A Birth Story!
This took me 2 weeks to finally write, but I must warn you- it is 8 pages long!
To cut it short, this is a natural hospital birth, majority of laboring done at home, with a total of 15 hours and 1 and a half of pushing.
2/24/10
I had been told by the OB I was finally able to stick with, as we had made our final move, that my EDD had gone from March 4 to February 19. I was okay with this, until she started talking about inducing me if I made it to 41 weeks. I told her there was no way she was going to do this, especially since my due date had originally been set at March 14, almost a month further. She said she’d wait ‘til 42 weeks and no more, I told her she’d be waiting as long as my baby wanted her to. Luckily, it never happened!
The 19th came and went, and I really didn’t mind. I loved being pregnant! It was the best time of my life, up until my girl was here. On the 24th, I had had my weekly appointment. My husband was off that day, and I had set my alarm so we could wake up for it. When my alarm went off, I checked my phone and had gotten a voicemail for the doctor’s office saying that my doctor had been delivering a baby the previous night and wouldn’t be in ‘til the afternoon. We decided to sleep in ‘til about 11, and thank God we did that!
I called at 2, as soon as they were back from lunch, and asked if I could make an appointment for the next day. They said they couldn’t, and asked if I could be there in 15 minutes. I was already in the car on the way to the store, so I went ahead and stopped by.
My OB checked my cervix, said I was no longer at 1cm as I had been for the past few weeks but now “between 1 and 2”, yet still firm and high. She told me this, continued to fool around down in there, and it was so uncomfortable! I don’t know what stripping membranes consists of, but I later began to wonder if that is what she had done as I hadn’t been able to feel any of my cervical checks up to this one. If that’s the case, my 6 week appointment is going to consist of us having a little talk.
I left the office with orders for my second NST and an appointment for the following week. I went to the grocery store, did my shopping, came home to put everything away and then left for the dog park with my beagle. While there, a random woman commented that my baby looked like it had “dropped”. I’d been hearing this for weeks, but never felt it. She had been low the entire pregnancy, and didn’t seem any lower to me.
I got home around 5:30, and started bugging my husband to cook dinner so that I could get all of the dishes and kitchen cleaning out of the way at one time. Finally, at 6:25, he got up to cook. As he walked passed me, I stood up to follow him and, lo and behold, I started “peeing” on myself. I looked down and said “What the heck is that?” and quickly realized exactly what it was. I looked at my husband, who was standing there just staring at the mess dripping down my favorite pair of maternity jeans, and said “My waters just broke! We’re going to have a baby! Holy crap, I’m going to have a freaking baby!!!” I all of a sudden felt kind of panicky, and it was pretty much the only time during the labor that I did. I put my hands on either side of my head and my eyes felt huge and I was freaking out. My waters continued to break (and did so for 3+ hours), so he told me to sit on the toilet. I peed while on the toilet and, when I wiped, I noticed my bloody show. I asked him to bring me a big glass of water so the fluids could be replenished and I wouldn’t dehydrate. He did, and we began calling my parents (they live in Florida and we were just stationed to California, so they needed a heads up to buy flight tickets). I told him I needed to listen to my Hypnobabies Birth Day Affirmations. He put them on and I don’t recall hearing a single one of the affirmations.
I cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the living room, and folded laundry. My husband installed the car seat and packed his bag. I called my friend’s husband to let them know (she was 2 weeks “less pregnant” than I and we’d kind of been doing this whole pregnancy thing together since we’d met) and he said that they were going to come over. I brought my dog for a walk and they showed up. They asked about contractions, and I hadn’t realized I was having any. I’d had pre-term contractions before and was expecting to feel the wrap-around “hug” sensation that those had caused me. Instead, I was having a feeling like my hips were clenching. I figured the actual surges hadn’t started yet so I didn’t bother timing them.
After my friends had left, I just relaxed and fooled around on the computer. I tried timing contractions but they were too faint for me to notice them. My husband was playing COD on silent so I could hear my affirmations, but I still didn’t notice them playing.
I decided I should see if maybe the clenching feeling would go away altogether and somehow prove to me that it wasn’t the real thing (yes, I know my waters had broken, but it didn’t feel real enough!) so I went upstairs to take a shower. That really got the waves coming on! As soon as the hot water hit me, they were intensified. It was awesome! I let the water run on my lower back and they got harder, I was so excited! I went downstairs and we pulled out the sofa bed, turned on Business of Being Born and watched a bit of that (we had ordered it on Netflix on demand but never watched it). We turned on some other TV show and I had to get off the bed to do some weird routines on my birthing ball to ease the pressure coming from the contractions. This worked for a while, until I decided I needed to sleep. I laid down but wasn’t able to sleep. Around 1, I got a text from my mom asking me to call her. I did, and she timed contractions for me. They were 3-4 minutes apart. I was beginning to feel super nauseous and like my heart rate was going crazy, so I got online and read that I was in active labor-transition. I decided it was time to go in to L&D and get checked.
