Two beautiful little girls with 2 very different stories and both with very happy endings. When I was pregnant with my first daughter Leah things got tough at the end. They diagnosed her with a kidney condition in-utero. They said she was measuring big and so for the last 6-8 weeks I was having an ultrasound or two a week. When I hit 38 weeks I wasn't dilating at all and the ultrasound said she was already 9 lbs. They scheduled the C-section for 38 weeks and 5 days. I happily went along with the plan. I wanted my baby girl to be born happy and healthy and if that's what it was going to take I was on board...Only she wasn't the 9-10 pound baby they predicted. She was born via C-Section on Friday May 9, 2008 at 10:38 AM weighing in at 8 lbs 5 oz and 20.5 inches long. She had the thickest full head of hair I think I had ever seen on a baby and to my suprise it was dark brown!!! Of course I didn't get to see her right away, she was struggling to breathe so they took her away and Mitch went with her while they finished up with me on the table. About an hour after she was born I finally got to see her in recovery. It was love at first sight....the kind of love you can't describe. I was BEYOND excited. I called my mom, my brother, my sister, I think a cousin or two. I remember the nurse telling me that I needed to put my phone away and get some rest. They had to give me morphine for the pain, but I didn't care I had to tell everyone that the most beautiful little girl had just rocked my world. Her daddy felt the same way. The weeks that followed though were tough. No one could prepare me for what it would be like to recover from the C-section...stitches that didn't dissolve, infected incision, soreness and tiredness that never seemed to end. I would do it all again in a heartbeat, but I wondered if I really HAD to do it all again.
When I became pregnant the second time I was working for the March of Dimes, I knew from the research that VBAC's were considered safe under some circumstances, and that with my rambunctious toddler Leah at home it would be hard to recover from a C-section. I went on a mission...looking at all sorts of stats, getting referrals from co-workers. Living in New Jersey, the highest C-section rate in the country, finding a doc would be hard work but we did it. The hospital with the highest VBAC rate in the state was only a half hour from my house, AND it was home of the state's only March of Dimes NICU family support program so I had been there a time or two for work. I called my original doctor, they wouldn't even discuss a VBAC with me so I moved on and was fortunate enough to find Dr. James O'Mara and single privat practitioner. We met with him once and both loved him so we were on board, thankfully so was he. We got all my medical records transferred and had to wait patiently. Dr. O'Mara is a very tradition doctor, no excessive ultrasounds, no measuring this and that. Once I hit 37 weeks he did an ultrasound, took a quick look at the baby and said "I think this baby looks pretty deliverable" YAY! I was so excited...I was going to get my shot at a VBAC. Every week I went back, and sometimes twice...he began checking my cervix and of course there was NO progress...my hopes were fading.
On Thursday March 4th he told me to come to the hospital triage on Saturday morning. We had a plan and this is how it all went down:
I tested positive for Group B Strep. We were admitted to the hospital around 10 AM on Saturday March 6th. Antibiotics were started at 10:30. I had to have 2 doses before we could really get moving. I still hadn't made any progress. Dr. O'Mara wasn't sure if it would work and told us it may be Monday before we delivered. At 6:30 PM he put in a foley bulb. It's a catheter they insert and blow up with saline to put pressure on the cervix in hopes that you will dilate. By 8 PM I was having full blown unbelievable painful contractions a minute and a half apart. I couldn't take it so they gave me some nubain for the pain. I fell asleep for about 2 hours, when I woke up in so much pain that I was shaking and vommitting. They gave me nubain again and called my doctor. He had them remove some of the saline to relieve some of the pressure. That did the trick. I slept comfortably from 11-4:30 and then the contractions started again. These were extremly tolerable. I was having them every 3-4 minutes and it was a piece of cake. Dr. O'Mara came in at 6:30 to remove the foley bulb. I had high hopes, but was only dilated to 2. He started me on pitocin immediately. It was good at first. I was up walking around, sitting on the yoga ball, this was tolerable. I had heard about pitocin though, and as they kept turning it up it kept getting worse and worse. At 10:45 I asked for the epidural, by 11:30, after 5 hours on pitocin I couldn't take it anymore. I was having intense contractions every minute and a half, shaking and throwing up. They had called the anesthisiologist but he was in a C-section. I finally got it shortly after noon. Finally...relief. I slept from 12:30-2:30. I woke up when I felt my water break. My doctor came to check me, only 3 cm...and it had been a high rupture, my membranes were still in tact. They let me contract for a few more hours and at 4:30 he broke my water and I was at 4 cm...yay, slowly making progress. After that things started to take off. I was the standard one cm per hour. A little before 6 the nurse and doc rushed into our room, my pitocin had to be turned down I was contracting too hard and too fast and the baby wasn't tolerating it. He started monitoring me more closely then. I was starting to think it was time for the C-section. My epidural wore off around 6, they gave me another dose around 6:30 and I was at 6 cm. At 10 PM I told my doctor that my epidural had worn off, I was moving my legs, I could feel the contractions. At 10:30 he checked me and said I was 8-9 CM so I couldn't have another dose. AHHH...I was going to have to do this naturally!!! He upped my pitocin to get my contractions closer together, they were about 3 minutes at this point. They quickly started coming quicker. By quarter to 11 they were about a minute and a half. He checked me at half past 11 and said I was 9 cm but at zero station, he had me push my way to 10...there was no stopping now, I told him I had to push. He went and changed the nurses got ready and by 11:40 we were going. It was hard, it was painful and I couldn't wait for it to end. Dr. O'Mara kept telling me I was doing great, but he likes to joke and B-S so I didn't believe him. I kept my eyes on the nurses. He told me I was doing a great job pushing and still I didn't believe him. I thought the pushing was going to take hours but after 45 minutes they laid the baby on my chest and Mitch told me it was a girl. I was looking at him now, not the nurses and I couldnt' stop looking at my baby girl. Mitch looked at me and said "Kiersten" and I said okay. He got to cut the cord and he kissed me. They took Kiersten to the warmer and I sat there in pure amazement...we did it! Thanks to my persistence, Thanks to Dr. O'Mara's patience and thanks to Mitch not panicking :) the idea of a VBAC made him very nervous. From Foley Bulb to Delivery our labor was 5 minutes short of 30 hours, but looking back it was the quickest 30 hours I will ever recall with an amazing pay off. We have Kiersten, we love Kiersten and again, it was all worth it in the end.
Baby Leah in recovery
Baby Kiersten in recovery
