Sydnie's Birth Story

This was my first delivery and my husband had been sent to Saudi Arabia when I was 7 months pregnant. Three weeks before I actually went into labor I was dilated to 2 centimeters and having mild contractions.

Finally on Dec. 3 at 9 a.m., I started having hard contractions. By noon, they were between 5 and 10 minutes apart and I couldn't talk or walk through them. My mother and I went to the hospital and I was informed that I was still was only at 2. I walked around the L&D floor for hours. I heard other women having their babies, but I wasn't making much progress. All through the night my mother and I were in the jacuzzi and breathing.

By 4 a.m. I couldn't take it anymore. I wasn't able to sleep at all, my contractions were coming every 2 minutes and I still hadn't made much progress. I finally elected to have the epidural. RELIEF, at last. I was able to sleep and it felt great. At 7 a.m. the doctor came in and checked me, planning to break my water. He started the exam and my water broke on its own. At that point, I was 5-6 centimeters. At 1 p.m. I started pushing. Everyone said I was pushing effectively. I continued pushing for two hours and we could see the baby's head.

The doctor then advised me that I could continue pushing, but that I would probably get nowhere. He advised that I should either have a C-section or he would use forceps and I would have my baby in two pushes. From that comment, I decided to go with the forceps. He started to use them and the baby's heart rate dropped to 60.

Then two large nurses applied pressure to my abdomen and he went into get the baby. At that point when he went to turn the baby, her humerus bone broke. He said she had Shoulder Dystocia. She then came out and wasn't breathing on her own.

They bagged her and within a minute she was breathing on her own. The nurses said I would've had no problem if she were 6 pounds instead of 9 pounds, 3/4 ounce, and 21 1/2 inches long, seeing as how I am 5 feet, 1 inch and started out 105 pounds.

Sydnie Anastacia was born Dec. 4 at 3:25 p.m. This was the most scary incident of my life. It didn't end there. We saw several doctors for the next two months. Everything is fine now. We just have to redo a lot of the tests at five months. To the doctors and me, she seems to be a normal 3-month-old baby. If I had to do it all over again, I would definitely choose the C-section. I hope my story helps someone decide to take a different route than I did.