Hi all,
I don't see much activity in our board!! Whats up?!?! Guess everybody is eagerly awaiting the arrival of their little ones!! Anyway here is my birth story!!
On Feb 14th morning I had slight spotting and was in a doubt if it was the \";show\";. Since I expected the \";show\"; to be lots of bleeding and not slight spotting, I was in a fix whether I shud go to the hospital. Then decided its better to check out. So went to the hospital with my parents and in-laws (my hubby was in B'lore and I was in my native) and was inspected by the junior doc. She asked me to stay back and said it was indeed show and said would induce me the same day. That was a shock for me sice I expected to return home after a checkup and not to get admitted. Anyway I ended up staying back (around 2:30 PM). I was prepared for labour and then was induced using syntocin. I was wondering how long my labour would last etc!! Slowly started getting contractions in short intervals, but bearable ones. I had opted for epidural and the catheter was inserted and the docs were waiting for me to get atleast 3 cms dilated. The pains started getting longer but the pain intensity had not increased. The docs decided it was because of the test epidural they had given. Anyway I was still waiting for more contractions. Baby's heartbeat was being monitored continuosly. The junior doc did internal examinations couple of times to check the baby's head's position. At around 9 PM the doc found that about 2-3 times the baby's heartbeats were dropping. She called up my gyn and was instructed to check out my liqour. She found that the baby's meconium had got mixed with the liquor. She then informed that that was dangerous to the baby and there is no other way than to go for a c-section!! I was shocked but didn't know what to say. The meconium mixed liquour was shown to my parents and they were explanined about the situation. I was then rushed to the operation theatre for c-section. I had never been under anaesthesia, never had any major operation in my life and not even had a single stitch in my body!! But I ended up seeing everything in a single day, all of a sudden!! I had never expected a c-section, but had to undergo one!! That too when I had been suffering from severe cough for the past 1 week!! My doc termed it \";violent cough\";!!
Anyway all the trouble was worth for the little one who was born at 9:25 PM. We are yet to name him!! :-))

-Priya shilpi replied. Congrats to you and ur family on the birth of ur little one !
I am sure you are enjoying every bit of it !

Shilpi B replied. Hi Priya,

first of all congrats to u and ur family , everything went well and good 2hear ur baby is healthy. nice to read ur story, just shows anything can happen, i also never had any operation in my life and a c-section was very scary for me but u just have to trust the drs, i had an epidural, did they put u to sleep? anyways have a grt time with ur lil boy m sure he's very cute.



B archie replied. Dear Priya,
Congratulations on the birth of your Son.
Meconium is not uncommon and I think sometime patient being uneducated with ref to medicine matter things are shown in little different way.

Meconium is first stool of fetus. In many postdate pregnancies one of the major concern is meconium mixing with amniotic fluid, which sometime can lead to complication but not necessarily be fatal. Especially when it happens in hospital during labor. Macrosomic babies or postdate babies have high risk of getting meconium into their system through amniotic fluid, but it isn't something pathogenic just a not pure or good source of water and can lead to pneumonia like symptoms after birth. However over 90% babies born with meconium have no pneumonia.
So, I hope this will explain not only to you but all other readers that meconium is not uncommon and if that's idenfied during labor not a huge concern or not indeed reason to direct patient to operation theatre.

I am also confused on rush extruded in your case. If you bled enough then it was worth putting you under observation than sending you back home as you expected. However there was no need to give epidural before you being effaced for about 4cm. Especially when you had no contraction or contractions you could bear without medicines. One of the major downside of epidural is slow progress. On the other hand one of the reason many time Drs. give while suggesting C-section if \";failure to progress of incredibly slow progress\";. I am not surprised on your slow progress while in pitocin, you were with epidural and it certainly would have some impact.

Fetal heart rate: I think this is one solid reason many emergency C-sections are being performed I went through the same. Fetus abnormal hear rate could be mainly due to inability of fetus to cope up with labor stress and common with high dose pitocin induction. Also it can be due to cord wrapped around neck, not the knot, but will make difficult to breath for baby and results in distress.
If the fetus heart rate was abnormal and going down then the best option was C-section. However, knowing rush of epidural and indeed if the pitocin was needed or had to be advanced by Prostaglandin treatment I am not sure what was the reason behind heart rate abnormality. If the meconium was there from a long time then a chance of abnormal heart rate exist, because baby has already swolloed meconium and has some difficulty due to that.

At the end what matters is healthy baby, which you have. Although you went through all the unexpected transformations in a day. One major transformation should be remembered and that's you became mother, kind of reincarnation and only possible for women. I think this is the most precious transformation or graduation any girl can have, better than a gold medal of University. You changed from girl,wife,women to Mother.
Enjoy motherhood.

Archie