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Zia Fichot Sex: girl Born: 09 July, 2008 Age: 0 years & 96 days Birthday in: 269 days Starsign: Cancer Development: See the 3 months page. Biggest achievement so far: -

Birth details

Original due date: July 10, 2008
Type of delivery: Forceps or suction
Duration of labor: ~34 hours
Weight @ birth: 3.33 kg
Length @ birth: 53 cms

Zia-Fichot`s birthstory

Well, things went very well for the first part - the surges woke me up
around 3 AM the morning of July 8th, and we stayed home, walked, and
relaxed until 7 PM when the midwife arrived. By that time I was 5 cm
dialiated and 5 minutes apart, so it was time to go to the hospital.
The surges were manageable due to relaxation, and everyone commented
on how calm I was being admitted at that time. That helped secure one
of the nice low risk rooms - big room, with cot for dad and a full
huge bathtub / personal fridge.

They inserted the IV for Group B Strep (takes 20 minutes) and we
waited. The surges got closer, slightly - to about 3-4 minutes, and
lasted very, very long (2 minutes each time). They got more and more
intense but I was dialiating much. By about 2-3 AM, the midwife
suggested that the bag of waters may be in the way of the baby being
able to put more pressure on my cervix to open and suggested breaking
it. I was pretty exhausted so anything that could help speed things
up at that time was fine by me. The water broke, and I was still at
about 8 cm. I moved into the tub to help deal with the intensity of
the surges around 4 AM, and unfortunately the surges started becoming
less frequent - dropping to about 10 minutes apart. Perhaps the
comfort of the water told my body it was time to take a break. We
laboured on in a variety of positions, getting to the transition point
where the surges peaked and I was fully dialated around 5-6 AM. I
then did some pushing but baby was taking a long time to move
downwards, reaching "0" station around 7 AM. I was so tired by that
point, I was scared I would pass out. I was given laughing gas to
take the edge off, but that was not very successful after a while.

At that time, the midwife felt that my surges need some help, so I was
given the option of oxytocin and an epidural to speed things up. Also
part of the deal was some time to sleep while the drugs took effect. I
agreed wanting nothing more than to sleep at that time - I was totally
spent! I was given the epidural around 7:30 AM and slept until 8:30
AM. The oxytocin very slowly brought my surges closer together, but
they were short - 30 seconds. By 10 AM, baby was about -1, so it was
time to actively push the baby out with each surge. The epidural was
turned off to increase my feeling, and we began to actively push with
each surge for about an hour. By noon, the baby's heartrate was
dropping with each surge to about 80, and some meconium was passed, so
the obstetrician suggested that we needed to get her out more quickly.
Foreceps were brought in (after some argument between the
opbstetrician and the anestesiologist), my epi was ramped up to
paralysis level, and I was told to push even without a surge to try to
get her out quickly. It worked - and by 1:09 PM baby Zia was born.
She had a team of pediatricians ready on hand. Her apgar score was 4,
but increased to 9 in a minute after a bunch of suctioning. It turns
out the difficulty in getting her out was because she had a little
hand up by her face, which made the descent and turning very, very
difficult.

I suffered a 3rd degree tear due to the foreceps, and was stitched up
as the placenta was delivered. We stayed in the hospital for 2 days
while I healed and was able to go home on Friday.

So overall, it wasn't as I had pictured in an ideal situation - but
you can never anticipate everything - only hope for the best. I will
say that the surges were much more intense than I imagined and had
some difficulty coping once they hit - it felt like a pounding
migraine down in my abdomen. Perhaps if things progressed faster, it
would have been more tolerable. I do think the hypnobirthing techniques we learned
were very helpful in saving as much energy as possible during the
early stages and keeping me relaxed and focused.

Boris was wonderful and patient - staying with me and helping me all
the way. He rubbed my back while I laboured on the birthing ball in
our bedroom. He walked with me on the seawall and made me sip
Gatorade every few meters. In the hospital, I laboured standing,
leaning on him, clutching him when the surge peaked. He kept me warm
in the bathtub, and reminded me to breath through the surges. I did
not once have the urge to yell at him or curse him, heheh - in fact, I
didn't even remotely feel anger or hostility, even in the most
excruciating moments. He shed tears when Zia was born - happy she was
finally out and healthy, sad that it came down to interventions and
that she was whisked away from me the moment she was born, after I had
worked so hard for so long.

For me, I was just ecstatic that she was healthy.

Overall, it was an AMAZING experience. In some ways I felt I
experienced both natural and less natural births, since I was
undrugged all the way to the pushing stage, and then experienced the
epi-oxy combo after that.

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