You always hear stories of women giving birth with epidurals, or naturally with no trouble what so ever? Pushing for less than an hour... wonder woman type stories... Has anyone ever had or heard of any kind of anyone having the kind of experience where they had the birth story from hell? That giving birth was nothing like you thought it was going to be??
2009-09-24T14:02:01Z
Jennifer please let us know if you develop complications again. I personally had Pre-eclampsia and had to have an emergency c-section at 34 weeks. My baby was in one hospital, and I was in another. I could not even hold him for 4 whole days! I felt very bad that my baby had to be alone for so long. I got pregnant again a year later, but miscarried. I want to have more children, but I fear that I will have a repeat of what I already have experienced.
C-sections are really not that bad my recovery was very quick. So many women fear them, but mine wasn't bad at all. I just wish I had my baby in the same hospital as me while I recovered.
2009-09-24T16:08:55Z
Jennifer- Did they put you on magnesium sulfate? They did that with me to stabilize my blood pressure which was 184/126.Have you changed your diet at all from your last pregnancy? I've read a lot online about a possible correlation between nutrition, and PE.
My full story is that I was battling hypertension for a week before in the hospital, and had round the clock injections to control my blood pressure. I went home for a day, that evening my BP would not go down, and I started having pain and tenderness in my abdomen, so my doctor told us to come back.. I remember her saying "well you did it this time.. You have the Pre-eclampsia." She had told me earlier that they would probably take him early due to the blood pressure, but I had no clue it would have been THAT early! I was in shock that he came so early, and then I was depressed that I couldn't hold him for about a week.. not to mention worried out of my mind because he was so tiny! SO I totally sympathize with all you mothers!!!
Anonymous2009-09-24T12:49:33Z
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My mom had me in under 2 hours - lucky b**** lol. So here I am thinking I would have the same - no. Here's my birth experience. I had bleeding at 20 weeks and was on bed rest for two months. They told me it was okay to get off it but take it easy and my damn water broke in the middle of the night!!!! Here's my poor husband trying to get me to the hospital (27 weeks pg) at 3 in the morning and he's soooo tired as he worse 2nd shift. Yep, my water really did break and I was going to be in the hospital until the baby comes - in an hour or in three months. So, it sucks but I am trying to make the most of it. They give me steroids and tell me they are going to send a masseuse in because being on 100% bed rest (we're talking can't even get up for the bathroom) can really start to make you feel like crud. So, when I started feeling like crud, I thought it was just like they said.
WRONG. I was beginning labor and never new it. I started having a real hard time breathing and called for a nurse. She never came. I had to use the bathroom so I grabbed my bedpan and when I took it out it was filled with blood. My breathing got worse so I called them again and screamed at them to get someone there damnt!!! This was my 3rd day in the hospital and my husband just went home to rest because he had to go back to work. So I called him and told him to get back here. Finally the dr comes in and does a test. Saying my liver is failing and that my blood pressure spiked to about 220 and that I was going to have a seizure at any time - my blood platelets were smashed like someone put them through a grinder and that's why i was bleeding out and my lungs were filling with fluid and drowning me from the inside - basically I got HELLP syndrome. very scary.
So, here I am - they check me and I'm dilated to 3 cm. They said I need an emergency c-section. They wouldn't let my husband come in and put me completely under. neither me or my husband could witness the birth of our child. After I ended up in the ICU and my son was in the NICU. I didn't get to see him for 2 days. I still felt pregnant - didn't even feel like I had a baby except for the horrible pain the c-section and my body trying to get itself back to normal. Thank God I didn't need a liver transplant. The next month was like hell trying to get my son healthy and doing all I could there.
So that's my birth story from hell. He was worth it and that's why I am 20 weeks again right now with our second son.
Edit - wife, I know what you mean. i will keep you updated if anything happens again. It's scary. I am now at the point where I was with my son when I developed my problems. But I seem to be doing good. They are giving me (or starting me) on progesterone shots in a week (22 weeks) to try to stop any premature labor that may begin this time. Apparently I had pre-eclampsia while on bedrest for those 2 months (can you believe my OB never told me?!?!?! - my new OB did after seeing my notes from when I had my son).
So, things are going pretty good. I am terrified though. If things go well, we *may* have another baby since we now will have 2 boys, but if I develop problems again I think it's the end of having any more.
I am really sorry to hear about your loss. But I will add you to my list and keep you updated if anything develops. It definately helps to hear from others who have been through it as well!
EDIT; I also had high bp, but I actually had it throughout my pg. It was always inthe 140s to 160s and they would say turn on your left side. It would go down to 130s and say okay, you're good. I mean seriously looking back on it, my dr was an idiot. That's all she would do. She didn't do anything for me besides bedrest - no medication, no nothing - didn't even tell me I had pre-e.
