On Friday, Ms. Maya got a new little girl cousin from one of Dontae's sisters. Today Julie gave birth to a baby girl; tomorrow Dontae's brother will have a little boy. This must be a record for new cousin acquisition from 3 separate births.
What a ride it's been.
Nationally the C-section rate is 30%. At this particular hospital that Julie went to: 40%. Co-incidentally, their use of epidurals is 95%. Meanwhile at the University of Michigan Midwifery service, the rate is 14% up from the 12% quoted when Naomi was a patient. Yeah they cherry pick their patients. Back in the good old 60s, C-section rates were around 4%.
Reason for today's C-section? Massive baby. A baby for the record that is more petite than my 3 mega babies and I am a smaller person than the mom. Also failure to progress. Also posterior lie. Also fatigue.
She had been in labor most of yesterday. Finally the contractions seemed intense and close together. They live quite far from the hospital so they were camped out at her mother's a 12 mile drive instead of a 25 mile one. We live about 50 miles away. I didn't want to miss the birth of my granddaughter so at about 10 pm, we made the long trip. What I should have done was wait until she was admitted before making the drive. As she was only slightly dilated, they wanted her to go home. But she was feeling too much pain for that to be an option. They sedated her so she could sleep and we went home. I told Josh, when she is at 5 cm,(active labor) call me. He did at 7am and said her water broke. Please hurry! So on the road again to hurry up and wait. From then on, epidurals, pitocin, more epidurals, more pit such than the heart rate went way down. They would take her off everything and the labor would stop. A real big mess. Last night a midwife suggested that they rotate the baby into a better position but the MD on call nixed that idea. Today the OB way too late suggested the same thing. Don't these people talk to each other? But in the end, she just wasn't progressing fast enough so a C section was offered.
I will provide details about my new cute grandbaby another time. She is healthy and we are grateful. At one point Josh slowly approached us for an update looking so upset that we all assumed he was reporting a death. It took him a while to speak as he was so overcome with various emotions. He finally was able to choke out that everyone was still OK but it didn't look like that for a while.
What a ride it's been.
Nationally the C-section rate is 30%. At this particular hospital that Julie went to: 40%. Co-incidentally, their use of epidurals is 95%. Meanwhile at the University of Michigan Midwifery service, the rate is 14% up from the 12% quoted when Naomi was a patient. Yeah they cherry pick their patients. Back in the good old 60s, C-section rates were around 4%.
Reason for today's C-section? Massive baby. A baby for the record that is more petite than my 3 mega babies and I am a smaller person than the mom. Also failure to progress. Also posterior lie. Also fatigue.
She had been in labor most of yesterday. Finally the contractions seemed intense and close together. They live quite far from the hospital so they were camped out at her mother's a 12 mile drive instead of a 25 mile one. We live about 50 miles away. I didn't want to miss the birth of my granddaughter so at about 10 pm, we made the long trip. What I should have done was wait until she was admitted before making the drive. As she was only slightly dilated, they wanted her to go home. But she was feeling too much pain for that to be an option. They sedated her so she could sleep and we went home. I told Josh, when she is at 5 cm,(active labor) call me. He did at 7am and said her water broke. Please hurry! So on the road again to hurry up and wait. From then on, epidurals, pitocin, more epidurals, more pit such than the heart rate went way down. They would take her off everything and the labor would stop. A real big mess. Last night a midwife suggested that they rotate the baby into a better position but the MD on call nixed that idea. Today the OB way too late suggested the same thing. Don't these people talk to each other? But in the end, she just wasn't progressing fast enough so a C section was offered.
I will provide details about my new cute grandbaby another time. She is healthy and we are grateful. At one point Josh slowly approached us for an update looking so upset that we all assumed he was reporting a death. It took him a while to speak as he was so overcome with various emotions. He finally was able to choke out that everyone was still OK but it didn't look like that for a while.
1 comment:
Yikes! What a nightmare...glad mom and baby made it trhrough.
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