I woke up my husband and said “Hey, can you bring me to the hospital?” and he said “For what?” (he is a very hard sleeper, lol). I said “So I can have a baby?” and he asked “Why?” Lol, I love him. I said “Do you want me to drive myself?!” and he woke up right away and went “OOHHHHHH!” I went upstairs and packed a bag of clothes, I had had the toiletries and such packed for weeks. I checked the babies bag and then we were off. I called the hospital, asked to have my call transferred to L&D and the operator said “Oh, awesome!” lol, I guess everyone calling at 2 in the morning is in labor. The L&D nurse told me that they’d be ready for me and to call my doctor. I left a message with the answering service and when my doctor called she kind of just shrugged off that I knew my contraction timing and such (I’m a first timer, I can’t know when I’m in labor right?).
When I got into L&D, I thought it was ridiculous that they had me filling out so much dang paperwork. I had pre-registered months before, I really didn’t want to do this! But I did. I finally got sent into Triage. The nurse came in and hooked me up to the timing monitor. She said she’d be back in 20 minutes. 30 went by and I was MISERABLE being in a bed, seriously- that is NOT where I wanted to be! Turns out, none of the nurses thought I was going through the real thing because I was so calm and making jokes and such.
Finally, my husband went out to the nurses and asked them if I could have water. They were all sitting around just talking, and our nurse said she’d bring it in. She did, and asked if I had a sample of my waters that had broken. I said no, so she said she needed to do a swab and send it to the lab to be certain that that was what it was. I really looked like an idiot, I guess!
She stuck the q-tip in and HOLY CRAP IT HURT. So badly! This is what first got me thinking that my OB had done something in there that she wasn't supposed to have. I demanded the nurse to stop because it was unbearable. She said “If it hurts that bad, how am I going to get my fingers in there to check your cervix?” She tried the swab again and I was able to take it long enough for her to get what she needed. She then proceeded to check my cervix, and went “Oh.. Oh!” She looked extremely shocked, and turned to my husband and me and said “You’re 6.5cm!” I asked her how far apart my contractions were, and she went to the monitor and said “2-3 minutes, you’re in active labor!” I felt like saying NO DUH, but instead I just smiled and made another joke. I was way too happy to be a jerk :).
She went out to the other nurses and spread the news, then proceeded to call my OB. I got up to pee, and when I got back she and my husband were standing there holding all of our bags because we were finally being admitted. My doctor didn’t want to be called ‘til I was 8.5-9cm, so we wouldn’t be seeing her for a while.
We got into the labor & delivery room, and the nurses there checked me. They were shocked as well. I almost felt like a freak for not being in pain! I told them I was GBS+ and wanted the penicillin done quickly and ASAP, so they hooked me up to the IV and put me on monitors. I told them there was no way I was laboring in bed, and my husband had already requested a birthing ball by the time they were done with all of their wiring so I got on that. When the ball stopped easing contractions and the first drip session was done, they decided to put me on wireless monitors. I walked around the room a lot, and at one point got in the shower but they made my contractions even more powerful so I just sprayed my thighs with the water because they were taking a lot of the pressure. This felt good, but then I got really shivery so I got out.
I was walking around in nothing but a bra for the entire labor, I don’t know how I got so naked but I did! I turned to my nurse at one point, who I realized wouldn’t look at me when I spoke, and said “I’m sorry for being naked, I didn’t even notice!” She and my husband laughed at this.
She dimmed the lights for me, and I wanted the monitors off but she said they hadn’t gotten a full 20 minutes of a “reassuring strip” so I had to keep them on. They never did end up getting that strip they needed, I wasn’t willing to lay down long enough.
My husband took a nap and I was laboring alone for about an hour. Finally, the waves got hard enough that bouncing as I leaned back from the edge of the bed wasn’t helping any, so I stood up and called across the room “Jeff, get up, I need you”. He rolled over and kind of just moved around on the couch, so I yelled “Jeff, I need you to press on my back NOW!” Apparently, my nurse had come in just then and ran to me before my husband could get there and pressed it for me. I told her my laboring positions weren’t working, so she suggested the “dance” movement. During the next waves, I would sit between them and as soon as I felt one coming, I would stand and put my arms around my husband’s neck and spread my legs to about shoulder width. He would press his hands firmly on my hips and we would sway, I would lean my body against his chest and make moaning noises. It didn’t help much, but I was able to tell him when I needed reassurance and he would tell me things like “You were made to do this”. That was so great. I attempted drinking water 3 times during the labor, once I even tried taking an antacid for the heartburn I was feeling, and I threw up all 3 times. Not very pretty.
Sometime during all of this, I asked the nurse if I was too far along for an epidural. I informed her that I definitely didn’t want one but that it would be nice to know I was too far to get one. She said no, not until I was pushing, and then kind of sort of offered me alternative pain medication, which I quickly said no to.
I remember telling her at one point that I needed to have a bowel movement. She said “No, it just feels like you do because the baby’s head is down there. You’re not dilated enough yet to push.” I told her “No, I actually need to poop. I’m holding it in myself, you can watch me sit on the toilet. I won’t push, I swear it’ll come out itself.” She was hesitant, but I went in and sat on the toilet anyways and she was amazed that yes- I actually did have to poop! Haha.
