This birth story was a little more difficult to write than my first two since it came very close to having a completely different ending. I still have a hard time thinking about everything that happened without getting emotional.
I had been seeing a high-risk doctor in addition to my regular OB for reasons I still don't completely understand. My initial appointment with them was to make sure my placenta had moved up after my 17-week ultrasound. It had, but for some reason they kept seeing me throughout the remainder of the pregnancy and I'm honestly not even sure they knew why. At one point the receptionist was asking my doctor for diagnosis codes to submit to insurance and and she was just throwing out words...
So anyway, the high-risk doctor wanted me to be induced at 37 weeks since the baby was measuring big. I thought that was really early and after discussing with my regular OB, we decided 38 weeks was better for everyone. I had an appointment the day before my induction to have a Foley bulb inserted to hopefully push me into labor on my own. I was hoping that I could actually labor at home for once and then go in Thursday morning already dilated and contracting. Right before she placed the bulb, I asked her if the baby was head-down since Porter had been transverse the day before delivery. Even though he had been head-down in his last 2 ultrasounds, she went ahead and checked. She couldn't feel his head. I knew what that meant, but we went across the hall for an ultrasound to confirm. Since I was already undressed, I got to run across the hall in the sheet while my doctor and her nurse blocked me. The ultrasound confirmed that he was in the exact postiionnPorter had been in...transverse. The Foley bulb was out and I was afraid my induction was too, but she quickly came up with another plan.
Plan B: I would now check into the hospital at 4:00 and she and her partner would attempt a version to turn the baby head down and if it was successful, they would immediately break my water and start pitocin and get things started. I was disappointed. I had been strongly counting on having the ability to actually go into labor at home this time since it was my last labor and I hadn't gotten to experience that yet. We also weren't ready. We didn't have anyone to watch Paxton and Porter yet, the bags weren't packed and our house wasn't clean. My OB told me no more food or drink in case the version resulted in an emergency C-section and it was lunchtime and all I had eaten for breakfast that morning was a banana. I came home and cried for a minute and then Jared sprang into action. He was furiously cleaning the house and running last minute errands while I arranged care for the boys. For some reason, this entire pregnancy I had been having this strong feeling that I was going to die during childbirth. I had talked to one friend about it and she had reassured me that it was basically impossible and Jared had been reassuring me too, but I was still really emotional and nervous. Bevynne came over to watch the boys and suddenly it was time to go. I sat down with Porter and snuggled him and told him I was going to the hospital to get his baby brother out and he could come see us tomorrow and see the baby. He was fine. He gave me a hug and a kiss and went to play with Bevynne. I sat down with Paxton and he started bawling and saying he didn't want me to go, so then I was crying too. I talked to him for awhile about what was happening and who would be with him and how proud I was of him and how helpful he was and he was feeling a little better, but as we walked out the door, he started crying again. Poor guy. It made it really hard to leave.
We got to the hospital and got checked in and into our room. The nurse started my IV with some fluids and did an ultrasound to confirm he was still transverse. He was.
The anesthesiologist came in to start my epidural since the version would be very uncomfortable, and so that if I needed an emergency c-section, I would be ready. It was really uncomfortable this time since I wasn't having any contractions to need relief from. He poked me several times and I kept feeling sharp pain to the left of my spine. He finally got it in and my perfectly comfortable bottom half went numb.
Around 6:00, my doctor came in and they started some medicine to relax my uterus to make the version more successful. They had warned me that the medicine would make my heart race, but I was not expecting the reaction I had. All of a sudden, I could feel my heart pounding and I got really really hot and dizzy and nauseous. Apparently my blood pressure had spiked and they immediately gave me something to lower it. It worked a little too well and my blood pressure plummeted. I was really out of it by that time and was just laying there with my eyes closed while they tried to stabilize everything. It was really scary with lots of activity and medical terminology and I just basically felt awful and had no idea what was happening. Finally, they got things under control and the other doctor had come in at some point and he and my doctor started the version. Even with the epidural, it was pretty uncomfortable. The other doctor pushed so hard that I had bruises all over my stomach the next day, but it worked. They got him turned and immediately broke my water. The other doctor left and my doctor stayed for a little bit to talk to me about what was next. As she left, she said "you had me scared for a minute there!" I thought the worst was over and settled in for a quiet night of labor.
