Shannon Marie is Here!!!!!!

Quick synopsis (ok, long, but I'm cutting it back, I swear!):

Went to my appt on Wed, Dr said I was 4 cm, could stretch me to 5 easily, 75% effaced, and at -1 station. She said I could either go to L&D right then & there & be admitted, or wait till the next day. She explained that they would break my bag of waters, then possibly use potocin if no progress was being made. Cool. So we went to L&D.

I was admitted right at 1pm, got antibiotics for GBS, and had to wait 4 hours before breaking the bag of waters. I felt none of my ctx, but was having them irregularly anywhere from 2-7 minutes apart. The Dr. Broke my water around 6pm, and I started feeling ctx, but not too bad for the most part. Then, I went from 5-7 cm in 30 minutes and when they got to 7, I decided I needed an epidural; it was too unbearable for me. Got the epi, and EVERYTHING slowed down: was on oxygen & laying on my left side b/c Shannon's HB was dropping too far after my ctx, contractions slowed and, most importantly, my blood pressure DROPPED drastically. The top # was down in the 80's. The anesthesiologist gave me too much (standard, but too much for me), and they had to give me ephedrine to get my heartrate up. The ephedreine was HORRIBLE....like being on speed times 10, I would imagine. It should have taken 5cc & about 5 minutes to stabilize my HR. But they gave me an entire syringe over the course of 2 1/2 hours. The other anesth. had never seen anyone take this long to stabilize. Apparently, I am super sensitive to anesthesia. Go figure. So he gave me 1/2 of what the other anesth gave me of the narcotic (phentynyl??) & none of the other main drug. Worked great, except my right leg wouldn't move at all.

So, back to the contractions, they gave me a low dose of pitocin to start up the ctx again (hadn't had ONE in a couple of hours b/c of the epi). I started pushing around 5:20am, and needed an episiotomy: 2nd degree or whatever, and my butt really hurts now.... Can't laugh too hard. Anyways, I pushed for about 1/2 an hour or so & she was born at 6:03 am (I was born at 6:05 am ). She started BFing like a champ, and I was in Heaven. She would cry, and just the sound of my voice would calm her. It felt amazing.

About an hour after she was born, I drank some soda & puked. Then I drank some water & puked...... Then I ate something & puked. Then I started sweating & blacked out..... I was hemorrhaging. In the course of about 30 minutes, I had lost about 1000cc of blood (the amount of two large IV bags... about 2 liters, I guess) & my OB had to "sweep" out the blood clots from my ute (felt more like she was reaching inside my ute & clawing them out). There were a ton of Drs & nurses in there, and they gave me a ton of meds, including sticking cytotec (which I was very adamantly against) to help my uterus contract or something. I don't know... I was passed out & barely heard the word "cytotec." All I wanted to do was hold my baby girl and console her when she cried. A few hours later, I was stabilized again, though they kept giving me fluids that were COLD and made me shiver uncontrollably.

I was moved to post-partum sometime that afternoon, and got to sleep quite a bit. Mike was awesome through the whole thing. I had two IV lines in me, so I couldn't do much except hold Shannon. He is waaay better than me now at swaddling, and I go to him to get it done. I was discharged at 10-ish, but Shannon wasn't until after 1 b/c she was so big. We got home this afternoon & spent time with our families. She looks like I did, but with Mike's nose....her hair is a tad bit lighter than mine was when I was born & I was more red. She actually looks a lot like my great grandma. She has a little freckle under her left nostril, furry little ears, and LONG feet and hands. She's adorable! We are so completely smitten by her!!

I think that's everything "in a nutshell." As nutshell-ish as I can be.