Not long after, I called her in and told her to check me because I felt that the need to push was near. I told her I would tell her when, but that she needed to be quick as the contractions were coming much quicker and I wasn't willing to be on a bed through them. She had another nurse check me (this had been done a few times with several different nurses, it was almost annoying) and they said that baby was still at 0 station and I was only 9-9.5cm. They told me not to push and left us alone again. The next 3 or so contractions were the absolute hardest things I have ever had to endure in the entire world. I had to hold my baby in, and I was talking to her and telling her “Please baby, stay in just a little longer!” I told my husband so many times “I can’t do this! I can’t hold her!” and he just reassured me. Two nurses came in (they were switching shifts) and my jaw was too tensed to be coherent because of all the strain it took my body to hold the baby in, but I very rigidly was able to say “I. Can’t. Hold. Her. I. Have. To. Push.” It felt SO unnatural and wrong to not be fulfilling my body's urge.
HALLELUJAH, my doctor walked in right as I was forcing those words out! The squatting bar was already set up for me, and she told me that if I needed to push then to go ahead and she’d check my cervix as I did so. I got up on the bed and pushed during the next contraction. She checked my cervix as I did so, said there was a tiny bit left but that I could continue pushing. She kept her fingers in there and I threw my hand down in front of her and said, “Please take your fingers out!!!”, and she did. I was trying to push something out, not have someone sticking something in!
I pushed in the squatting position for a while, until my cursed knees and hips began to fail me. I would sit on the bed between pushes but soon was unable to hold myself up. My husband put his arms under my arms and held me up for part of a push but I told him to stop, it just wasn’t helping me feel comfortable. I needed to be able to support myself, the harder I had to work the more I had to focus and the easier the labor was. I told them I was going to lie down on my left side. The nurse had finally succumbed to cutting off the monitor bands while I was pushing, thank GOD. The doctor said something about being on my back with my feet in the stirrups and I told her there was no way I was doing that. The new nurse came to the head of the bed and reassured me that I didn’t need to do that, and I felt less mad at my doctor lol. It was about this time that they hurried and gave me the last administration of penicillin, thank goodness there was enough time so baby didn't have to get pricked!
The nurse held my left leg open on the bed and my husband would take my right leg from where I rested it on the squatting bar and would lift and pull it back for me for each contraction so I could push. I would ask him to bring me water every now and again, and he would bring me a little cup so I could just have a few sips and not have to worry about throwing up too much. I didn’t throw up any of this, thank goodness.
My legs were really shaky, and my hips were still trying to give out. It was difficult, I’ve always had bad knees and hips and this just wasn’t the easiest thing for them to do! I started getting minor cramps in my right foot so my husband would massage it between pushes. He was such a great help.
They had set up a mirror for me to be able to see when my baby was coming out, but I found that keeping my eyes closed during the pushing was the best way for me to be. I made A TON of noise! For one session of contractions I was an Amazon warrior, for another I was a whale delivering a mating call, and for a lot of the rest I was just making OHHH sounds. At the end, according to my husband, I sounded like I was in some sort of terrible pain because of the noise I was making. I wasn't, but I do remember my powerful yelling turned into more of a scream (not screech-type, but not really a yell anymore).
I would breathe in very deeply through my nose and use my belly to push each noise out, the louder I was the longer each noise lasted, the longer I could exhale for and the longer I could push. The nurse came up to me at one point and said “You know, a lot of women that do that have sore throats the next morning”. I told her I didn’t care, seriously- she was great and everything, but that was the least of my concerns lol.
Between contractions, I would lay my top half flat on the bed so I could rest, and allow my hips and pelvis to remain open and rotated to the side. When I felt a contraction coming on, my husband and doctor and nurse would know to open my legs for me because I would reach my arms around to the underside bars of the bed, pull myself to face left and put all of my strength into my arms and neck so the bottom half of my body could relax and let it do what it needed to do. I kept talking to my baby when I was resting, telling her what I needed her to do when she was ready or what I was about to do myself. If the nurses or doctor ever said anything, I didn’t really notice. I would hear my husband tell me “relax” or “breathe”, and I would. He was so amazing and calm during all of this, not at all like I thought he’d be.
When he would tell me to relax, I would try and feel the bottom half of my body. It was so limp and loose, I didn’t even have to try to get it that way. It was just so natural. I remember smiling after one particularly powerful contraction and saying “Man, I never knew I was so strong!” I continuously asked everyone, “Can you see her?” “Is her head out?”. I didn’t want to wait any longer to meet my baby girl!
Finally, I heard the nurse tell me “If you want to feel her, you should stick your hand down now”. I did, and MY WORD there was a lot of hair! I smiled so huge and said something, I think I may have been talking to her and telling her how glad I was that I got to meet her soon.
