Birth Story for Selah

Birth Story isn't all that exciting but here it is for those interested.

I was admitted at Zion Hospital Monday November 1st at 11:30 am to have my water broken. After getting paperwork finished, monitors set and IV hooked up my doctor ( Dr. Stuckey) came in at 12:30pm and broke my water. Then the "waiting game" began. Hour after hour went by and nothing happened, no contrations, no dilating, nothing. Dr. Stuckey wanted to see labor begin within 4-6 hours and by 6pm we still had no progress in the labor department.

Dr. Stuckey went off shift and I was under the care of Dr. Mesch. Dr. Stuckey explained my wishes of a VBAC being extremely important to me and the two devised a new plan of action. I would be administered half the normal dosage of Pitocin under internal monitoring, if labor still hadn't begun before the morning then csection was our only option left.

6:30pm Pitocin was added to my IV and Jason and I prayed for labor. Lesson being- Be careful what you pray for:) 7pm my first contraction hit and it hit HARD! Threw me into the fetal position. It lasted about a minute and a half and then next one came nearly 3 minutes later. Then another, and another, I went from nothing to INTENSE labor in a matter of minutes. This lasted about an hour before Jason and I decided an epidural was needed so we called in the anetheisiologist. It took him about a half an hur to get there and another half an hour to administer the epidural. Meanwhile the contractiona are hitting harder and are closer to 2 minutes apart.

9:15pm I was a happy camper. Epidural was in full effect and I had no more pain! Contrations at this point were 1.5 to 2 minutes apart, I was a little over 3cm and 75% effaced. Around midnight I was starting to feel a lot of pain on my right side. The epirdural wasn't working up to par. My doctor came in, repositioned me in hopes that more of the medication would fall on my right, it helped a little but I still had to breathe through the contrations. She checked me again-no progress.

2am rolled around, contractions were only a minute apart and I was still super uncomfortable on my right side so I asked the nurse if I could be checked ( I wanted to give my Mom enough time to make it for the birth.) She said the Dr. was in surgery, an hour later same excuse. 4:30am rolled around so I called my nurse in again because of the pain on my right hand side and because of pressure I was feeling. She said she would go ahead and just check me.

Turns out I was 100% effaced, 10cm and Selahs head was visible! Jason, who was in a dead sleep, jumped out of the chair to see. We all started freaking out a bit. " CALL MOM!" I yelled. The nurse was quickly prepping me for delivery and instructed me to give her one big push. So I did and she said I was definately ready. The doctor came in and got right to business. ( Meanwhile my Mom & sisters were frantically on their way to the hospital) I pushed for nearly 20 minutes and Selah Desirae Winters entered the world at 5:05am.

For those of you who are familiar with my past experiences in birth I was the last person to hold either of my daughters because of the csections. That wasn't the case this time. They put Selah right on my chest, goop and all. They cleaned her off, cut the cord and administered most of the tests right there on me! It was a dream come true. My family arrived about 30 minutes later, bummed they missed the birth but excited to see Miss Selah. They had to wait to hold her though because she was still on Mommy "Skin-to-Skin" time:)

With the exception of the partial episiotomy and 3rd degree tear I recieved in the birthing process I was very happy with the overall experience. I got to be the first person to hold my baby girl and she successfully started nursing right away!

Selah Desirae Winters
Born November 2nd 2010 @ 5:05 am
9lbs 1oz 21 inches