Baby T was born during my 37th week and she was classified as early term. Baby T was born Saturday June 19th at 7:43 pm.
Baby T weighed 6 pounds, 14 ounces at birth. She was 19 and 3/4ths inches long. She weighed 6 pounds 8 ounces at discharge and gained .5 ounces the following day for her follow up appointment with her pediatrician.
She is the most perfect thing in the world.
The NSTs in the 37th week went well.
Perineal massage - I actually stopped practicing this, but if you aren't as lazy as me, I HIGHLY recommend it. It is just so hard to reach. I had stopped massage around 36 weeks because I could not breathe when I could reach. And this is not something I needed to practice nor will I need to in future pregnancies, if we are ever so blessed.
Varicose veins - I never got any.
Pelvic pain - I had light, occasional pelvic pain. Mostly after laying down for a long time. When I get up to use the restroom in the night.
Pregnancy brain - I just put everything in my phone because I couldn't remember anything in those last days of pregnancy. The days of the week, the laundry I put in 40 minutes ago or if I ran the dishwasher. Guess what? It gets worse after they are born.
Insomnia - It takes a little longer to fall asleep at night and some mornings I wake up bright and early with all the energy in the world.
My 37th week was a pretty good week. The ultrasound on Friday June 19th showed higher amniotic fluid than the previous ultrasound had.
I asked the High Risk OB to induce me based on that.
She had to make a call as they rarely induce on Fridays, but the OB on my team allowed me to come in to get induced then.
So we immediately headed across the street to the hospital.
I thought I would get a balloon placed and sent home, so imagine my surprise when they immediately put me in a delivery room.
I had a lot of anxiety; the nurses came in to register me and tell me what was going to be happening and I said, oh? So we really won't be leaving this hospital without our baby? They said almost certainly.
So, I settled in and talked with my husband about how wild it is that we are about to have this baby.
I started with Cervadil at some point that Friday.
Nothing happened with my cervix after Cervadil, but my contractions were even more constant, so they couldn't let me try that any longer.
I finally got the balloon that I thought they would place first, and upon placement, the OB, Dr. Phillips, broke my water so that immediately started the clock on how long we had left to meet Baby T.
So we got the Pitocin, and I got my epidural, the Pitocin just kept getting upped and upped until I was taking well over the max of Pitocin to get things moving. I was just having constant contractions, but I felt just like I had when I had Crohn's flares.
Around 6pm on Saturday evening, they finally decided definitively that I needed to have a C-section, because my pelvic shape is not conducive for pushing out a baby.
So I had to wait until the shift change at 7pm and then we were brought down to the operating room. It was scary; I was vomiting and shaking uncontrollably. I was so scared. I asked the Anesthesiologist to hold my hand, because, even though my husband could be in the room with me, I could not reach him.
They cut me open and removed her so quickly.
I saw just a flash of her up on the screen that I had requested to watch the birth on.
But they rushed her off to get her breathing on her own.
My husband got to follow her, but I had to lie on that table for an hour because I hemorrhaged. It was hell. I could hear everyone working on Baby T too. They kept assuring me she was perfect, but I couldn't feel that without being able to see her and touch her.
It took until after 9:30 before we could finally do skin to skin.
Our first skin to skin
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