I went in for the ultrasound at 38-1/2 weeks to determine the baby's weight and for my NST (nonstress test). My blood pressure was high (150/97). My OB was afraid I was becoming preeclamptic like I did with my first pregnancy. He said he would check to see if I was dilated. If I was, he would go in and strip my membranes and that would put me into labor either that night or sometime over the weekend. It turns out I was 2 cm and 50% effaced - so he stripped my membranes - OUCH! I went straight home. An hour later I was having contractions 7 minutes apart. When they were 5 minutes apart we went to the hospital. They sent me back home because I still had a smile on my face (and I was still 2 cm and 50% effaced). They told me to go home, take my insulin, eat, and walk. The nurse was certain the contractions were a false alarm and would stop if I walked...but they got soooo much worse.

My husband and I walked up our alley for two hours, stopping every two to three minutes for extremely painful contractions, and finally went back to the hospital. With those contractions I was only 3cm! I was told to walk around the hospital.

They took a blood sugar and it was 50. They put dextrose in my IV. Then I was 4 cm. They gave me Pitocin after a couple of hours and had me go through contractions with it for a couple of hours to make sure that I was in strong labor before giving me the epidural. At 5 am the epidural was in place and I fell right asleep.

The nurse woke me up at 7 am to tell me that the baby must be lying on the cord because she couldn't get the heartbeat on the monitor. When she checked, it turned out the baby's head was on its way out. This was pretty funny because I had been sleeping and didn't feel a thing. The doctor and my mom got there just in time to see me push about three times for the baby to come out (my husband was there).

The doctor was shocked to see a 5-pound baby come out because he thought I was going to have an overly large baby (gestational diabetes). I got to cut the cord myself because my husband was chicken. I nursed the baby for a few minutes before they checked the blood sugar on the baby (that was in my birth plan). The blood sugar was over 70 and that was great. They checked baby's blood sugar periodically for the next 24 hours and it was always good. I tried to nurse baby a lot to keep the blood sugar up.

A couple pediatricians in the hospital had trouble figuring out the baby's actual gestation age, but I know my dates were right because I was trying to get pregnant and was watching my cycles and ovulations closely. Now they are saying the low birth weight was caused by the diabetes because the placenta may not have been providing enough nutrients to the fetus. If that's the case, then it's good we got the baby out, but I have to say I've got a real healthy and thriving baby here. No worries. We never got the result of the ultrasound for fetal weight that I had before labor started - I'm curious what they said. That's it.

Diabetes and
Pregnancy:
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