Birth Story
If you didn't read my pregnancy story, here's a recap of how it ended... I had an intervention-happy doctor pushing an immediate induction on Friday, April 11th, and when I refused she made me schedule an appointment on Monday, April 14th. I did NOT want to see her again, so I desperately wanted to have my baby before my Monday appointment.
Saturday we walked the mall trying to speed things up, and then Saturday night I started having timeable pre-labor contractions - every 10 minutes for at least two hours. I was watching a movie with a friend and was sort of amused that I was hopefully making some progress. Later that night, the contractions stopped and I wanted to encourage things along, so shortly after midnight I worked up the courage to take a shot of castor oil. It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. I just washed it down with some water and a few crackers. I was really hoping it would work because I couldn't stand the thought of going back to that doctor. (I know a lot of people are against castor oil, but my mom did it when she was pregnant with my brother and it worked with no issues, so I wanted to try it.)
Well, I woke up Sunday morning about 4:30 with significant enough contractions that I couldn't get comfortable laying down in bed. So I got up and walked around our house. By 7:30am, I decided I should time the contractions. They were 3 minutes apart and about 1 minute long, but weren't bothering me as long as I was walking or sitting on my birth ball. During the contractions, I did my slow breathing and hypnobirthing visualizations. In between contractions, I was talking to family and friends who were at the house, but still wasn't sure if it was real labor.
By 10:30 I decided I could use some peace and quiet to help relax, so I went upstairs and got in a warm bath. I was really cold so my husband turned on the space heater to try and warm the room up (although he said it was actually already quite warm). The bath felt really good, but I could tell the contractions were strengthening. After about an hour, I decided I was done in the bath, so I got out, put on a robe and laid down in bed with my hypnobirthing CD. But almost immediately I had to get my husband to help me get up and head to the bathroom. I sat down on the toilet, asked for a trash can, and then immediately threw up.
I had been on the phone with my doula on and off throughout the morning about how things were progressing. She suggested that I take a brisk walk with my husband after the bath. Instead, I was slowly shuffling in a circle in our room and stopping very frequently for contractions. At this point, my husband called the doula, updated her on my progress, and we agreed it was probably time for her to come to the house. I continued walking for a while, puked again, went to the bathroom and noticed some bloody show, and then I took a shower to wash my hair and such so that I'd be ready to go to the hospital later.
My doula arrived about 12:30 and almost immediately started giving counter-pressure on my sacrum during contractions. At this point I was sitting on my birth ball with my head leaning on the bed. After a little while, I asked the doula if it was normal that I felt like I had to go to the bathroom with every contraction. She said that was normal, but then asked how long I'd been feeling that way. When I told her "about an hour" she said I should start thinking about going to the hospital soon. I agreed and we made the short drive to our hospital down the street. I was so worried that they were going to tell me I was only like 4cm and then send me home.
We got to the hospital about 1:30. Even though I pre-registered, we had to sit down and answer a bunch of quesitons (many of which were on the pre-registration form) and sign a stack of papers. I was NOT amused. Then we walked over to the triage area. They offered a wheel chair, but I didn't feel like I needed one. In triage, they laid me down on a bed and hooked me up to the monitors and proceeded to ask a bunch more questions, plus some of the same ones I'd already answered. And in fact, there were two nurses asking many of the same questions - some to me and some to my husband, then I had to sign a bunch more papers. I was REALLY not amused about this process. Finally, the midwife came in to check me and her exact words were "Girl, you're 8-9 centimeters! I can't break your waters or you'll have your baby here in triage!" Then she asked if I had a birth plan, which my husband gave her, then she ran out and ordered a delivery room be setup ASAP. I looked at my husband and said, "We did good, baby!" -- I knew that if I got to the hospital that far along, everything else would fall into place. All the nurses were saying things like "You're supposed to tell us when you're this far along!" and "How are you still talking and smiling?" They said in the hypnobirthing class that people wouldn't believe you were so far along, and it was pretty cool that it had actually worked that way. Before I left the triage room, they gave me a heplock, which is something I agreed to so that it would be there if needed for an emergency situation, since I have bad veins.