At one point, the doctor told me directly after a contraction “Okay push now” and I told her “I’m not pushing until my body tells me to push, I don’t have the strength without it!” I wasn’t rude during my labor, but there was no way someone was going to direct this process that my body knows much more about than science does.
The delivery nurses and a backup doctor came in, it turned out being my Obs partner who is actually the doctor I had really wanted but wasn’t assigned to. When I heard them call in more people, I was kind of upset. When I saw who it was that came in though, I felt a ton better. I had never really spoken to her much before, but she was always great to me and has a great air about her. She is always natural and home birth friendly so I didn’t feel like I was being judged.
After I had felt her head, I kept telling myself “ring of fire, ring of fire” because everyone swore I would feel it. I never did. When I was about to push her out, I told the nurse I wanted her to put a hot compress down there that she had told me she had prepared earlier in the pushing process. When she put it down there, it was cold. I told her I wanted it on the actual opening and that I needed it to be hot. She said she had it where tears were likely to occur, and never warmed it up. Oh well, it was only there for about a minute or less ‘til I pushed again.
There was an intense feeling of opening down there, but I never felt a burn or “fire” feeling. I pushed, and I think I heard then say her head was out, and something clicked in me that made me want to keep the contraction going. The power of the wave began to fade, but I told myself to make it last and it started back up again. It was amazing! I pushed hard, and all of a sudden got excited that my baby was so close and my body took over and pushed 11,000 times harder. I WAS made to do this!
I felt something leave me, and the need to push disappeared. I asked them if she was out, and they said yes, I sat up and looked down and she was making some fussing noises.
Jayelynn Amorette Allen was born on February 25, 2010 at 9:15 AM, weighing 8lbs 1oz and measuring a length of 21 inches. She was absolutely beautiful, with an unbelievable amount of long, dark hair and huge blue eyes.
My husband was right there with her and I saw the doctor clamp the cord. I told her “No, want to wait until the blood stops pulsing” and my husband reassured me that they had already checked and it had. I was kind of shocked that I had happened so quickly, but I was too caught up in my baby to care as my husband cut the cord. She was making fussing noises, and just as she was about to cry I started talking to her and reached my finger down to her hands that she had spread wide open. She started looking around with her huge, beautiful eyes. I knew she was looking for me but it was too dim for her to see me. I touched her palm with my fingertip and she relaxed a lot. They put her onto my chest and covered her with warm blankets, we proceeded to rub in the vernix. It smelled sooooo good, and she was sooo beautiful. I pulled aside the sports bra I was wearing and tried to get her to nurse, but she wasn’t interested until about an hour or so after her birth. I looked over to my husband and told him that he needed to come talk to her, he was a bit away from the bed holding the camera around his neck and looking like he was in such a blissful state of shock. He told me “I don’t know what I’d say”, and I told him just to talk to her like he always had. He looked down and said something to her, and she looked right to him and got the biggest smile on her face. It was amazing! She had already smiled within 5 minutes of being born!
I looked down at the doctor and saw that she had a needle in her hands and was going toward my “area”. I sat up right away and told her “I didn’t want stitches” and she looked at me like I was crazy. For some reason, I thought receiving stitches was an episiotomy? Lol, I think I was too high on baby. Either way, she should have asked me before she proceeded to stick a needle in my vagina! She told me I had a first degree tear that wasn’t going to stop bleeding unless it was stitched. I told her to wait a few minutes to be sure of that. She, very reluctantly, sat everything down and waited. After a bit, I asked her if the bleeding had stopped. She said no. I asked her if I had delivered my placenta, and she said no. I asked if it would tear me more if I did, and she said no. So, I very easily pushed the placenta out and told her she could stitch me. She asked if I wanted the anesthesia, I thought about it and told her to go ahead, I figured I’d be really sore down there. She gave me to shot, but I still felt he insert the needle. I told her that and she offered to give me another shot. I said there was no point, the first one hadn’t worked anyway. She finished the stitch and that was that.
We denied all of the newborn procedures, and never let her go from our arms. We were the only ones that held her or really touched her. My husband was the one that first bathed and dressed her, and she only wore her own clothes. She never went to the nursery, and was only laid in the bassinet they provided when my husband would change her diaper. She slept in his arms the night that we spent there, and the next morning we denied the blood and hearing tests. I am so thankful that we did.
The pediatrician came in the next morning and gave Jayelynn the okay to go home, said she was an extremely healthy baby and she was very impressed by her alert activity. I had asked the nurse when she was born what her Apgar scores were, I was told “8 and 9, and she is already functioning at the stage of a 24 hour old newborn”. I was so proud J. I had the hospital call my OB who came in to check me about 3 or 4 hours later, and we were released home.
I have no regrets of this birth. I also, at no point, had the ability to claim that I was ever in pain. I told myself throughout the pregnancy that birth was natural and normal and that pain was not mandatory. I think it is because of my never accepting that it would be that, for me, it never was.
This was 2 weeks ago today, and I am still not convinced that this delivery wasn’t a dream. 15 hours flew by in just a minute, it seems. These last 2 weeks though have gone by even faster.
