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5 Month Ultrasound
Born November 23, 2006 Giving birth to our son Carson was one of the most exciting and wonderful experiences of our lives. The pregnancy was healthy and uneventful until the 39th week. Our due date was November 29th, however, on November 23rd during my regular weekly prenatal exam the doctor told us that my blood pressure was dangerously high and it was best for the baby and myself if we induced the labour. You can imagine our surprise since I had been feeling fine during the entire pregnancy. After the induction, we were sent home with the information that it would take approximately 24 hours before labour would begin. Boy, were they wrong!! I guess Carson wanted out because I was in full blown labour within a couple of hours. I was having contractions every two minutes. When Shane called the hospital they advised him that it was too soon for me to be in labour and that we were being paranoid first-time parents. I did not take this advice well as I knew what kind of pain I was going through and it definitely was not from a paranoid first time parent. When our doula, Ellie, arrived she immediately called the hospital to advise them of the situation. Because of whom Ellie was and her experience with labour, the hospital told Ellie to bring us in immediately. Once arriving at the hospital, there were no available beds. Therefore, I was left in the triage for several hours without any kind of pain killers while we waited for a bed. Our plan was to try for a natural child-birth, except with the sudden and intense contractions it was impossible to cope with the rapid onset of these hard contractions. They say it is difficult to maintain control when induced as your mind is expecting to gradually progress through the stages of labour rather than race to 6 cm dilation like I did. Induced contractions are apparently stronger and more frequent than natural contractions. When I was finally admitted to a room, I was given an epidural, along with 3 other IV drugs to help control my blood-pressure. Although the epidural helped enormously with the pain, I still felt pressure. The doctors did not know why I was feeling this pressure. When they checked on me again, I had regressed to 4 cm dilation. They did not have an explanation for this but instead recommended a C-Section. First Picture of Carson - Immediately after Birth
It took 4 days and several IV's later for the doctors to get my blood pressure under control. It was a little scary. For the first 36 hours I needed 24 hour nurse observation to make sure that I did not have a seizure. Carson was worth every minute of it. It was so amazing to see him for the first time. Very surreal. And the way he looked up at us when I first held him. WOW. Shane was with me throughout the entire labour and delivery. He was wonderful and had a great deal of strength. We're both in shock now that we have this amazing little being in our presence. I'm not even sure if it's really hit us yet. It's funny that we were worried about knowing what to do, how to hold him, how to feed him. We've realized that when the baby is yours, that stuff just comes naturally. When you have so much love for someone, you can't go wrong. We're all extremely tired, extremely overwhelmed, yet extremely happy to be a new little family. |