Around 2:30, they moved us to the delivery room. I sat on the edge of the bed and they asked me if I felt like pushing. I honestly didn't know what I was supposed to be doing at that point though. The midwife suggested that she break my waters, because she didn't think they'd break on their own if they lasted this long already. So she had the nurses prep for that, and then - POP! - my waters broke on their own and shot across the room. It was quite funny to everyone except my husband, who was really glad he was standing behind me and looking elsewhere at the time. Ha, ha. The midwife checked me again and said that I was nearly 10cm with just a little reduceable lip, so she wanted me to try to start pushing. She and the nurse also inspected the amniotic fluid with a flashlight, because she thought it looked clear, but then saw a tiny speck that made her think there might be a bit of meconium. So they had a respiratory therapist in the room during delivery, just in case. I pushed for about 30 minutes, with the second half of that spent mostly yelling in my husband's face. Not *at* my husband, just really close to his face. He said his hearing finally started to come back after a couple of weeks. LOL She started at 0 station, but the midwife said she moved down quickly with each contraction. Toward the end is when I really started feeling like I couldn't do it. The midwife suggested a local anesthetic to help me make it over the hump so I would keep pushing. They suggested I feel her head, and I initially said no, but then I thought it might give me just the motivation to keep going. I think it helped, because she was born shortly after. After her head came out, they told me to stop pushing, so they could suction her and everything, but there was no stopping her - she came right out all at once pretty much. Because of the meconium possibility, they put her on my chest for a minute, then had to take her away to check her out. They eventually decided there was no meconium, but didn't want to take any chances.
They hooked up an IV of pitocin after she was born, which I questioned when I noticed it, but didn't feel like arguing at that point. My baby was here and everything went how I wanted, so I figured it wasn't worth making a big deal over. I delivered the placenta and they said it looked healthy. (That was satisfying since everyone at my doctor's office had been giving me such a hard time about being post dates.) Then they started stiching me up. This was excrutiating. I asked if the local was supposed to still be working and she said not really. The midwife said she couldn't really do anything for the pain other than narcotics which would just make me tired, because a local wouldn't work with all the bleeding. I didn't understand this but didn't know what else to say. So I had a bunch of stiches for 2nd degree tears with NO pain meds. This was WAY worse than the labor itself, especially because I had to stay perfectly still. I think I just about crushed my doula's hand I was squeezing it so hard. Eventually, they finished that torture and gave me my baby back. The midwife and nurses had been saying since the moment she was born how "huge" she was, so I was really amused when they finally weighed her and said she was 8 pounds 11 ounces. That's when I told them I was 10 pounds 6 ounces at birth, and I thought 8 pounds sounded just perfect. The midwife said she was glad I didn't tell her that before, or she would have been really scared. (Other midwives in the practice had been estimating I'd have a 9-10 pound baby for several weeks.)
Overall, the whole experience was pretty amazing. I had an easy pregnancy, other than the doctors being concerned about my "huge" baby the whole time. And everyone other than my mom and husband thought I was NUTS for wanting to have a natural childbirth. So I kept saying I would consider everything a success if I managed to have a normal sized baby and no pain medicine, proving everyone wrong. After all was said and done, I feel like we accomplished both of those things, which was a great sense of satisfaction. My husband says I'm pretty "smug" and I'm okay with that. It was definitely amazing, and I was so glad we pulled it off.
Andrea Paige ____
Born Sunday, April 13th at 3:43pm
8 lbs. 11 oz.
20 1/4 in. long
Also, I wasn't sure whether or not to include this, but it was a big part of the day so I thought I should. Sometime before 7am while I was pacing around in labor, we found out that my little sister had been killed by a hit-and-run driver when she was crossing the street overnight. So we had my brother and some friends at the house that otherwise wouldn't have been there during my labor. I had to put that out of my mind somewhat so that I could focus on my labor, but it of course affected us all. I wish she would have been able to meet her niece. She had been so excited about becoming an aunt.