Our Birth Story: Part 2 of 2

The epidural itself was a whole drawn out process... including catheterization.  Yuck!  More of that another day.  By 10 pm, I couldn't feel anything below my belly button. 


At 12:30, I'd passed the 18 hour mark.  My contractions still weren't showing up on the monitor, so they decided that they would check my cervix and then insert an internal monitor.  They would also need to start doing blood work on Bug.

Surprise!  9 1/2 centimeters, just like that. 

Bug was at a +2 station and they estimated it would only be another hour or so until the pushing began.  I momentarily started to regret the epidural, knowing I could have pushed through that much longer, but the lack of pain was wonderful and I decided that would be the last time I felt guilty about it.  They held off on the blood work and monitoring device and told me to rest... pushing could take over 3 hours.   


At 1:30 a nurse checked me and saw that I was fully dilated.  She frantically ran around the room and set up for delivery.  She called the doctor and let her know I was getting ready to start pushing.  DH went and told my family that the pushing was about to start and that he'd tell them when the baby arrived.

By 2 am, the nurse had finished setting up and told me that we were going to do a practice push.  She showed me how to hold my very numb legs and push down... and there she was.  The nurse explained that as I was pushing, she'd seen a small part of the head pushing through.  There was no more time for practicing.  She told me to relax and not to push until the doctor arrived.   



At 2:15 am the doctor had arrived and set up shop.  I could still feel the pressure of the contractions, without the pain, but they still weren't able to see them.  The nurse kept her hand on my abdomen to feel for tightening, and I told them when I felt pressure and then I'd push while they counted.  We'd do 3-10 counts of pushing and then rest.


During the first set of pushes, the doctor cried "I see hair, and lots of it!  Dark hair!"  After the first set she told us that the head had pushed its way back in, but the hair was still out.  They offered a mirror, but I declined.


After the next set, they explained that there was a quarter sized piece of head out.  A few more sets and I'd be done.


After 16 minutes of pushing, at 2:32 am, the doctor told me to give one big push.  Seconds later, there was a pop and an explosion of blood and gross, and then there was Bug. 


She did have a beautiful, full head of hair.  She was blue, but screaming, and quickly growing pink.  She had the most gorgeous long legs and perfect skin.  DH squealed like a little girl.  "Look at her!  Look at her!"  I sobbed uncontrollably as they placed her onto my stomach.  They offered to let me cut the cord, as I'd requested, but it was short and I didn't want to let go of Bug for one second so that I could do it.  They cut the cord and brought her up to my chest and I cuddled her wet screaming body and cried. 

They let me hold her for a few minutes before they evaluated her.  She scored a 9 on the Apgar scale.  She weighed 8 pounds , 11 ounces and was a long 21 and 3/4 inches.  And she had huge feet.   

She is very obviously DH's child.  She has his dark hair, his almond shaped eye and his slightly upturned nose.  She has my brow-line, which is very noticeable when she is upset.  But these feet?!?! 


DH says she got these from his brother.  Apparently, when they were kids Bug's uncle used to pinch DH with his long monkey toes.  She has already pinched me a few times. 


And, where did I get such a long and lean little girl?!?!  I am 5'4 and all torso.  Seeing these elegant long legs on my daughter is so strange. 


I can't stop staring at her.  I don't know if I have ever seen anything so beautiful before, and every time I look at her, I find something else to love. 


So far, I like this mommy thing.

Our Birth Story: Part 1 of 2

Whew.... this mommy thing definitely takes more time than I thought it would.  Somehow I pictured that at some point during the day I'd be able to put Bug down.  Nope.  She LOVES to be held and will thankfully allow herself to be put in a co-sleeper from about 10-7 at night, but during the day, hell no.  That's mommy time.  So, its been almost 2 weeks and I haven't even written the birth story.  There is so much to tell about the last two weeks.  It has been a rollercoaster.  I'm going to try to go back and write what happened in some kind of linear way, but who knows how it will turn out.

On Sunday, January 23rd I was still having irregular contractions, but after all of the false labor I had experienced before, I wasn't at all convinced that it could possibly be time for the baby to fall out. 

