Once at the hospital I was checked to see how dilated I was, only to find out that I was only 1 centimetre dilated and my contractions were 2 to 3 minutes apart.  This went on for 7 hours, and I was checked again, to still only be 1 centimetre dilated.  At this time the pain was so intense that I asked for the epidural.

My contractions were 1 minute apart when they tried to insert the epidural which caused them to try three times before they got it right.  Once the epidural was in they decided to induce me further with pitocin to see if I would dilate any further.  After four hours, they checked me again and I was only 2 centimetres dilated.  Shortly after I was checked, the baby had passed meconium and they felt that the baby was distressed as the baby’s heart rate increased as well as my blood pressure.

They then decided to do a c-section.  We waited two hours for an anaesthesiologist to become available before I was taken into the operating room for my c-section.

 

Once in the recovery room it took me several hours to come to.  I suffered severe neck pains, but was told it was because of my positioning while on the epidural.  I was discharged in less than 48 hours, with the neck pain.  The next day my neck pain was so severe that I could not move it!  So I went back to the hospital through the emergency to only be given Tylenol 3 and be sent home again.

Two days later, I woke up in the middle of the night with blurred and double vision.  So I went back to the hospital again through emergency, and the doctors finally figured out what was wrong with me.  When I had the epidural done, they had punctured my spine causing a spinal fluid leak (a condition that occurs 1 in 400 women), which was causing my neck pain, blurred, double vision and headaches.

The anaesthesiologist was called to perform an epidural blood patch, which is a procedure where they draw your own blood and inject it into your spine.  Once the procedure was done, I experienced relief almost instantly from all my symptoms.  I was then discharged and sent home to recover once again.

On Monday June 29th at about 3:30pm I had a reddish discharge. I had called the hospital and they said for me to go in and get assessed.  When I went in for the assessment, they had said that I lost my mucus plug and sent me home.

At 1:45am my water broke in several trickles as it did not gush. My contractions began and after 10 minutes they were 3 to 4 minutes apart.   We called the hospital to make them aware of my situation and they said for us to go in as soon as possible as it sounded like I was going into labour.  We already had the car packed so it did not take long before we were on our way to the hospital.

Once in the operating room, the c-section went well, and Elena was successfully born. 

6 lbs 15 oz, 19 5/8 in long @ 6:40 PM.

They were about to close me up, when the surgeon discovered a large cyst the size of a lime wrapped around my left fallopian tube.

They drained and then removed the cyst.  Unfortunately half way through this procedure my epidural wore off and I felt a whole lot of pain.  They had to give me more medication to ease my pain.

After over an hour in the operating room, everything was finally done and I was returned to the recovery room.

This has been my labour story. 

It was a rough experience but every bit worth it for my little girl. 

It is amazing how God works, if Elena was born vaginally, the cyst would have never been found. 

So God used my little girl to help discover a condition that no one knew existed.