kadams7701
New member
I’ve just posted this in r/BabyBumps but wanted to share here as well! I’m 37 yrs old and just gave birth to our son. Thank you for reading our story!
Yesterday, being shy of 35 wks, my husband and I got pizza and finally decided it was high time we watched The Godfather.
Halfway through, I laughed at a comment my husband made about the movie and suddenly felt a little gush of liquid at 8:40 pm that continued to trickle down my leg, and I just knew it was amniotic fluid. We called our OB after hours, and they had us head into labor and delivery.
There, it was confirmed to be AF, and they told us we were staying to have our baby - shocked doesn’t even begin to describe it! We thought we had at least 2 more wks when I was planning to be induced due to IUGR.
They started me on Cytotec to induce, and after an hour, I requested the epidural, which is the greatest gift I could have given myself!
A few hrs later, a balloon was placed to increase me to 4-5 cm (this wasn’t fun, but it did the trick), and after 12 hrs, almost on the dot, I was given Pitocin to further along the labor. The delivery doctor told me it could be 12-24 hrs or more at that point, and she left. I was shocked and trying to mentally prepare for being in labor for at least another day or two (yikes!)
This is where things took a turn.
The nurse immediately saw that the baby didn’t like the pitocin and stopped it. She had me up on all fours with another nurse to help make sure the baby was ok. The doctor rushed back in, and they were about to place a special device to track contractions directly from inside the placenta. First, she checked to see my progress and threw that contraction device the nurse just opened in the trash and said it was go time!!
My wide-eyed husband grabbed my hand. The room instantly filled up with close to 12 nurses and doctors. NICU, of course, being there bc we were early and already had an IUGR diagnosis, and I was instructed to start pushing!
I pushed 5 times, and my perfect boy was delivered at 9:18 am, 3 lbs, 15 oz. I’m so grateful I got to hold him on my stomach right away when he made his first precious whimpers, and then he was whisked away to be taken care of by the fantastic NICU team. Hearing his first little cries is a memory I will never, ever forget.
By some miracle, I didn’t have any tearing even though his head was continuously measuring on track for his gestational age! My placenta was stubborn as ever and took close to 20 min to come out (ugh!), but the doctor was amazing. She had to be extra delicate bc I had a velamentous cord insertion.
Now, Baby is doing fantastic so far! The NICU here is the best around, and we are beyond grateful we can see him at any time of the day. They told us his stay could be up to his due date, but we are so hoping he is going to crush his goals early since he already seems to know how to get sh*t done!
His heart does have a moderately sized VSD in an odd spot and a possible coarctation of the aorta, all found at his 20-week scan (pls see my post history if you’d like to know more!).
He’ll receive his first earth-side ECHO on Tuesday, and we are very much hoping his aorta is functioning as normal and will not require surgery. We hope can monitor his VSD for the next few months to ensure it will close or wait if it requires surgery down the road when he is much stronger.
I’ll try to make an update to this post after his echo for anyone interested!
If you’ve read to this point, thank you!! Our journey to parenthood has been a wild ride. We had three previous losses in the last four years, and it feels beyond surreal to finally hold our baby.
I love my husband more than ever and could not have done any of this without him by my side every step of the way!!
If you are scared of labor and delivery, a warrior inside of you has always been there, and you are stronger than you’ll ever know. Sending love and light to all the other Mommas and their possible partners about to take the same path - remember to go with the flow and ride the wave
You got this!!!! 
Yesterday, being shy of 35 wks, my husband and I got pizza and finally decided it was high time we watched The Godfather.
Halfway through, I laughed at a comment my husband made about the movie and suddenly felt a little gush of liquid at 8:40 pm that continued to trickle down my leg, and I just knew it was amniotic fluid. We called our OB after hours, and they had us head into labor and delivery.
There, it was confirmed to be AF, and they told us we were staying to have our baby - shocked doesn’t even begin to describe it! We thought we had at least 2 more wks when I was planning to be induced due to IUGR.
They started me on Cytotec to induce, and after an hour, I requested the epidural, which is the greatest gift I could have given myself!
A few hrs later, a balloon was placed to increase me to 4-5 cm (this wasn’t fun, but it did the trick), and after 12 hrs, almost on the dot, I was given Pitocin to further along the labor. The delivery doctor told me it could be 12-24 hrs or more at that point, and she left. I was shocked and trying to mentally prepare for being in labor for at least another day or two (yikes!)
This is where things took a turn.
The nurse immediately saw that the baby didn’t like the pitocin and stopped it. She had me up on all fours with another nurse to help make sure the baby was ok. The doctor rushed back in, and they were about to place a special device to track contractions directly from inside the placenta. First, she checked to see my progress and threw that contraction device the nurse just opened in the trash and said it was go time!!
My wide-eyed husband grabbed my hand. The room instantly filled up with close to 12 nurses and doctors. NICU, of course, being there bc we were early and already had an IUGR diagnosis, and I was instructed to start pushing!
I pushed 5 times, and my perfect boy was delivered at 9:18 am, 3 lbs, 15 oz. I’m so grateful I got to hold him on my stomach right away when he made his first precious whimpers, and then he was whisked away to be taken care of by the fantastic NICU team. Hearing his first little cries is a memory I will never, ever forget.
By some miracle, I didn’t have any tearing even though his head was continuously measuring on track for his gestational age! My placenta was stubborn as ever and took close to 20 min to come out (ugh!), but the doctor was amazing. She had to be extra delicate bc I had a velamentous cord insertion.
Now, Baby is doing fantastic so far! The NICU here is the best around, and we are beyond grateful we can see him at any time of the day. They told us his stay could be up to his due date, but we are so hoping he is going to crush his goals early since he already seems to know how to get sh*t done!
His heart does have a moderately sized VSD in an odd spot and a possible coarctation of the aorta, all found at his 20-week scan (pls see my post history if you’d like to know more!).
He’ll receive his first earth-side ECHO on Tuesday, and we are very much hoping his aorta is functioning as normal and will not require surgery. We hope can monitor his VSD for the next few months to ensure it will close or wait if it requires surgery down the road when he is much stronger.
I’ll try to make an update to this post after his echo for anyone interested!
If you’ve read to this point, thank you!! Our journey to parenthood has been a wild ride. We had three previous losses in the last four years, and it feels beyond surreal to finally hold our baby.
I love my husband more than ever and could not have done any of this without him by my side every step of the way!!
If you are scared of labor and delivery, a warrior inside of you has always been there, and you are stronger than you’ll ever know. Sending love and light to all the other Mommas and their possible partners about to take the same path - remember to go with the flow and ride the wave
You got this!!!! 