My contractions were about 10 minutes apart, as they had been, on and off, for about a week, but they were a little more uncomfortable.  I had the most terrible night sleep that night, waking myself up every 10-20 minutes with my groans of discomfort. 

This continued until I woke up, groaning at 4:30 am.  Then I felt a weird little pop and instinctively knew my water had broken.  I somehow managed to keep my legs together and my hips parallel to the bed as I scooted off so that I wouldn't ruin the mattress.  Not sure why this was the biggest concern I had at the moment.  I pushed myself off the side of the bed and wooooooooosh.  As soon as I was vertical, the literal wave of amniotic fluid gushed out of me.  For those of you who are more queasy, skip my next post as I will be going into detail about many of the interesting things that happen in labor.

I tried to get myself dried up and prepared for the trip to the hospital.  Again, I'm not sure when I turned into such a clean freak, but I was very concerned about getting my new car all wet and icky so I put on a pad, some temporarily dry pants, grabbed the ugliest towel we had and a garbage bag and made myself a little seat cushion for the trip to the hospital.  DH showered and got Daisy and the cats set to spend some time alone.

We were told we should eat on the way to the hospital because we wouldn't be given much in the way of sustenance once we arrived, but the only thing opened was a McDonald's.  I had two Egg McMuffins with no egg. 

When we arrived at the hospital at 6:30 am, we were immediately admitted because my water had broken.  I was hooked up to a contraction and fetal heart rate monitor, and given an IV shortly thereafter because Bug's heart rate was a little on the high side. 

At our birth center we were given the option of delivering with a certified nurse midwife (CNM) or an obstetrician.  Because I'd planned to deliver naturally and my pregnancy was considered low risk, I'd decided to choose the CNM.  She shortly came to discuss our birth plan and options with us.

Holly, the midwife, explain that because my water had broken, there was a heightened risk of infection.  They'd done one exam and determined that I was between 3 and 4 centimeters dilated but would limit the number of times that they would check me for the remainder of the birth to limit the chances of infection.  Holly explain that 18 hours after my water broke, they would have to start drawing blood from Bug to start testing for signs of infection.  If everything went according to plan, I'd deliver before that 18 hours was up.

My contractions were between 3 and 4 minutes apart and I wasn't too uncomfortable, so I was allowed to unhook all of the machines as long as I returned every hour for them to do a 10 minute check of Bug's heart rate.  I knew that I was still in pre-labor so DH and I decided to walk laps around the floor to try to get the real laboring processes.  Though we'd tried our best to convince my family that it would be a long time before the baby arrived, they all arrived at about 10:30 am.  DH and I were planning on doing it alone, but since I wasn't really laboring, we visited and had lunch with the fam.

At around 12:30 pm Holly returned, and monitored my contractions again for several minutes.  My contractions were now about 3 minutes apart and 45 seconds long, but not really very painful.  She suggested that we wait until 2:30 to see how I was progressing, and then decide whether or not to start giving me pitocin to speed up my labor.

I'd decided I want to have this baby naturally, and knew that my chances of being able to manage my pain on my own were significantly reduced if I did start using pitocin.  However, we were worried about infection, and didn't want my visions of a perfect birth to potentially put Bug at risk.

At 2:30, Holly returned again and started discussing the use of pitocin.  She offered to check me, but told me that it was likely that I wouldn't have dilated much based on my behavior and the level of pain I was in.  I agreed and we opted out of a cervical exam.  After a great deal of debate between DH, Holly and myself, we decided to start a pitocin IV at 3:00 pm.

Once you started the pitocin, I needed to stay on the fetal heart rate monitor at all times.  Though I was allowed out of bed, I could no longer use some of the pain management techniques that we had planned on (ie. walking and laboring in the shower).  This proved to be extremely difficult.

They continued to monitor my contractions, and would continue to up the pitocin until my contractions were no more than 2 minutes apart with no breaks in between contractions.  They would be between 1 and two minutes apart for 10-15 minutes and then there would be a break in the contraction pattern.

Holy shit... let me just tell you that pitocin crap is terrible.  Every 45 minutes or so, they would up the amount of pitocin, and each time that they upped the dosage I would have 3-5 minutes of excruciating pain until my body adapted.  The pain wouldn't have been so bad, except I knew it was coming.  It's like telling someone you are going to punch you in the nuts then making you watch you prepare to do so.  Every time the nurse came in, I prepared for a 3-5 minute nut punch.