I saw another dr at the hospital and I got better care from just seeing him once than her. Anyway, like I said the whole time it was high and by the time they admitted me when my water broke it was over 200 and there wasn't really anyway to control it but an IV and to see how it would go. But, I just ended up developing HELLP. I haven't done too much this prengancy different, but I am not having the same problems as I did with my son. I did have bad swelling for a couple of days but it went away (still don't know why). I did have a little bleeding during my 13th week but it stopped. My BP has been good and I don't have protein in my urine, so all good signs so far. I hope things stay as they are. I am a little nervous for my shots because I don't want to give my baby anything like medications that it doesnt' need, but even though my water broke due to pre-e, my specialist says that I didn't get HELLP until after and he will put me on the shots. We will see how it all goes. I am drinking a ton of water though. This baby is more active than my son. If I make it to 30 weeks I will breath a huge sign of relief. I made it through 28 weeks, and I can make it through it again - but those extra weeks make such a big difference. I know what you mean about how small they seem when they are early. Joshua was 12 inches, 2 lbs, 5 ounces. It was really hard to see him like that and I was very surprised at how small he was.
My best friend's labor/delivery made me seriously consider whether or not I wanted to have children for a while. My friend, Candace, got pregnant on the pill (Loestrin 24-fe) shortly after her wedding in 2007. She was 22 years old. It was completely unplanned. Her husband was in the USMC. He deployed when she was 33 weeks pregnant. Candace is a small woman-- about 5'1" and weighed about 95 lbs pre-pregnancy. She had hoped to deliver w/o an epidural at a water birth. Well... She went to 8 days overdue & the hospital told her to come in for an induction. Day 1 (evening): She went in and was 3 cm dialated. They first used prostaglandin gel. After 3 hours, she was 3.5 cm dialated, but she was getting contractions pretty strong. They then decided to use a foley catheter. She said this was the single most painful part of the entire thing. After 30 minutes of that, she was begging for an epidural. They removed the catheter and she was only 5 cm dialated. Day 2 (morning): They wanted her to get some rest overnight to keep her strength up. They went ahead and administered the pictocin. She was completely knocked out b/c of the epidural (bad reaction to it) and her son's heart rate dropped very low, but they managed to get it back up. Her water broke while she was sleeping, but the room was dimly lit (so she could sleep) and the nurse didn't see the meconium (how did they miss it?). She woke up and they checked her again: 8 cm. The baby's heart stopped. After all that, they ended up having to do a C-section anyway. She had to be on oxygen the entire time and couldn't hold her baby until about 8 hours after birth. We were all praying & thankfully her son got better that day. She was in the hospital for a grand total of 5 days. She went home and on like 8 days after delivery, her incision got infected, so she had to go back to the hospital. It was bad. And on top of it, her husband was off in combat & they weren't able to get in touch with each other.
my best friend had to be induced when she was a week over her due date. Well sh elabored for about 20 hours. He got stuck in the birthcanal and was oxygen deprived for about a min. Then they discovered he was sideways! They manually pushed him back up and turned him the right way. He had already cause her to tear. Buy the time he came out she had torn somthing feirce.He was rushed to a different hospital since he had been oxygen deprived. She had to stay at that hospital for a bit when she was realeased she had to be hospitalized agian because she had a uti that went unnoticed and got in her blood stream when she tore. She had a high fever, the chills they almost lost her. Anyways the baby is fine no signs of any damage to him. He ended up getting released from the hospital before she was. Needless to dsay she doesn't want another baby for a long time.
I had a friend who went in to be induced since she was past due and they kept having to send her home b/c nothing was happening. After several days of going back and forth to the hospital and being given cervidal and pitocin, they finally decided to give her a c-section.
My aunt was having contractions at week 35. She worked right next door to the clinic so she walked over to it. They told her everything was fine and sent her back to work. Later that day her water broke, she went back to the hospital, baby was in distress, emergency c-section, and baby was helicoptered to a bigger hospital. Her husband went to the other hospital with the baby, but my aunt had to stay in the smaller hospital for a few days to recover before she even got to see her newborn. The baby did spend some time in the hospital and came home with all sorts of different monitors, but he's now a happy and healthy 10 year old.
When I had my first son, I was 2 weeks overdue and very big! I went in to be induced and thought everything would go smoothly. When I got to my room, the nurse came in and I noticed it was a nurse that I had seen before when I went in for preterm labor and I did not like her at all, but I had no choice. She then asked me if a nursing student could put in my IV, I said, "sure". The student started shaking while trying to do my IV and then told me it was her first time doing it on an actual patient. Good grief. I finally got my IV in after about 10 min. My pitocin was started and I started having contractions within about 20 min. Things were going fine until my labor started getting intense and I was having a lot of pain in my back. My dr came in a broke my water and said there was some meconium so the baby had to come out soon. Then my son's heart rate kept dropping and I had to change positions so many times, that I was really uncomfortable. At this point, I had just a little medication to take the edge off my of my contraction pain. After about 9 hours, I was finally fully dilated and started pushing. The baby was having trouble coming down and I was getting more and more pain in my back to where it was unbearable. I had no pain meds at this point, it wore off. My OB noticed that the baby was coming down with his head pointed up instead of down, so he couldn't curve through my pelvis. My OB had to use the vacuum on my baby's head to help turn him as I was pushing so he could come out. As he came out, I started to feel my skin ripping. I ended up tearing an inch and a half past my rectum. OUCH! Before my son was all the way out, he had stopped breathing and had to have the cord removed from his neck. I was so happy when it was finally over. I did it with no epidural even though it was very painful.