Pitocin was started and I was at a 2. Jared fell asleep and I dozed off and on between being checked and being moved into different positions. At midnight the nurse told me that I was officially "in labor" according to my contractions and I was at a 4. By 4:30, I was an 8 and around 5:15 I told her I was feeling some pressure. She checked me and I was a 10. She left to get my doctor and a delivery team and I woke Jared up. That lucky guy got to sleep through my entire labor and woke up right in time for delivery. Laboring overnight was my favorite. Nobody was anxiously waiting for me to dilate another centimeter, I got to sleep through some of it...it was just so quiet and peaceful which is weird to say about labor, but it was.
Just before 5:30, the room filled up with nurses and my doctor came in. I had pushed twice with the nurse, so he was right there, ready to come out. It all happened so fast this time which was really nice. The last two times, I got to a 10 and pushed the baby down and then had to wait for nurses and equipment and my doctor. This time, I pushed the baby down right before my doctor came in and three pushes later, he was here!
They put him directly on my chest and we got to do skin-to-skin while they wiped him off and finished up with me. They checked his temp and I was a little low, so they took him to the warmer while he regulated.
They weighed and measured him, 8 pounds 1 ounce and 21 inches. We sent everyone texts that he was here and my mom and Bevynne came around 7:30. He was still in the warmer but they double wrapped him and said we could keep him out for awhile. We ordered breakfast and got lots of baby snuggles and I nursed him. Everything was fine. 
While everyone was holding him, I got up to go the bathroom and felt a gush of blood. I went to the bathroom and as I was getting back in bed, I felt another gush. I called the nurse in and she pushed on my stomach and as she did, I felt another huge gush. She immediately called in more nurses and the room filled with people as she kept pushing on my stomach, pushing out huge gushes of blood. I was laying there, crying, wondering why she kept pushing so much blood out. There was activity and medical talk all around me, but nobody was talking to me. They had my mom and Bevynne leave, but Jared was sitting next to me holding the baby, also unaware of what was going on. Eventually a doctor came in and started ordering people around. I had tears running down my face and kept asking the nurse closest to my head if I was ok and what was happening. She wouldn't answer me. I got really hot and sweaty and nauseous and told her and she ignored me. Finally a nurse brought me a cold rag and a bag to throw up in, but I kept bleeding. I kept seeing them pull out sheet after sheet covered in blood. I told her I thought I was going to pass out and she said "ok" and kept working. Someone told me they were going to give me a shot to help stop the blood and they inserted Cervadil to help also. At some point my doctor came in and was helping too. I knew things were bad when she came in. My monitors started beeping as my blood pressure plummeted. I think at that point I passed out for a few seconds or minutes and when I woke up, nurses had started to leave. My doctor was still there and finally came over and talked to us. She told me that I had lost a lot of blood and had really scared her. She said to let them know immediately if I felt any more gushes but that she thought it was under control now. She ordered a bag of blood and blood work to find out how much I had lost and when she got the numbers, she inmediatley ordered a second bag. The next day, my numbers were still low and I got two more bags. I told my doctor that everything had seemed really intense and asked her how bad things had been. She told me that she very rarely ordered blood and when she did, it was never more than two bags. She told me that it had been very serious and that she actually would recommend that I didn't have more babies. We had planned on him being our last baby anyway, but that cemented the decision. It was so scary and I can still remember so clearly that feeling of blood gushing out of me.
I'm so glad that everything turned out ok and we have a healthy little boy.
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