I started noticing that some of my contractions were showing up on the monitor, and when they were, they were extremely small.  Because they couldn't see the contractions, the continued to up the pitocin.   The thought it may have been difficult to see the contractions because I was laboring in a rocking chair and discussed putting in an internal contraction monitoring device.

At about 7:30, I felt like I had to go #2, and it was terrible.  It felt like this particular bowel movement was filled with razor blades.  At the same time, the round ligament pain and sciatica that I'd experienced throughout my pregnancy became excrutiating.  My pain level was at a 10 during each contraction and about a 5 between them.  There was absolutely no relief.  I hadn't slept well in days, and hadn't slept in more than 20 minute increments in the last 48 hours.  I couldn't focus on any questions that were being asked and my responses were almost inaudible.

DH asked if I thought I might want to do an epidural.  I nodded and managed to squeak that I wanted to be checked first.  I hadn't been checked for 13 hours, and if I was close to the end I'd continue doing what I was doing.  Otherwise, I knew if there were hours and hours more of this I wouldn't be able to do it.

DH informed the nurse of our plan.  She explained that it was shift change, but that after rounds, someone would be in to check us.  It was now about 7:45 and the nurse promised she'd have someone in by 8:15.  Also, my regular OB/GYN just happened to be at the hospital that night and the nurse offered to request her to come and see me.

At 8:30 no one had arrived, but the nurse returned to up the pitocin.  I was having trouble managing the pain I was already in and I couldn't imagine that 3-5 nut punch.  I'd much rather do it after the epidural if that's where we were heading.  All I could say was "please don't".  She explained why that was a bad idea, and I didn't care.  I shook my head and DH refused to let her up the pitocin.  It was at that point that he started to lose it a little.

"You told us the doctor would be here at 8:15.  Its 8:30.  Where is the doctor?"

The nurse explained that after a relatively quiet day, there had been 2 emergency c-sections right around shift change, which was slowing everything down.  But she promised that the doctor would arrive in no more than 10 minutes.

At 8:45, an hour after we'd requested to see the doctor, DH was furious.  He ran out to the nurses station and I could hear him yelling from my room. They promised 10 more minutes.

At 9:30 my doctor finally arrived and DH unleashed his fury.  He screamed at her that it had been nearly two hours since we'd requested to see her and he demanded to know where the hell she'd been.  My doctor, who had by the look of her had one hell of a night already herself, apologized and promised that she'd take care of me as quickly as possible.  She and DH helped me into bed and she checked my cervix.

5 and a half centimeters.

It was almost 16 hours after my water had broken, and I'd only dilated to 5 and a half centimeters.

I cried and asked for an epidural.

And that is where I'll leave you, until tomorrow because this is where the story gets good.

I'm a Mommy!

Tiesday morning at 2:30 am I gave birth to a stunning baby girl. She weighed 8 pounds, 11 ounces and is 21 & 3/4 inches long. She scored a 9 & 9 on the Apgar scale. She has a full fuzzy head of dark hair and huge feet. She's too tall already for her newborn jammies. I'll be writing the birth story soon.

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Update: 40+ Week Check Up and I'm Still Pregnant

So, I feel like an idiot.  Twice I have been very sure that I was experiencing the symptoms of early labor, and twice I have been wrong.  Before this experience, I couldn't understand why women were sent home from the hospital thinking they were in labor.  Now, I totally get it.

I am still cramping like crazy.  In fact, that, combined with my still snoring husband and the two hour nap I had this evening, is why I am still awake.

I am starting to question whether or not I will know when I actually am in labor.  I haven't really been in pain, just mostly a high level of discomfort when I'm feeling these things I guess I imagined were contractions.

So, the good news is that the baby has dropped considerably since my last appointment.  I am at a -1 station and almost fully effaced.  Also, Bug's heart rate is around 145 bpm and her movement is good.  But I am still only dilated to 1/2 a centimeter. 

Time to develop a gameplan.

