The Ambivalent One

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She is now 8lbs. 8oz. She has gained 1 pound in 2 weeks!

She's not a fan of being burped.

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Remember how I put a photo up once a week? I think I will be putting up a daily photo of Mila.

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It's a piece of belly button people jerky... I feel grossed out when I think of keeping it and yet I'm reluctant to toss it.

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We found a nice pattern that allowed us to get 2 hours of sleep at a time between changes and feeding. So we both managed to get some rest.

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My blog. My rules.

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Christine spent the night feeding Mila. I seem to get to hold her only once she's tuckered out. I know that won't last!

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Thursday night we came for the third round of Cervadil to dialate and efface the cervix. By the next morning there was very little progress so they put in a foley catheter to try and coax things along. Typically this is actually used to drain urine from the bladder. It has an inflatable balloon at the end. The way it is used in an induction scenario if that it is inflated inside the uterus between the cervix and the head of the baby. When contraction occur it pushes against the cervix to mechanically open it. This got her up to 3cm dialation and then she stopped there for many hours. This is when the oxytocin was administered to bring on labour.

This brought on strong and prolonged contractions. They were ranging from 3 to 5 minutes long with only about 2 minutes between them at most. Christine was quite uncomfortable at this point. All the nursing staff were quite impressed with how she was coping. She would just stand in front of me and hold my hands and match my slow breathing.

After about an hour and a half they checked and she was dialated to 6cm and they let her have an epidural. They wanted her to resist as long as possible to make sure the epidural would slow the onset of labour. Once she had that in they increase to hourly oxytocin dose to 12ml. The epidural let her relax a bit so we got a little rest.

A while later we are awoken by nurses coming in and having her roll on to her side and cut the oxytocin. They tried to get the dose up 3 more times over the next few hours but each time they did it was the same scene. Christine would get a huge prolonged contraction and Mila's heart rate would drop really low.

I think the last time they did that was 6am. I was woken by 2 nurses coming in to the room. There seemed to be a different sense of urgency to it. It woke me up fully in an instant. It scared the shit out of me. They put Christine on oxygen and paged a doctor. When they examined her this time the doctor figured that Mila was too big, not at a good angle and there wasn't enough space for her to pass. The huge contractions had in effect been squashing her and the placenta causing circulation problems during the contraction. It was decided that a c-section would be performed.

I had been so alarmed that I had trouble speaking and felt what I can only describe as overwhelming fear for the wellbeing of my two ladies.

After the problem free c-section when Christine was in recovery her blood pressure was extremely low so they had to give her a shot of epinepherine. She was fine after that. They are both doing great.

These last few days have been a confusing mix of joy and fear the likes of which I have never experienced. I have my little girl sleeping in my lap. I've never been so tired and happy.
Sean

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Born at 7:28 on September 5th at the Ottawa General hospital.

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My Christine is the toughest person I know. She went from 3 to 6cm in an hour and a half and never cried out. She was insistent on thw epidural at this point though. I don't blame her.

Our baby Mila should be here very soon!

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Well, Christine had an uncomfortable night. Also seems that she has a really tough cervix. Round 3 of cervadil didn't work. Well, it got contractions going but she still hasn't effaced enough for a delivery.

Sean

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All the waiting today sucked pretty continuously to be honest.

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