(X-posted to naturalbirth and my own personal journal)
To cut it short, this is a natural hospital birth, majority of laboring done at home, with a total of 15 hours and 1 and a half of pushing.
2/24/10
I had been told by the OB I was finally able to stick with, as we had made our final move, that my EDD had gone from March 4 to February 19. I was okay with this, until she started talking about inducing me if I made it to 41 weeks. I told her there was no way she was going to do this, especially since my due date had originally been set at March 14, almost a month further. She said she’d wait ‘til 42 weeks and no more, I told her she’d be waiting as long as my baby wanted her to. Luckily, it never happened!
The 19th came and went, and I really didn’t mind. I loved being pregnant! It was the best time of my life, up until my girl was here. On the 24th, I had had my weekly appointment. My husband was off that day, and I had set my alarm so we could wake up for it. When my alarm went off, I checked my phone and had gotten a voicemail for the doctor’s office saying that my doctor had been delivering a baby the previous night and wouldn’t be in ‘til the afternoon. We decided to sleep in ‘til about 11, and thank God we did that!
I called at 2, as soon as they were back from lunch, and asked if I could make an appointment for the next day. They said they couldn’t, and asked if I could be there in 15 minutes. I was already in the car on the way to the store, so I went ahead and stopped by.
My OB checked my cervix, said I was no longer at 1cm as I had been for the past few weeks but now “between 1 and 2”, yet still firm and high. She told me this, continued to fool around down in there, and it was so uncomfortable! I don’t know what stripping membranes consists of, but I later began to wonder if that is what she had done as I hadn’t been able to feel any of my cervical checks up to this one. If that’s the case, my 6 week appointment is going to consist of us having a little talk.
I left the office with orders for my second NST and an appointment for the following week. I went to the grocery store, did my shopping, came home to put everything away and then left for the dog park with my beagle. While there, a random woman commented that my baby looked like it had “dropped”. I’d been hearing this for weeks, but never felt it. She had been low the entire pregnancy, and didn’t seem any lower to me.
I got home around 5:30, and started bugging my husband to cook dinner so that I could get all of the dishes and kitchen cleaning out of the way at one time. Finally, at 6:25, he got up to cook. As he walked passed me, I stood up to follow him and, lo and behold, I started “peeing” on myself. I looked down and said “What the heck is that?” and quickly realized exactly what it was. I looked at my husband, who was standing there just staring at the mess dripping down my favorite pair of maternity jeans, and said “My waters just broke! We’re going to have a baby! Holy crap, I’m going to have a freaking baby!!!” I all of a sudden felt kind of panicky, and it was pretty much the only time during the labor that I did. I put my hands on either side of my head and my eyes felt huge and I was freaking out. My waters continued to break (and did so for 3+ hours), so he told me to sit on the toilet. I peed while on the toilet and, when I wiped, I noticed my bloody show. I asked him to bring me a big glass of water so the fluids could be replenished and I wouldn’t dehydrate. He did, and we began calling my parents (they live in Florida and we were just stationed to California, so they needed a heads up to buy flight tickets). I told him I needed to listen to my Hypnobabies Birth Day Affirmations. He put them on and I don’t recall hearing a single one of the affirmations.
I cleaned the kitchen, cleaned the living room, and folded laundry. My husband installed the car seat and packed his bag. I called my friend’s husband to let them know (she was 2 weeks “less pregnant” than I and we’d kind of been doing this whole pregnancy thing together since we’d met) and he said that they were going to come over. I brought my dog for a walk and they showed up. They asked about contractions, and I hadn’t realized I was having any. I’d had pre-term contractions before and was expecting to feel the wrap-around “hug” sensation that those had caused me. Instead, I was having a feeling like my hips were clenching. I figured the actual surges hadn’t started yet so I didn’t bother timing them.
After my friends had left, I just relaxed and fooled around on the computer. I tried timing contractions but they were too faint for me to notice them. My husband was playing COD on silent so I could hear my affirmations, but I still didn’t notice them playing.
I decided I should see if maybe the clenching feeling would go away altogether and somehow prove to me that it wasn’t the real thing (yes, I know my waters had broken, but it didn’t feel real enough!) so I went upstairs to take a shower. That really got the waves coming on! As soon as the hot water hit me, they were intensified. It was awesome! I let the water run on my lower back and they got harder, I was so excited! I went downstairs and we pulled out the sofa bed, turned on Business of Being Born and watched a bit of that (we had ordered it on Netflix on demand but never watched it). We turned on some other TV show and I had to get off the bed to do some weird routines on my birthing ball to ease the pressure coming from the contractions. This worked for a while, until I decided I needed to sleep. I laid down but wasn’t able to sleep. Around 1, I got a text from my mom asking me to call her. I did, and she timed contractions for me. They were 3-4 minutes apart. I was beginning to feel super nauseous and like my heart rate was going crazy, so I got online and read that I was in active labor-transition. I decided it was time to go in to L&D and get checked.
