We are home! :)

[Guest guest]

Its been a bit of a rough ride, but I made it home yesterday afternoon and I'm

getting stronger by the day, baby Hannah is doing just great!

If you guys remember I checked into the hospital last Tuesday (13th) to start

the gels to open my cervix and I was going to be induced on Wednesday morning

(14th). We did the gels all night, ever 4 hours, and then started the pitocin

in the morning. My contractions were going fine and that pain was tolerable but

with the arthritis in my spine every contraction felt like it was breaking my

back in half. They gave me nubaine to help with the pain but all it really did

was make me feel drugged and out of it, didn't take the pain away at all. They

then came in and gave me the epidural which stopped all the pain and since I was

so drugged up on the nubain I then crashed out asleep for 2 or more hours

according to my husband. I guess during this time I had really good

contractions going on, nice and strong, but I never dilated past 2 so they ended

up doing a c-section on me.

Luckily by the time they were moving me from the regular L&D room to the

operating room I was waking up from the drug induced sleep so I was awake during

the c-section, though feeling kinda out of it. What was not so fun was at this

point, because of all the moving around from the bed to the operating table the

epeduril was not keeping me numb and I felt everything they were doing in my

right side. It was definitely a weird experience to feel all this, I could feel

them cut my skin and then cut through my uterus, it didn't exactly hurt but it

didn't tickle either, LOL! The anastisologist(sp?) kept telling me that if I

could feel things then they would have to put me under and since I wanted to be

awake I decided to just suck it up, I have a high pain tolerance anyway. Lots

of pressure that was painful, but alot of that was relieved because I could

totally feel them pop Hannah out and the instant they did that the pain and

pressure I was feeling on my spine was relieved so that worth me telling them to

go ahead even though I could feel stuff. The only time that it was unbearable

is when they started to stitch everything closed, but thankfully they were able

to give me a shot of lidocane in the area where I was feeling everything and it

numbed up just fine.

Hannah was just perfect, weighing in at 6.1 lbs and 18.25 inches long. She has

dropped in weight to 5.5 and is a wee petite thing, but is doing just fine,

showing no effects whatsoever from the medications I had to take during my

pregnancy because of my severe arthritis, psoriasis, and fibromyalgia, she even

got a apgars (sp?) score of 8.9 which is pretty high, especially for an early

induction.

I ended up staying an extra day in the hospital because I went into toxemia

right when they started the induction with my blood pressure shooting way high

during the whole process. Then later that night, and for two days after, I kept

bleeding and it would not stop, with my platelets and hemoglobin dropping. I

never felt any pain from all the bleeding, in fact it was a bit of a benefit

because with the little bit of blood I was losing I was also losing tons of the

fluid I was retaining so that was making me feel tons better. The bleeding

stopped on its own and I'm feeling better, stronger, every day.

Hannah is beautiful and perfect, and more than my husband and I both prayed for.

I want to thank everyone for all the prayers and well wishes. This group is

awesome! Once I feel more rested and stronger I will post some pics of Hannah.

Axelrod