Since we have new mommies and mommies to be joining the group, I thought it would be nice to share our birth stories here. Will kick it off with mine - my ulterior motive is if i don't write about it, am likely to forget it with time!
The pregnancy: I had a roller coaster pregnancy thanks to PCOS making trimester 1 riskier than normal, compounded by some blips on the ultrasound including a low placenta that made my doc put me on house arrest for 2 months (aarrgh!) and our annual holiday to Goa was cancelled. On the up-side, i had not 1 minute of morning sickness/nausea and the house arrest meant I caught up on a ton of reading. Trimester 2 and the anomaly scans etc. were all good, placenta moved up - so I was allowed to workout again and get about town for movies and shopping and dinners out. Then came Trimester 3 and the warning that I was at risk of having a premie cos of family history. So again outings were down and all holidays cancelled. A final 'just for fun' scan in week 37 ended up showing some possible problem for the baby which required a paed. cardiologist to be present at the birth. Thankfully Mihika chose to arrive in week 38/39 cusp so we didn't have long to worry!
The birth
Early stages: I was staying at my docs place in Pune (yes, you read that right - my doc was also my mum's own sister) - with the hospital a short 5 minute drive away. Srikanth was with us for the weekend since it was our 5th anniversary as was my mum who had arrived with me a few weeks earlier. Sri was due to head back to Mumbai(where we live)Monday morning but that's when I had my first contraction at the breakfast table!
My aunt walked over and checked to see they were the 'real' thing, and I could tell these were different from the random tightening that the Braxton-Hicks I'd had the week before were. We fished out the timer and discovered the contractions were 30 seconds or so every 30 minutes to an hour. I decided to sit down to a normal day of work and it was only by evening that I finally began to have to use my lamaze breathing techniques. By late evening things got a little stronger and I felt the need to head for a walk at 9.30pm to take my mind off them. When Srikanth and I came upstairs, we found mum and aunt all dressed up and ready to head to hospital! But i'd decided not to check into hospital at night 'cause i felt it would just be one long night - i wanted to sleep in a nice home bed, have a nice homey breakfast and THEN go to the hospital. I had a decent night's sleep though stronger contractions woke me up every 20 minutes at night. I later discovered my aunt and mum hadn't slept much at all!!!
Off we go : At 9am the next day I had a warm shower, a light breakfast of semia upma and a bowl of melon and said 'Now, let's go to the hospital.' :) Sent a mail to work folks saying i was off to have my baby and headed to the car with contractions now every 15 minutes lasting about 30 seconds. Took my well stocked 'hospital bag' that had been carefully packed with a stack of magazines, an ipod, chewing gum, fruit juice packs and chocolate plus my trusty sipper, some socks and a shawl. (I ended up not having any time for the books, mags or ipod!)
The check-up: When we reached the hospital and checked into the maternity suite at Apollo Jehangir by 9.30am - I was thrilled to see it was an LDR so that meant no shuttling around from labor ward to delivery room etc. Wore my robes, junior docs checked me(this means they strap on a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor which gives an ECG like output), my aunt did a quick internal check(this was like a pap smear/TVS but easier since there are no gadgets/tools involved, just a gloved doctor!) and found I was 3 cm dilated and said 'still lots of time - contractions are not that strong' (i was like Oh! Hope my lamaze breathing helps when it gets strong cos this felt strong enough!!). They prepped me with an enema and I asked for the epidural to be fitted though no dose would be given till later(just so i wouldn't flinch and have it go the wrong way). It was now 10am.
The wait: At 11am I was given an IV and a test dose to check for allergies with the epidural. All well but since it was a mild dose I felt every contraction. My drip was 'enhanced' with pitocin to speed things up. In about 10 minutes the contractions got really strong and came 10 minutes apart lasting 30 seconds to 45 seconds. The hospital catering folks dropped by with hot soup and lunch. (I skipped the lunch, had the soup). At noon they decided to do an ARM(membrane rupture since my waters hadn't broken). This felt like a little pressure and the doc did this manually - painless, again internally. My aunt then left on her rounds. By 1pm I felt my breathing wasn't gonna get me through the next phase so asked for my epidural dose. Junior docs wanted to wait for my aunt. So I groaned and moaned(learnt in lamaze that the hee and hoo breathing won't help if pains are strong and painful, and that this would be better. Sri held my hand through it all and reminded me to keep breathing) my way through till 1.30 when she arrived - apparently I was rather quiet cos a doc came to check if I was asleep or sniffling cos it was so silent! She checked me and found I was already past transition - the toughest phase and almost 9cm along!! She did give an ok for the epidural which was administered at 2.15 or so. Unfortunately for me, everything in the labor stage was over by 2.30 which is when the epidural pain relief kicked in! So much for that.
