Keegan's Birthday ....

As I posted in a previous post, Dr. Mann stated the induction process on 9/22 by oral medication to thin my cervix. On Wednesday morning the 23rd I got 2 more pills to continue to thin my cervix by 7 am I was ready for some pitocin. Dr. Mann came into my room and checked me, I was about 1 cm and I don't really remember my effacement. After the pitocin was started, I went from feeling really comfortable to extreme pain in the matter of less than an hour. By that time I was begging for an epidural. I was in so much pain. I have heard that pitocin makes contractions worse, and even though I have not had a contraction without pitocin I believe it. I would like to think that if I went naturally into labor I would have been able to handle the pain a lot more.

As the day progressed I got more comfortable. I was checked every couple of hours and was progressing nicely. I was checked early-mid afternoon and was around 5 cm, by 4 pm I was at 9 cm and I had a small "lip" on the right hand side of my cervix. Right around this time my pain came back 10 x's worse than before. The epidural wasn't working. They called the Anthesilogist in to give me more medication. That medication, Lidocaine, did not work. He came back in a short time later to assess my pain level, still as high as before. They gave me some more Lidocaine. When that still didn't take the edge off they gave me more medication. By this time my legs were even heavier than they had previously been and I could hardly move myself around in my bed. With the normal epidural I could move my legs enough to move around to get comfortable in bed but couldn't walk, I was also catheterized every couple hours to relieve the pressure in my bladder. Dr. Mann came in at some point during this process to check the position of Keegan's head. He felt something was wrong, it was tilted to one side and he didn't know if he was going to be able to deliver him naturally. He called in Dr. Ott, another doctor in his office, who agreed that his head was tilted and didn't know if he would come out vaginally.

By this time I was soooo tired and in so much pain, I really didn't care much as to what was happening around me. Back around 4 pm my nurse, Michele, told me we would have a baby by the end of her shift (7 pm) and little did she know it would be sooner than later. It was quickly decided that I was going to need to have a C-section. It seemed that as soon as this was decided things started to happen very fast. I remember a nurse giving Ryan his white scrubs and I had to drink some nasty drink to help with acid reflux after the surgery. They put compression socks on my feet and drained my bladder again. I remember I had a contraction right before they were to wheel me out into the hall down to surgery. I asked the to wait so I didn't scare all the people in the hallway on the way to the delivery room. When we got in the delivery room I saw a familiar face, Holly, a lady from church was in there. She immediately said hi and I felt a lot better about the current situation. I remember the blue sheet being pulled up in front of my face and a cold sensation going down my back. I then remember the anthesilogist asking me if I felt anything, when I said yes I could feel the scapel going into my belly he immediatly gave me something else for pain, all had to numb me at this point was my epidural/Lidocaine. Come to find out the last drug that the doctor gave me was the same drug that Michael Jackson died from. This knocked me out and I remember waking up in the recovery room with Holly and Ryan by my side. That is all I remember about his birth. Come to find out he was born at 5:41 pm weighing 7 lbs 10.8 oz and was 18 inches long.

Keegan's doctor, Dr. Hilmo, came into the recovery room and updated us on Keegan's status. I vaguely remember her saying something about having extra fingers and toes but that is about it. They wheeled me into the NICU before wheeling me to the room where I would spend the next 4 days. I saw my baby for the first time. I don't really remember much about seeing him other than seeing his little extra toe and fingers. He had A LOT of hair and he was crying, I was still pretty drugged up. I was then wheeled down to my room to relax and recover.