I woke up my husband and said “Hey, can you bring me to the hospital?” and he said “For what?” (he is a very hard sleeper, lol). I said “So I can have a baby?” and he asked “Why?” Lol, I love him. I said “Do you want me to drive myself?!” and he woke up right away and went “OOHHHHHH!” I went upstairs and packed a bag of clothes, I had had the toiletries and such packed for weeks. I checked the babies bag and then we were off. I called the hospital, asked to have my call transferred to L&D and the operator said “Oh, awesome!” lol, I guess everyone calling at 2 in the morning is in labor. The L&D nurse told me that they’d be ready for me and to call my doctor. I left a message with the answering service and when my doctor called she kind of just shrugged off that I knew my contraction timing and such (I’m a first timer, I can’t know when I’m in labor right?).
When I got into L&D, I thought it was ridiculous that they had me filling out so much dang paperwork. I had pre-registered months before, I really didn’t want to do this! But I did. I finally got sent into Triage. The nurse came in and hooked me up to the timing monitor. She said she’d be back in 20 minutes. 30 went by and I was MISERABLE being in a bed, seriously- that is NOT where I wanted to be! Turns out, none of the nurses thought I was going through the real thing because I was so calm and making jokes and such.
Finally, my husband went out to the nurses and asked them if I could have water. They were all sitting around just talking, and our nurse said she’d bring it in. She did, and asked if I had a sample of my waters that had broken. I said no, so she said she needed to do a swab and send it to the lab to be certain that that was what it was. I really looked like an idiot, I guess!
She stuck the q-tip in and HOLY CRAP IT HURT. So badly! This is what first got me thinking that my OB had done something in there that she wasn't supposed to have. I demanded the nurse to stop because it was unbearable. She said “If it hurts that bad, how am I going to get my fingers in there to check your cervix?” She tried the swab again and I was able to take it long enough for her to get what she needed. She then proceeded to check my cervix, and went “Oh.. Oh!” She looked extremely shocked, and turned to my husband and me and said “You’re 6.5cm!” I asked her how far apart my contractions were, and she went to the monitor and said “2-3 minutes, you’re in active labor!” I felt like saying NO DUH, but instead I just smiled and made another joke. I was way too happy to be a jerk :).
She went out to the other nurses and spread the news, then proceeded to call my OB. I got up to pee, and when I got back she and my husband were standing there holding all of our bags because we were finally being admitted. My doctor didn’t want to be called ‘til I was 8.5-9cm, so we wouldn’t be seeing her for a while.
We got into the labor & delivery room, and the nurses there checked me. They were shocked as well. I almost felt like a freak for not being in pain! I told them I was GBS+ and wanted the penicillin done quickly and ASAP, so they hooked me up to the IV and put me on monitors. I told them there was no way I was laboring in bed, and my husband had already requested a birthing ball by the time they were done with all of their wiring so I got on that. When the ball stopped easing contractions and the first drip session was done, they decided to put me on wireless monitors. I walked around the room a lot, and at one point got in the shower but they made my contractions even more powerful so I just sprayed my thighs with the water because they were taking a lot of the pressure. This felt good, but then I got really shivery so I got out.
I was walking around in nothing but a bra for the entire labor, I don’t know how I got so naked but I did! I turned to my nurse at one point, who I realized wouldn’t look at me when I spoke, and said “I’m sorry for being naked, I didn’t even notice!” She and my husband laughed at this.
She dimmed the lights for me, and I wanted the monitors off but she said they hadn’t gotten a full 20 minutes of a “reassuring strip” so I had to keep them on. They never did end up getting that strip they needed, I wasn’t willing to lay down long enough.
My husband took a nap and I was laboring alone for about an hour. Finally, the waves got hard enough that bouncing as I leaned back from the edge of the bed wasn’t helping any, so I stood up and called across the room “Jeff, get up, I need you”. He rolled over and kind of just moved around on the couch, so I yelled “Jeff, I need you to press on my back NOW!” Apparently, my nurse had come in just then and ran to me before my husband could get there and pressed it for me. I told her my laboring positions weren’t working, so she suggested the “dance” movement. During the next waves, I would sit between them and as soon as I felt one coming, I would stand and put my arms around my husband’s neck and spread my legs to about shoulder width. He would press his hands firmly on my hips and we would sway, I would lean my body against his chest and make moaning noises. It didn’t help much, but I was able to tell him when I needed reassurance and he would tell me things like “You were made to do this”. That was so great. I attempted drinking water 3 times during the labor, once I even tried taking an antacid for the heartburn I was feeling, and I threw up all 3 times. Not very pretty.
Sometime during all of this, I asked the nurse if I was too far along for an epidural. I informed her that I definitely didn’t want one but that it would be nice to know I was too far to get one. She said no, not until I was pushing, and then kind of sort of offered me alternative pain medication, which I quickly said no to.
I remember telling her at one point that I needed to have a bowel movement. She said “No, it just feels like you do because the baby’s head is down there. You’re not dilated enough yet to push.” I told her “No, I actually need to poop. I’m holding it in myself, you can watch me sit on the toilet. I won’t push, I swear it’ll come out itself.” She was hesitant, but I went in and sat on the toilet anyways and she was amazed that yes- I actually did have to poop! Haha.