Doc says that if I hit 42 weeks we'll induce.  For now, she set me up with an appointment on Monday during which I'll have antepartum testing done.  As long as Bug scores well, she can hang out until the end of the week, but they will strip my membranes.  She sounds confident that there is a good chance that I'll have the baby before Monday without any intervention, but I'm not so sure.

So ladies, help me out.  How did you know that you were in labor?  What was the big difference between this cramping crap and actual contractions?

When the Baby Falls Out

We started talking about when the baby falls out when I first got pregnant, though the conversation has evolved dramatically since it began.  It started with my 8 week appointment when I nervously awaited the results of the pregnancy test that the nurse had administered.  I don't even remember how many pregnancy test I'd taken, but despite the consistent results, I'd convinced myself that somehow, since the last time I peed on a stick, the baby had fallen out.  There had been no visual evidence of this happening, but I still was pretty sure it did.

Crazy only gets worse when you are pregnant.

After the appointment every bit of moisture I felt down there was the baby, once again, falling out.  Though most of the time I felt pretty sure about this pregnancy, I still worried a lot about miscarriage.  I think I felt like things had just gone too easily for us.  Tragedy could strike at any minute. 

It didn't.  Everything has been going great.  No scares or mishaps.  Being pregnant is definitely not fun, but it really hasn't been that terrible either.  We have been incredibly lucky.

And now we are rapidly approaching the time when the baby is supposed to fall out.  It's a difficult mental transition to make; going from continuously and neurotically willing the baby to stay in to anxiously awaiting the day she arrives.  When I get a weird twinge or pain my first reaction is panic, but it's getting to be that time. 

I refuse to call it "going into labor".  I make DH and everyone around me call it "when the baby falls out" because I'm hoping it will be a self fulfilling prophecy.  Maybe if I just believe she will slide down the birth canal like a she is being shot out of a water slide, it will just happen. 

We really haven't been doing the prep work I planned to do either.  I was obsessively reading books on childbirth for awhile and I was pushing DH to be my birth coach a la the Bradley Method. Making him be "coach hubby" hasn't worked so well because my mood swings have rendered him terrified of me.  And I myself have put more work into meal planning this week than I have into getting ready for this thing to happen.

Maybe now is when I should be freaking out.

But I'm not.  

11 more days (+ or -).

Book Review: Baby Catcher

Baby Catcher: Chronicles of a Modern Midwife By Peggy Vincent

My baby sister has been reading almost as many baby books as I have since she found out about my pregnancy. Like me, she's an amazon junkie and takes reader reviews seriously. So when she saw Peggy Vincent's Baby Catcher and its rave reviews, she couldn't pass it up. Agreeing completely with the reviewers, passed it my direction, but not before making a few notes in the table of contents.

A few reviewers warned that this book is not for pregnant women. Bad things can happen during childbirth, and Vincent does include two such stories in her book. Worried that it might freak me out, sis inked a little sad face on any chapter that included anything sad. She also rated each chapter so that I'd make sure to read the best chapters if I ran short on time.  (Did I mention my sisters have been freaking awesome?)

I read the book, in its entirety, even the sad parts, because, despite being an exhausted mushy-minded pregnant zombie lady, I couldn't put it down. Vincent does an exceptional job of illustrating that, although there really is no such thing as a normal birth, childbirth is a natural process that woman are more than capable of accomplishing without medical intervention. Many of these stories are highly motivational and provided me with more confidence that I am will somehow to be able to make it through labor and delivery. And, frankly, I fear for the women who said this book is too scary for pregnant women. I think most women are aware that complications can happen and won't completely shatter because they read about it.

For the non-expectant, this book was an exceptional account of the midwifery and the world of home birth. I also provided an insider's look at how medical practices have evolved.

Despite my overall satisfaction with the book I do have one minor complaint. Vincent's depiction of hospitals is almost entirely negative. In the first chapter of the book she tells stories of women being strapped down and heavily medicated to the point where their birth experience can be described as nothing short of torture. She ends the book, and her career, practicing once again in a hospital and leads readers to believe that, though women are no longer being tied down, they are still being severely mistreated in this setting. I was surprised and a little put off by the tone in which she ended the book.

Overall, I would give this book a 4 out of 5 and would highly recommend it for anyone interested in reading inspirational birth stories.

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