Now that we all know the happy outcome I wanted to give a few details about the posts put up by others while I was… busy…
The reason he broke my water, the reason he was in the room in the first place, is because we didn’t just “misplace” Amelia. Neither heart rate monitors nor ultrasound could find her beating heart. My OB was rushed over to see if he could have any luck with the ultrasound machine in locating a live, beating heart on that little girl. She wasn’t really moving much and what movement there were could have been attributed to Ava kicking at her. I was so scared. SO. SO. Scared. Because of how Ava was presenting the only way I could get both girls’ heart rates was by laying mostly flat on the bed; any other position and we “lost” Ava. But Amelia had always been in the same place, super easy to find, and wiggling in the same directions so never off the monitor. Not being able to find her, at all.. listening OR looking.. I swear to gawd, for a minute there I was back in January. Luckily… luckily…. after a few minutes we found it. Her and Ava’s limbs were all layered and jumbled up together and she was facing up, which made locating her little pitter patter hard to do. Once we finally found it it was just a matter of adjusting this and positioning that and we had her for good. Since he was in the room anyway and I was nicely soft and dilated he decided to go ahead with my AROM request a few hours earlier then he had planned. While he was there he asked about putting the electrode in Ava’s head. After the scare of “losing” Amelia because of positioning I jumped all over the idea. After asking P-Daddy if he was OK with it ( obviously, he was ) I had my OB place it and hook it up.
WOW that was weird. I had a wire, attached to her head, taped down to my leg and hooked to a monitor. Since she was nicely tracking now, I was allowed to get up and labor a bit more naturally. I got on my birthing ball and bounced those ladies down to a nice relaxed 6 centimeters in a very short time period, and I am confident that I could have had the drug free labor and birth that I’d wanted if we’d had just one baby ( or two head down babies) on board. But that monitor! SO WEIRD! Every time Ava would move her head, it would tug on that wire. Just surreal, having her movements and actions felt on the OUTSIDE of my body, when she was on the inside. That was one of the reasons I noticed my complete dilation so soon; I could feel, both outside and inside, a baby right there, low down on my body.
I’ve had a few questions about the epidural that I’ll address here, too. My anesthesiologist was awesome. I got a super light dose. If I had to quantify the lever of dosage, I’d say I could still very easily feel..40? 50% complete sensation. I could still feel and easily use/move my legs. I could still easily feel and work with each contraction.. I could still easily control my body enough to sit as upright as possible and use gravity to it’s full power in bringing that little lady down. It just felt like my lower half had gone to a kegger that my upper half hadn’t been invited to. Still there, still useful… but a little on the goofy side. ……
