Cayden Rhys Fullerton:

Sunday, April 13, 2008
41 weeks 5 days
  I woke up this morning at 7:55am.  I sat up and felt a small gush in my undies.. I thought I'd peed my pants a little since it had been a while since going to the bathroom.  When I went into the bathroom I noticed it wasn't urine, but it wasn't my water breaking either.  It was more than likely the end part of my mucous plug. When I wiped there was a small tinge of blood on the paper.  I was pretty excited at this point, figuring I was finally in labor!  I went into the living room and sat on the couch to talk to my parents for a bit.  My mom asked me what I wanted to do that day and I told her I wasn't sure.  We'd take things as they come and decide when everyone else was up.  My dad was being funny and said to my mom "she wants to have a baby today".  They were here visiting and we were all waiting impatiently for Cayden to decide to arrive.  At 8:15 I had a contraction and it was a little more painful than the other contractions I'd been having all week had been.  The pain still only stayed in the lower portion of my stomach instead of rising up.  After a few minutes, I had another contraction, and after a few more minutes, I had another.  I started watching the clock timing them but not timing the duration of them.  They were pretty irregular still but ranging from 3-5 minutes apart.  I had to go to the bathroom again and found more blood, so knew for sure I was in labor at this point.  I decided to take a shower to see if the contractions would ease off a bit, but they didn't.  I even had to stop what I was doing and stand for a minute when one would come on while I was in there.  Once I was out,  I went back out to the living room and started timing my contractions using the timer on the computer.  They were 3-4 minutes apart and lasting about 50 seconds each.  My mom asked again what I felt like doing that day, since everyone was up by then, and I told her "have a baby".  I didn't think she knew what I was saying so I told her that "with any luck I'll have a baby today, since I'm having contractions pretty strong". By about 10am, I called the labour ward at the hospital to ask what they thought I should do.  They told me to come in as soon as I could, to start being monitored, since I was trying for a vbac. Mike called his dad, since his mom had taken their car to Newcastle for the day and his dad called his brother-in-law who would come and pick me, Mike and my mom up and take us to the hospital when he could.  The soonest he could get here was 12noon.  I laboured at home breathing through contractions while trying to do other things until Malcolm could come get us. 

Once he came, the ride to the hospital felt like it was going to take forever.  The road was SO bumpy which didn't help my contractions any.  When we finally got to the hospital, I buzzed the button to be let in and was met in the hall by a midwife.  She had to wait on me though because I was having a contraction and had to stop and lean against the wall to breathe through it.  She took me in my room and went through my medical history and previous delivery as well as my birth plan.  She seemed pretty happy with everything so told me to labour on and I'd be set up on the monitor soon. My mom and I took puzzle books in, and Mike had a magazine.  So we all took our stuff out and started doing our own thing, while talking about how we never thought this day would come.  I was happy it had though since I had an appointment with Mr. Bober the next morning had I not going into labour on my own. Mike went and got him and my mom a sandwich and since i wasn't hungry I didn't have anything.  At about 2:30 or so I was slightly hungry and asked if I could have a few of my mom's chips she left just because I didn't want to overfill my stomach and they just sounded good at the time.  The midwife came in (a new one) and told me off for eating, saying if I needed to go to theater for any reason I needed to have as little on my stomach as possible, so all I could have was water.  Okay fine. The pain was getting pretty intense by this time so I asked if I could start using gas and air.  Once I started using gas and air they hooked me up to the monitor to have Cayden monitored to make sure everything was going okay.  He was still sunny-side up at this point so they couldn't get his heart rate unless I was reclined in the bed.  So no more moving around or sitting on the birthing ball for me. :(  I continued trying to do my puzzles in between contractions but soon got bored of them, so tried to just relax when I could.  My mom decided to come up by me and sit on the birthing ball and do her puzzles.  She was making me laugh.  She's just sitting there bouncing away as if nothing was happening, while I'm sitting on the bed having contractions every 2-3 minutes. 4pm comes around, and the midwife comes in to check my progress.  I'm 4cm and fully effaced. yay! I thought this was wonderful, because I'd dilated 4cm in 8 hours.  I thought for sure my labor would be short and sweet.  So I continued to relax when I could.  More than likely making my mom and Mike completely bored.  They were talking among themselves but I wasn't much company.  I feel bad about it now, but felt the need to relax while I could at the time. 8:25pm comes around and I'm checked again.  6cm and baby is *finally* turning.  This means his head was finally making the turn it needed to be in the optimal position to be born. That was great. I continued to relax, using gas and air.  At one point I was using the gas and air all the time, even between contractions because I wasn't getting much time between contractions to relax, so the gas and air took the edge off everything and by the time a contraction would peak I'd be even more relaxed.  10:22pm I asked if I could have something for pain because I was feeling contractions stronger than I had before (even when I was in the pool with Ryan they weren't this strong!) I thought for sure things were changing and I was going to be fully dilated soon. I got the shot of demerol and went to sleep.  It took the edge right off the pain and made me sleepy.  2am, I'm awoken by a midwife coming in to check everything (take my blood pressure and check the monitor to make sure baby was fine).  she checked me again and to my surprise I was STILL 6cm.  She said it was because of the position I was in, but in order to be monitored I had to be in that position. She left to find a doctor. 