Not long after, I called her in and told her to check me because I felt that the need to push was near. I told her I would tell her when, but that she needed to be quick as the contractions were coming much quicker and I wasn't willing to be on a bed through them. She had another nurse check me (this had been done a few times with several different nurses, it was almost annoying) and they said that baby was still at 0 station and I was only 9-9.5cm. They told me not to push and left us alone again. The next 3 or so contractions were the absolute hardest things I have ever had to endure in the entire world. I had to hold my baby in, and I was talking to her and telling her “Please baby, stay in just a little longer!” I told my husband so many times “I can’t do this! I can’t hold her!” and he just reassured me. Two nurses came in (they were switching shifts) and my jaw was too tensed to be coherent because of all the strain it took my body to hold the baby in, but I very rigidly was able to say “I. Can’t. Hold. Her. I. Have. To. Push.” It felt SO unnatural and wrong to not be fulfilling my body's urge.
HALLELUJAH, my doctor walked in right as I was forcing those words out! The squatting bar was already set up for me, and she told me that if I needed to push then to go ahead and she’d check my cervix as I did so. I got up on the bed and pushed during the next contraction. She checked my cervix as I did so, said there was a tiny bit left but that I could continue pushing. She kept her fingers in there and I threw my hand down in front of her and said, “Please take your fingers out!!!”, and she did. I was trying to push something out, not have someone sticking something in!
I pushed in the squatting position for a while, until my cursed knees and hips began to fail me. I would sit on the bed between pushes but soon was unable to hold myself up. My husband put his arms under my arms and held me up for part of a push but I told him to stop, it just wasn’t helping me feel comfortable. I needed to be able to support myself, the harder I had to work the more I had to focus and the easier the labor was. I told them I was going to lie down on my left side. The nurse had finally succumbed to cutting off the monitor bands while I was pushing, thank GOD. The doctor said something about being on my back with my feet in the stirrups and I told her there was no way I was doing that. The new nurse came to the head of the bed and reassured me that I didn’t need to do that, and I felt less mad at my doctor lol. It was about this time that they hurried and gave me the last administration of penicillin, thank goodness there was enough time so baby didn't have to get pricked!
The nurse held my left leg open on the bed and my husband would take my right leg from where I rested it on the squatting bar and would lift and pull it back for me for each contraction so I could push. I would ask him to bring me water every now and again, and he would bring me a little cup so I could just have a few sips and not have to worry about throwing up too much. I didn’t throw up any of this, thank goodness.
My legs were really shaky, and my hips were still trying to give out. It was difficult, I’ve always had bad knees and hips and this just wasn’t the easiest thing for them to do! I started getting minor cramps in my right foot so my husband would massage it between pushes. He was such a great help.
They had set up a mirror for me to be able to see when my baby was coming out, but I found that keeping my eyes closed during the pushing was the best way for me to be. I made A TON of noise! For one session of contractions I was an Amazon warrior, for another I was a whale delivering a mating call, and for a lot of the rest I was just making OHHH sounds. At the end, according to my husband, I sounded like I was in some sort of terrible pain because of the noise I was making. I wasn't, but I do remember my powerful yelling turned into more of a scream (not screech-type, but not really a yell anymore).
I would breathe in very deeply through my nose and use my belly to push each noise out, the louder I was the longer each noise lasted, the longer I could exhale for and the longer I could push. The nurse came up to me at one point and said “You know, a lot of women that do that have sore throats the next morning”. I told her I didn’t care, seriously- she was great and everything, but that was the least of my concerns lol.
Between contractions, I would lay my top half flat on the bed so I could rest, and allow my hips and pelvis to remain open and rotated to the side. When I felt a contraction coming on, my husband and doctor and nurse would know to open my legs for me because I would reach my arms around to the underside bars of the bed, pull myself to face left and put all of my strength into my arms and neck so the bottom half of my body could relax and let it do what it needed to do. I kept talking to my baby when I was resting, telling her what I needed her to do when she was ready or what I was about to do myself. If the nurses or doctor ever said anything, I didn’t really notice. I would hear my husband tell me “relax” or “breathe”, and I would. He was so amazing and calm during all of this, not at all like I thought he’d be.
When he would tell me to relax, I would try and feel the bottom half of my body. It was so limp and loose, I didn’t even have to try to get it that way. It was just so natural. I remember smiling after one particularly powerful contraction and saying “Man, I never knew I was so strong!” I continuously asked everyone, “Can you see her?” “Is her head out?”. I didn’t want to wait any longer to meet my baby girl!
Finally, I heard the nurse tell me “If you want to feel her, you should stick your hand down now”. I did, and MY WORD there was a lot of hair! I smiled so huge and said something, I think I may have been talking to her and telling her how glad I was that I got to meet her soon.
At one point, the doctor told me directly after a contraction “Okay push now” and I told her “I’m not pushing until my body tells me to push, I don’t have the strength without it!” I wasn’t rude during my labor, but there was no way someone was going to direct this process that my body knows much more about than science does.
