The Details



The Long Version

Lucinda was born at 02:07 on the morning of March 3. We had gone to the hospital at 06:00 on March 2 with an appointment for the doctor to induce labor. They began the pitocin drip at about 07:00. Strong contractions were happening by 10:00, but the monitors began to pick up signs of fetal distress, so the pitocin drip rate was reduced to weaken the contractions. This cut down on the fetal stress, but also slowed the rate of progress. It was hypothesized that the stress was caused by the umbilical cord being pinched and compressed during contractions. To address this, at about 16:00 the doctor inserted a catheter in the cervix to run a bit of saline solution in hopes of floating the cord free. This seemed to help, and the pitocin drip was once more increased. Strong contractions continued until 01:00 on the 3rd, when the doctor did another examination and found that dilation had been stalled at 7cm for several hours. At this time, Cathy had been in labor for about 18 hours, and she was taken to the operating room for a Caesarian.
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