That took her a while to find one, because at 3:15 she came back with one who introduced himself and said he was going to break my water since I'd been 6cm for 6 hours.  He broke my water and it didn't feel anything like what I expected.  It just felt like a tiny gush like I had peed my pants or something and that was it.  He said it was broken and that I would be checked again in 4 hours for progress, unless I felt something sooner.  Once he broke my water the contractions got even worse than they were before.  I wasn't handling them well at all, so I asked for another shot thinking it would do the same as before.  Nope.  It did diddly. I was in so much pain I was using gas and air and moaning slightly because it hurt so bad.  I decided to ask for an epidural.  The anesthetist was NOT a nice man.  He came in and was asking me all these questions but wasn't willing to wait until I was done with my contraction to answer him.  I got the epi in the end and he was shocked that I could feel things even though I felt numb.  I could feel him poking me in certain areas but when he would pinch me or something and I couldn't feel it. He told me within 40 minutes I should be completely numb.  I was on a  pretty low dose of the medication through my epidural so I was shocked that it worked so well.  At 7am the midwife came in and told me that because I had an epi I needed to have an antacid, and gave me one. 7:40 was time for checking progression again.  I was 8cm. I thought "hooray! I'm getting somewhere now!"  The midwifes were a bit less enthusiastic since I'd been in labor for nearly 24 hours and only 8cm, since this was my second baby.  It was just because of the way I was laying, but again that is because they couldn't pick up the baby's heart rate on the machine if I was sitting any other way.  I was told I would be checked every 2 hours from this point on, since I was in transition, finally.  So 9:45 I am checked again, and am 9cm, I thought it was wonderful and was sitting there while not feeling anything.  My mom and Mike were zonked at this point and I didn't blame them.  It had been a long night for them and with me not being very talkative it had to be pretty boring too. 11:40am I was checked again, and still had a "bit of a lip" on my cervix, but the midwife said it was only in the front.  She had the OB on call come in and check me an hour later and he said he could feel the lip all the way around. So from 9:45-12:45 no change. He told me I would be checked every hour to check for that final cm and we'd go from there after that.  He said as long as I was fine and baby was fine (based on the monitor) he would allow me to labour on.My epi was beginning to fade at about 2:30 and I was feeling pretty intense pain inside as well as a TON of pressure.  It felt like I needed to go to the bathroom, but I couldn't. He checked me every hour until 3:45. At 2:45 I had another OB check me and she still felt the lip, but then wasn't sure if it was a lip or if it was just excess tissue inside that she was feeling, so let me labor that final hour.  She told me during that hour whenever I had a contraction to push (not PUSH, but push enough to help aleviate some pressure) to see if that would help baby descend and dilate me fully.  My time was up.  The OB came back in to check me, and still no change.  Six hours at 9cm with no change. He said it was time to go for a c-section, really for the fact that he didn't think i would dilate that final cm. I burst into tears and after about five minutes of the doctor telling me "its okay to have a caesarean", I agreed.  He went to the theater to get started with the prepping.  The midwife there, told me that she was going to stay by my side and make sure that this experience is better than my first.  Mr. Eldred said he would check me ONE final time once I was in there and prepped just to see.  I was given one more dose of zantac, as well as a couple of other medications to help ward off evil affects of the epidural/spinal I was about to have.  I had the anesthetist ( a different one) come and talk to me about what I wanted. I chose to have my epidural removed and have a spinal, since he said the chance of me feeling anything with the spinal were slim to none where with the epidural I had a chance of it not numbing me completely. When they were ready for me in the theater, the docs came in to take my bed in there.  My mom came to say "goodbye" for the time being, and Mike got changed into some scrubs.  I was taken to the theater and given my spinal.  During the time I was getting it I was having contractions that were making my body bear down and the nurses had to tell the anesthetist that I was having contractions when I was otherwise there was a chance of him putting the needle in the wrong place.  Once the spinal was in place, Mike was able to come up by my side. He kept telling me that I was doing the right thing.  And at that point I started feeling really sick, and feeling as if I couldn't breathe.  The anesthetist just told Mike to continue to tell me to take deep breaths because even though I didn't feel like I was breathing deeply I was.  The feeling passed shortly and I didn't even know that the surgery had begun. At 4:26pm, Mr. Eldred lifted Cayden up and he was still in the fetal position as if he was still inside me.  Mike looked at me and he nearly started crying.  It makes me tear up now, but at the time I had so much other stuff on my mind that crying then wasn't an option. One of the nurses came and took the camera from Mike to take some pictures. We heard Cayden start crying and shortly after the pediatrician came over and brought him to Mike and said everything was perfect and that he didn't have to be resusitated or anything.  Mike just sat there and held him. Mike was allowed to take Cayden out and show him off to my family since my dad had arrived at the hospital shortly before Cayden was born. I was taken into the recovery portion of the theater and my mom was allowed to come see me, and then my dad got to come in too.  I am sure it was hard on them because as my body was coming down off the anesthetic I was shaking pretty badly, but I wasn't cold.  I was just shaking. I got to go into the room and be with my parents and Mike after about 20 minutes of my surgery.  The midwife got the scale and took Cayden from Mike and said "oooh, I'll say 9lb 4oz." She weighed him and he was 4.17kg. When she looked at her little conversion chart she said she wasn't far off and said "9lb 3oz". He didn't look like a 9lb baby, but he's solid.  The midwife helped me latch Cayden on and Mike held him for me.  It was so nice to be able to nurse shortly after his birth.  I was in the room with my mom and dad for about 4 hours and it was just nice to be there with them and my baby.  Mike left to get changed and a shower and came back once I was in my room on the post natal ward. All the midwives gave me kudos for trying so hard for a VBAC. That made me feel pretty good but still not as good as a VBAC would have made me feel.

Cayden Rhys Fullerton
 born 4/14/08
weighing 9lb 3oz
21.5inches long. 
Apgars: 9/10.