Mihika arrives: At 2.30 my aunt did another check and said the baby was almost at the birth station, but that she would not get me to push till the baby crowned since I had just had an epidural and may not feel like pushing(ladies if the baby is doing fine and you're on an epi, please please tell our docs you want to wait to push, it is SO much easier). Again, lamaze lessons kicked in! We'd been taught to maximise the phase between labor and pushing to rest and recoup. So I planned to take a 20 minute nap and Srikanth brought me one of our orange juice packs which I glugged down in 30 seconds! By this time i had the shivers so put on my socks and shawl to catch some zzzz's. At 3pm the docs arrived again(and sometime in between gave me an episiotomy) with nurses in tow and had me set up in a stirrup type position to push. Everyone in the room cheered like a squad in unison, 'Come on Pallavi' and suddenly I felt the need to push! Everyone cheered like crazy saying you're nearly there - which I thought was a load of bunkum, intended to motivate a pooped woman in labor(friends told me they pushed for 30 mins to 2 hours) - it was only 3.03pm. So the next time I pushed again and suddenly my aunt says 'Nearly there, once more', so I hold my breath and push again. "waaaaaahh waaaahhh" . What? Already? I check the clock its been just 3 to 5 minutes since we started!!! The baby arrived at 3.05pm with no fuss and a wild yell! A slippery lil thing who was given to me to say Hi to...we were so surprised she was already there, but happy as hell! Srikanth was the proud dad to a darling baby girl...thankfully our nickname for our baby-to-be was ok (we had referred to the baby as Olive. didn't have a clue if it was gonna be a girl or a boy. Imagine a poor boy called Olive!)!
They took her away to the next room for the cardiologist and neonatologist to check her while I got my episiotomy stitched up/placenta delivered, she got good APGARs and we were happy. She came back to us all bundled up and looked us straight in the eye when we held her. We melted. Mihika was here.
PS: She was later found to be absolutely fine and healthy, so no worries on that count. Touchwood.
PPS: After the birth, we hung around the same room where they gave me some pain killers and brought me hot grilled sandwiches and tea while I was under routine observation post delivery. I shifted to my room an hour later.
The pregnancy: I had a roller coaster pregnancy thanks to PCOS making trimester 1 riskier than normal, compounded by some blips on the ultrasound including a low placenta that made my doc put me on house arrest for 2 months (aarrgh!) and our annual holiday to Goa was cancelled. On the up-side, i had not 1 minute of morning sickness/nausea and the house arrest meant I caught up on a ton of reading. Trimester 2 and the anomaly scans etc. were all good, placenta moved up - so I was allowed to workout again and get about town for movies and shopping and dinners out. Then came Trimester 3 and the warning that I was at risk of having a premie cos of family history. So again outings were down and all holidays cancelled. A final 'just for fun' scan in week 37 ended up showing some possible problem for the baby which required a paed. cardiologist to be present at the birth. Thankfully Mihika chose to arrive in week 38/39 cusp so we didn't have long to worry!
The birth
Early stages: I was staying at my docs place in Pune (yes, you read that right - my doc was also my mum's own sister) - with the hospital a short 5 minute drive away. Srikanth was with us for the weekend since it was our 5th anniversary as was my mum who had arrived with me a few weeks earlier. Sri was due to head back to Mumbai(where we live)Monday morning but that's when I had my first contraction at the breakfast table!
My aunt walked over and checked to see they were the 'real' thing, and I could tell these were different from the random tightening that the Braxton-Hicks I'd had the week before were. We fished out the timer and discovered the contractions were 30 seconds or so every 30 minutes to an hour. I decided to sit down to a normal day of work and it was only by evening that I finally began to have to use my lamaze breathing techniques. By late evening things got a little stronger and I felt the need to head for a walk at 9.30pm to take my mind off them. When Srikanth and I came upstairs, we found mum and aunt all dressed up and ready to head to hospital! But i'd decided not to check into hospital at night 'cause i felt it would just be one long night - i wanted to sleep in a nice home bed, have a nice homey breakfast and THEN go to the hospital. I had a decent night's sleep though stronger contractions woke me up every 20 minutes at night. I later discovered my aunt and mum hadn't slept much at all!!!
Off we go : At 9am the next day I had a warm shower, a light breakfast of semia upma and a bowl of melon and said 'Now, let's go to the hospital.' :) Sent a mail to work folks saying i was off to have my baby and headed to the car with contractions now every 15 minutes lasting about 30 seconds. Took my well stocked 'hospital bag' that had been carefully packed with a stack of magazines, an ipod, chewing gum, fruit juice packs and chocolate plus my trusty sipper, some socks and a shawl. (I ended up not having any time for the books, mags or ipod!)