The delivery nurses and a backup doctor came in, it turned out being my Obs partner who is actually the doctor I had really wanted but wasn’t assigned to. When I heard them call in more people, I was kind of upset. When I saw who it was that came in though, I felt a ton better. I had never really spoken to her much before, but she was always great to me and has a great air about her. She is always natural and home birth friendly so I didn’t feel like I was being judged.
After I had felt her head, I kept telling myself “ring of fire, ring of fire” because everyone swore I would feel it. I never did. When I was about to push her out, I told the nurse I wanted her to put a hot compress down there that she had told me she had prepared earlier in the pushing process. When she put it down there, it was cold. I told her I wanted it on the actual opening and that I needed it to be hot. She said she had it where tears were likely to occur, and never warmed it up. Oh well, it was only there for about a minute or less ‘til I pushed again.
There was an intense feeling of opening down there, but I never felt a burn or “fire” feeling. I pushed, and I think I heard then say her head was out, and something clicked in me that made me want to keep the contraction going. The power of the wave began to fade, but I told myself to make it last and it started back up again. It was amazing! I pushed hard, and all of a sudden got excited that my baby was so close and my body took over and pushed 11,000 times harder. I WAS made to do this!
I felt something leave me, and the need to push disappeared. I asked them if she was out, and they said yes, I sat up and looked down and she was making some fussing noises.
Jayelynn Amorette Allen was born on February 25, 2010 at 9:15 AM, weighing 8lbs 1oz and measuring a length of 21 inches. She was absolutely beautiful, with an unbelievable amount of long, dark hair and huge blue eyes.
My husband was right there with her and I saw the doctor clamp the cord. I told her “No, want to wait until the blood stops pulsing” and my husband reassured me that they had already checked and it had. I was kind of shocked that I had happened so quickly, but I was too caught up in my baby to care as my husband cut the cord. She was making fussing noises, and just as she was about to cry I started talking to her and reached my finger down to her hands that she had spread wide open. She started looking around with her huge, beautiful eyes. I knew she was looking for me but it was too dim for her to see me. I touched her palm with my fingertip and she relaxed a lot. They put her onto my chest and covered her with warm blankets, we proceeded to rub in the vernix. It smelled sooooo good, and she was sooo beautiful. I pulled aside the sports bra I was wearing and tried to get her to nurse, but she wasn’t interested until about an hour or so after her birth. I looked over to my husband and told him that he needed to come talk to her, he was a bit away from the bed holding the camera around his neck and looking like he was in such a blissful state of shock. He told me “I don’t know what I’d say”, and I told him just to talk to her like he always had. He looked down and said something to her, and she looked right to him and got the biggest smile on her face. It was amazing! She had already smiled within 5 minutes of being born!
I looked down at the doctor and saw that she had a needle in her hands and was going toward my “area”. I sat up right away and told her “I didn’t want stitches” and she looked at me like I was crazy. For some reason, I thought receiving stitches was an episiotomy? Lol, I think I was too high on baby. Either way, she should have asked me before she proceeded to stick a needle in my vagina! She told me I had a first degree tear that wasn’t going to stop bleeding unless it was stitched. I told her to wait a few minutes to be sure of that. She, very reluctantly, sat everything down and waited. After a bit, I asked her if the bleeding had stopped. She said no. I asked her if I had delivered my placenta, and she said no. I asked if it would tear me more if I did, and she said no. So, I very easily pushed the placenta out and told her she could stitch me. She asked if I wanted the anesthesia, I thought about it and told her to go ahead, I figured I’d be really sore down there. She gave me to shot, but I still felt he insert the needle. I told her that and she offered to give me another shot. I said there was no point, the first one hadn’t worked anyway. She finished the stitch and that was that.
We denied all of the newborn procedures, and never let her go from our arms. We were the only ones that held her or really touched her. My husband was the one that first bathed and dressed her, and she only wore her own clothes. She never went to the nursery, and was only laid in the bassinet they provided when my husband would change her diaper. She slept in his arms the night that we spent there, and the next morning we denied the blood and hearing tests. I am so thankful that we did.
The pediatrician came in the next morning and gave Jayelynn the okay to go home, said she was an extremely healthy baby and she was very impressed by her alert activity. I had asked the nurse when she was born what her Apgar scores were, I was told “8 and 9, and she is already functioning at the stage of a 24 hour old newborn”. I was so proud J. I had the hospital call my OB who came in to check me about 3 or 4 hours later, and we were released home.
I have no regrets of this birth. I also, at no point, had the ability to claim that I was ever in pain. I told myself throughout the pregnancy that birth was natural and normal and that pain was not mandatory. I think it is because of my never accepting that it would be that, for me, it never was.
This was 2 weeks ago today, and I am still not convinced that this delivery wasn’t a dream. 15 hours flew by in just a minute, it seems. These last 2 weeks though have gone by even faster.
(X-posted to naturalbirth and my own personal journal)