Melissa's Birth Story
Well...it could have been better...it
could have been worse.. but the end
result made it all worthwhile.
On Friday afternoon at about 11:00am, I went in
for a non-stress test
because I was exactly one week overdue. The nurses became concerned
after
the baby hadn't moved in about 45 minutes and the heart rate was dipping
slightly with the two braxton hicks contractions I had had. So at
12:00pm,
the doctor decided to begin the pitocin. I was so scared, I was 18
and this
was my first child and all of a sudden, without warning, the day had
finally
arrived. My first thoughts were regrets that I had actually
complained about
being overdue. I then began to beg the lord to let me wait just a
couple
more days, I just wasn't ready yet. Then I called my mother
and told her
they were inducing me, and her response, as with most first-time grandmas,
was "Don't let them touch you until I get there!" I then
explained to her
that that was not an option at this point.
So everything was going fine, my loved ones
had arrived and the
monitors were looking great. I was still in the phase of "this
isn't so
bad... I can do this." And then the REAL pain began to
kick in. I begged
the nurses for anything BUT an epidural. (I'm not against them, I was just
deathly afraid of needles.) So I was given Nubane. (It's like
Demeral.) That
was wonderful... I was able to sleep and it was manageable pain again.
Then my water broke. With every contraction
after that, the baby's
heart rate plummeted. The doctor tried an amnioinfusion, which helped
a
little, and even went to the point of having me sign the consent for a
C-Section, which I begged and pleaded for them not to do it. Finally
the
pain was so bad and I thought I was getting a C-Section anyways, that I
went
ahead and got an Epidural....which ended up not working, so it had to be
done
again.
At this point, the baby's heart rate
was looking better, not by much,
but enough that the doctor decided not to do a C-Section. So I
went to
sleep for a couple of hours.
At about 2:00am, the doctor came in and checked
me, and the baby's head
was right there. (I was so numb from the Epidural, that I never had the
urge
to push.)
They sat me right up and told me that
with the next contraction, to
push. I said "what contractions?" So I started
pushing and the baby's heart
rate plummeted. The doctors exact words were "this baby is not
going to
wait." So while I was pushing, she gave me an episiotomy from
front to back,
and at 2:19am, April 28th 2001, my beautiful daughter, Samantha Jennifer
Anjolina Mallett, was born.
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