Our birth story

Dec 15, 2008 13:34

December 11, 2008 - After 12 hours worth of gas pain type contractions every 10 - 20 minutes that stopped at dinner time, I read through my hypnobirthing book about “overdue” pregnancies. The only real reason I could figure out for going past my “due date” was my fear of the hospital and my fear of induction, so I decided I’d call my hypnobirthing instructor the next day to do a fear release hypnosis. When I went to bed, I did a lot of visualization and affirmations of a smooth, easy hospital delivery.

December 12, 2008 - 1:45 am - I have a dream that Vinny and I go to a fortune teller to find out when Leo’s birthday will be. We are sitting in a kind of teepee outside with her and she says, “Well, your water will break in 3… 2….” And I wake up.

My water breaks. I wake Vinny up and tell him my water has broken. This is the one labor scenario I hadn’t really planned for, since it’s not too often a woman’s water breaks, so I have Vin look it up in What to Expect whether we should go to the hospital ASAP or wait for close contractions. While he’s looking it up, I hop into the shower. He calls into the bathroom “It says we have about 12 to 24 hours for contractions to start” and I get my first contraction. He runs a bath for me to relax in in early labor, and starts www.contractionmaster.com to time my contractions. I relax in the tub and practice my “balloon breathing” through contractions in the tub. Every contraction I got more of my water would break. I stayed in the bath for about 10 or 15 minutes before he says, “you know, your contractions are 4 minutes apart, we should really go to the hospital.” I ate some scrambled eggs and put together the last of my toiletries for the hospital while breathing through my contractions. We left the house around 2:45. The ride to the hospital was very bumpy, but I did my best to relax and breathe through my contractions, which were now 3 minutes apart and stronger. We checked into the hospital by 3:00 and stayed in Triage for an hour! With every contraction my waters would release more and I started getting frantic about getting a real delivery suite. The midwife who checked me in asked me a million questions and kept saying things about the pain, like “you think these are bad, wait til they REALLY pick up.” She made me lay down on a monitor for a good 30 minutes when all I wanted to do was walk around and do my breathing. The whole setup - bright lights, being strapped down, all the talk of “pain” really made me panicky and made my hypnobirthing training really difficult.

4:00 - We finally got our delivery suite. My doula, Sonja, arrived almost immediately, and it was SO great to have her there to help me relax and re-focus. They had to have me lay down and strap me to a monitor again, which kinda sucked since walking and standing made the contractions much easier to deal with. I was at a 3 by now with contractions every 2 minutes. My arms and legs were shaking uncontrollably and I couldn’t stop shivering.

I got into the Whirlpool tub for about an hour. Contractions were much stronger and about a minute and a half apart, but Vinny and Sonja were amazing about pouring warm water on my belly and helping me with my breathing. Sonja tried to help me do a visualization, but my contractions were just too close together to do anything other than work on breathing through them and relaxing between them.

5:00 - I felt the urge to push in the tub, so they had me get out so they could monitor me again. I was at a 5. Laying on my side made the contractions worse, so I started seriously considering an epidural. Between contractions I kept asking if I could walk around, but I couldn’t. They wanted me on the monitor. Contractions were still about a minute and a half apart, but I started getting a pattern of one strong one (literally off the charts on the monitor) and then one weaker one, so I felt like I had no time to rest.

5:45 - I was at a 6, and the thought of this contraction pattern for another 4 cm made me decide to get an epidural so I could get some rest. It was really reassuring to know that my doula was on board with the idea. I had been able to hold out until 6.5, and this was good enough that the epi wouldn't slow down labor. Anesthesiologist got me in a bad spot the first time. Having to hold still through my contractions made me almost decide not to get the epidural, but my doula held me and talked me through it, having me visualize Leo’s arrival and reminding me that my body was doing exactly what it should and how perfectly in harmony my baby and I were. Epi kicked in almost immediately and when my legs and tummy felt numb I had a little remorse about getting it, but I could see my contractions were off the charts and still coming in that strong/weak/strong/weak pattern and coming every minute and a half, so it’s nice to know I was able to get some rest before pushing. We put on some relaxing music and kinda just chilled out for a while.

8:30 - I was at a 9. Leo was still facing kinda sideways, so the nurse had me labor down for a little bit while Sonja did an amazing job having me relax and visualize Leo turning face down. The epi wore off enough that I could move my legs and feel my tummy again, so I felt much better about my decision to get it.

9:00 - Started pushing. In hypnobirthing you’re trained to “breathe the baby down” and NOT push, but because of the epi I had to push. The nurse, Laura, had to teach me, and my first few pushes weren’t all that great. But I got the hang of it. She had me work with the strong contractions, so when one came I’d push with it. During the smaller contractions Laura had me rest, so I could work with Sonja on relaxing and visualizing. I could feel my contractions through the epi, but they weren’t overpowering. I could also feel the urge to push and feel Leo moving, so it was the best of both worlds. I had my mom, Sonja, Vinny and Laura coaching me through my pushes, and they were an AMAZING team. I actually loved the pushing part. It was really challenging, like a workout with a trainer, and being able to feel Leo and have everyone report our progess kept me working really hard.

10:39 - Leo finally graces us with his presence, 9 days late, but worth every minute of waiting! He weighed in at 7 pounds 15 ounces 19.75 inches with a full head of soft black hair. His Apgar scores were 9/9. There were lots of happy tears and it was by far the most amazing, surreal moment of my life. He came out very alert and was a professional breastfeeder from the get-go, and I nursed him for 40 minutes right away.

labor and delivery

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