The check-up: When we reached the hospital and checked into the maternity suite at Apollo Jehangir by 9.30am - I was thrilled to see it was an LDR so that meant no shuttling around from labor ward to delivery room etc. Wore my robes, junior docs checked me(this means they strap on a fetal heart monitor and a contraction monitor which gives an ECG like output), my aunt did a quick internal check(this was like a pap smear/TVS but easier since there are no gadgets/tools involved, just a gloved doctor!) and found I was 3 cm dilated and said 'still lots of time - contractions are not that strong' (i was like Oh! Hope my lamaze breathing helps when it gets strong cos this felt strong enough!!). They prepped me with an enema and I asked for the epidural to be fitted though no dose would be given till later(just so i wouldn't flinch and have it go the wrong way). It was now 10am.
The wait: At 11am I was given an IV and a test dose to check for allergies with the epidural. All well but since it was a mild dose I felt every contraction. My drip was 'enhanced' with pitocin to speed things up. In about 10 minutes the contractions got really strong and came 10 minutes apart lasting 30 seconds to 45 seconds. The hospital catering folks dropped by with hot soup and lunch. (I skipped the lunch, had the soup). At noon they decided to do an ARM(membrane rupture since my waters hadn't broken). This felt like a little pressure and the doc did this manually - painless, again internally. My aunt then left on her rounds. By 1pm I felt my breathing wasn't gonna get me through the next phase so asked for my epidural dose. Junior docs wanted to wait for my aunt. So I groaned and moaned(learnt in lamaze that the hee and hoo breathing won't help if pains are strong and painful, and that this would be better. Sri held my hand through it all and reminded me to keep breathing) my way through till 1.30 when she arrived - apparently I was rather quiet cos a doc came to check if I was asleep or sniffling cos it was so silent! She checked me and found I was already past transition - the toughest phase and almost 9cm along!! She did give an ok for the epidural which was administered at 2.15 or so. Unfortunately for me, everything in the labor stage was over by 2.30 which is when the epidural pain relief kicked in! So much for that.
Mihika arrives: At 2.30 my aunt did another check and said the baby was almost at the birth station, but that she would not get me to push till the baby crowned since I had just had an epidural and may not feel like pushing(ladies if the baby is doing fine and you're on an epi, please please tell our docs you want to wait to push, it is SO much easier). Again, lamaze lessons kicked in! We'd been taught to maximise the phase between labor and pushing to rest and recoup. So I planned to take a 20 minute nap and Srikanth brought me one of our orange juice packs which I glugged down in 30 seconds! By this time i had the shivers so put on my socks and shawl to catch some zzzz's. At 3pm the docs arrived again(and sometime in between gave me an episiotomy) with nurses in tow and had me set up in a stirrup type position to push. Everyone in the room cheered like a squad in unison, 'Come on Pallavi' and suddenly I felt the need to push! Everyone cheered like crazy saying you're nearly there - which I thought was a load of bunkum, intended to motivate a pooped woman in labor(friends told me they pushed for 30 mins to 2 hours) - it was only 3.03pm. So the next time I pushed again and suddenly my aunt says 'Nearly there, once more', so I hold my breath and push again. "waaaaaahh waaaahhh" . What? Already? I check the clock its been just 3 to 5 minutes since we started!!! The baby arrived at 3.05pm with no fuss and a wild yell! A slippery lil thing who was given to me to say Hi to...we were so surprised she was already there, but happy as hell! Srikanth was the proud dad to a darling baby girl...thankfully our nickname for our baby-to-be was ok (we had referred to the baby as Olive. didn't have a clue if it was gonna be a girl or a boy. Imagine a poor boy called Olive!)!
They took her away to the next room for the cardiologist and neonatologist to check her while I got my episiotomy stitched up/placenta delivered, she got good APGARs and we were happy. She came back to us all bundled up and looked us straight in the eye when we held her. We melted. Mihika was here.
PS: She was later found to be absolutely fine and healthy, so no worries on that count. Touchwood.
PPS: After the birth, we hung around the same room where they gave me some pain killers and brought me hot grilled sandwiches and tea while I was under routine observation post delivery. I shifted to my room an hour later.
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awesome story pallavi!!!
ReplyDeleteWow! Pallavi I dint know you had PCOS too. Were you able to conceive easily? I had hell.
ReplyDeleteGreat story Pallavi and a v.good initiative. Yes, we need to put it down before we forget it:)
ReplyDelete@ Deepti...yup I did, but we got lucky on our first try(glycomet zindabaad?). Had planned that it would take us a yr and a half or so, so I was on a weight loss plan and had knocked off half of what I wanted and decided to start trying thinking I would lose all the extra kgs by the time i got preggie(1.5 yrs more I thought!). Nature had other plans and month 1 we discovered we were expecting!! Needless to say my diet and rigorous exercise regimen went out the window!! I guess some people have it easier despite PCOS, some have it much harder and have to head the IVF route...
ReplyDeleteYup.. PCOS can let ur hopes go down the drain.. thats how bad it can get... I will post my story shortly too.
ReplyDelete