Today’s post will be rather brief, because as much as I wish I had some crazy exciting story to share with you, there actually wasn’t all that much to my experience of giving birth to my daughter. But I want to share it anyways, because it was one of the most difficult and rewarding things I have ever, and will ever, accomplish in my life.
How it All Started
Unfortunately I was not able to carry my daughter to the full 40 weeks. At 36 weeks I started to develop an itch in the stretch marks on my stomach. In just a couple of short days I had a very painful, itchy, and spreading rash. It was all over my stomach and was spreading to my legs. I found out that it was a PUPPPS rash. I had heard of this before, but never had imagined that it was truly as awful as some people said it was. And though you may not want to take my word for, just as I didn’t want to take their words, it is absolutely true.
I had a very severe case of PUPPPS rash and there’s really nothing you can do to help the itch or resolve it other than give birth. I had read before that some women end up being induced for severe cases of PUPPPS but I thought that seemed drastic. I had read that tidbit near the beginning of my pregnancy and never imagined I would have to deal with the condition myself, because it isn’t very common. Well of course, I have the worst medical luck.
Exactly 1 week from when the rash started to appear I had a complete mental breakdown. It was so extremely painful and I had tried everything that was suggested to me, everything I could think of. I was living in the bath tub and when I wasn’t in the water I was laying in my bed doing my best to not move at all because I was in so much pain that I couldn’t even do anything else. I have described the terribleness of this rash in a previous post (Parenting Update: 1 Month Old) so I won’t go into much more detail here to save repeating myself.
When my husband got home that day I cried and cried and cried and told him that I couldn’t do it anymore, she had to come out! Now that may seem extreme, but you’ve probably never dealt with PUPPPS and almost certainly not a severe case of it. But I have, and it’s awful. Not only that, but the pain was causing me so much stress that I was actually putting my baby into distress. I was hurting her and there was nothing I could do about it because there was nothing I could do to take away my pain.
So we immediately went to see the doctor. He knew immediately after looking at me and looking at my rash that I had to have my baby ASAP! Thankfully I was just about to go into labor on my own anyways. We tried to schedule an induction at the hospital but that didn’t pan out. So we had to go back to the office the next day and the doctor broke my water to get labor started. Even if I hadn’t gone into labor after that on my own, the hospital would have to admit me and induce me with IV drugs.
Thankfully I immediately went into labor!
At the Hospital
So we drove to the hospital and got into OB Triage and we waited there for a couple of hours for a bed to open up in the delivery ward.
Now at first I felt that I was handling the contractions extremely well. I was breathing through them just fine and though they hurt it wasn’t anything compared to the rash I was dealing with, and it was even a nice distraction from that pain! The nurses asked what my medication plans were and I told them about my extreme phobia of needles and how I wasn’t planning on having an epidural. They tried to get me to do an IV right away but I was already super scared of the IV needle so I pushed it off.
Then it all happened at once. Out of absolutely nowhere my contractions tripled (literally, I watched the numbers triple on the monitoring machine) and I was having them back to back. There was no break. It would start to go down and then immediately it would shoot right back up. It was the most painful thing I had experienced. I begged for an IV! The pain medicine didn’t really help and I was stuck with these back to back contractions for a long while.
Eventually a room opened up and we were moved to the delivery ward. I’m not sure how long I was there at this point, but before long I couldn’t take the pain anymore. It was unbearable and I was crying and screaming and beginning for the epidural and constantly asking “how much longer till they get here for the epidural?!” It was one of the bravest things I’ve ever done. I’m not one of those people who needs to look away from the needle to feel better. I need to feel that I have some sort of control over the entire process or I just freak out. And you can’t see the needle or where it’s going when they are putting into your back. And I just didn’t even care. The pain was terrible and the contractions were still back to back nonstop.
After the epidural I felt amazing. I was still feeling the contractions a little, but I wasn’t in pain. The only problem I was having was one area of my left leg. I had somehow messed up the muscle at some point before the epidural happened and for some reason it never went numb like everything else. So I had this terrible tense muscle pain. Compared to the contractions though, it was just an inconvenience.
In all I ended up in labor for only about 9 hours. And then I started to feel the pressure. It didn’t feel like a need to push, but it was just this amazing amount of pressure in my pelvis. And they decided at first that they would come back and check in a little bit because they had checked not long ago and I was still at 5 cm. dilated. In less than 2 hours I had gone from 5 cm to 10 cm dilated and everyone was surprised. So they called the doctor. I sat there 10 cm dilated and ready to push for nearly an hour before my OB arrived.
Once he was there I was pushing and after only 20 minutes my beautiful baby girl was born! It was certainly the craziest, most painful, intense, emotional, and absolutely rewarding experiences of my life!
The Newest Addition to Our Family
And now my husband, my two cats, and I have a wonderful baby girl in our family. We are so absolutely happy to have her here and though this whole being a new parent thing is very difficult, I would not trade it for anything!
What to Expect Next:
Posts coming up next week are Taking Notes in Your Textbook, Creating a Reading Schedule, and Taking Notes in Class. Also, be sure to sign up here for the Petite Fox Designs Newsletter to receive weekly updates about upcoming posts, new Etsy stop listings, exclusive Etsy shop coupons, and possible prize giveaways!
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