought I was going to give birth in the car. My husband was driving as fast as he could to get me there, but it was all city streets and we kept hitting red lights. When we got checked in they thought she'd be delivered in an hour or so, but unfortunately that is not how it unfolded. I labored in the tub for an hour and progressed to 5cm, then got on a birthing ball & opened to 7cm. This is where things stalled. There was a "lip" in my uterus that the baby was having a problem getting past, within a half hour, I started to feel the urge to push, the Midwife told me to go ahead to see if it would get the baby past the lip. Instead I became swollen and my cervix began to swell shut. I was very tired at this point & the contractions were coming one after another, so the swelling just kept increasing. The decision was made to wheel me to labor & delivery and be given an epidural to help the swelling in my cervix. There went my med free delivery. Within 20 minutes of getting the epidural, I had progressed to fully dialated, but baby was still stuck behind the swollen lip. The pushing began, after about 2 hours, she hadn't budged & her heart rate had dropped. She was too high to get with a vacuum, so a surgeon was called in to assess. By the time she got there, baby's heart had stopped a few times, so she had me rushed to the OR for an emergency Csection. I was in tears and just kept apologizing to my husband, my doulas and my midwife. I had failed. I was prepped with urgency, my husband was let in & Clara entered the world with

Comment from Amanda_McDaniel » Posted Jul. 12, 2015 5:31pm I know! Let the fun begin!