Lydia’s Birth Story
It’s been over a week since my sweet baby was born and I am just now getting around to writing down what happened. I should have written it out sooner while it was all still fresh, but here we are.
I had planned on having my baby at the Midwife Center, which is a birth center in Pittsburgh. I had all of my prenatal visits there and was really looking forward to laboring in their giant deep tub. The doctor they were partnering with to oversee my gestational diabetes wanted me to deliver by 41 weeks so at 40.5, I went to the Midwife Center with my mother in law so they could help me with some natural induction techniques in the hopes of getting this baby here soon.
They started by doing a membrane sweep which left me feeling really crampy and bleeding and I was having pretty regular Braxton Hicks. Then they wanted to do a non stress test to see how baby was doing. Well, the line was pretty flat at first which they did not like so I had to stay strapped up and monitored for about 40 minutes. Towards the end, they were seeing enough variability in the heart rate that they were satisfied enough.
The next induction method we tried was the breast pump. I pumped for 15 mins each side and then Karen and I went on a VERY brisk 25 minute walk. She set the pace as I would never have walked that quickly if it were left up to me. When we got back, I pumped for another 30 minutes and by that point I was having pretty noticeable contractions. Karen started timing them while the midwives and the nurses kept leaving the room to consult about what to do with me. They did another vaginal exam and I was still just 2cm so they strapped me up to the NST again and the results were very flat. After a bunch of time passed while they were on the phone with Jefferson hospital (my backup delivery spot) the midwife told me she wanted me to go to Jefferson to be induced because she just wasn’t confident about the baby’s heart rate readings and she was worried the baby wouldn’t tolerate real labor contractions.
I cried.
Karen hugged me nice and long and talked to me. It was comforting and I’m glad she was there for me. I didn’t like the idea of going to the hospital but I also didn’t like how negative the midwife was being. I just wanted to be settled in somewhere because at that point, I was in early labor and not feeling great and I was tired of waiting for decisions to be made. Finally the midwife noticed and agreed that I was actually in labor and Karen swept me away to Jefferson so we could get the party started! Leaving the city was hectic because it was around 4 or 5 pm so it was rush hour and we were heading a direction I had never been before. We sat in a lot of traffic and joked about how the cars would all be getting out of our way if they knew there was a laboring woman in our car. Fortunately the contractions were still manageable enough that the car ride wasn’t too uncomfortable. The worst part was that I already had hemorrhoids so sitting had its challenges.
To be continued...
I had planned on having my baby at the Midwife Center, which is a birth center in Pittsburgh. I had all of my prenatal visits there and was really looking forward to laboring in their giant deep tub. The doctor they were partnering with to oversee my gestational diabetes wanted me to deliver by 41 weeks so at 40.5, I went to the Midwife Center with my mother in law so they could help me with some natural induction techniques in the hopes of getting this baby here soon.
They started by doing a membrane sweep which left me feeling really crampy and bleeding and I was having pretty regular Braxton Hicks. Then they wanted to do a non stress test to see how baby was doing. Well, the line was pretty flat at first which they did not like so I had to stay strapped up and monitored for about 40 minutes. Towards the end, they were seeing enough variability in the heart rate that they were satisfied enough.
The next induction method we tried was the breast pump. I pumped for 15 mins each side and then Karen and I went on a VERY brisk 25 minute walk. She set the pace as I would never have walked that quickly if it were left up to me. When we got back, I pumped for another 30 minutes and by that point I was having pretty noticeable contractions. Karen started timing them while the midwives and the nurses kept leaving the room to consult about what to do with me. They did another vaginal exam and I was still just 2cm so they strapped me up to the NST again and the results were very flat. After a bunch of time passed while they were on the phone with Jefferson hospital (my backup delivery spot) the midwife told me she wanted me to go to Jefferson to be induced because she just wasn’t confident about the baby’s heart rate readings and she was worried the baby wouldn’t tolerate real labor contractions.
I cried.
Karen hugged me nice and long and talked to me. It was comforting and I’m glad she was there for me. I didn’t like the idea of going to the hospital but I also didn’t like how negative the midwife was being. I just wanted to be settled in somewhere because at that point, I was in early labor and not feeling great and I was tired of waiting for decisions to be made. Finally the midwife noticed and agreed that I was actually in labor and Karen swept me away to Jefferson so we could get the party started! Leaving the city was hectic because it was around 4 or 5 pm so it was rush hour and we were heading a direction I had never been before. We sat in a lot of traffic and joked about how the cars would all be getting out of our way if they knew there was a laboring woman in our car. Fortunately the contractions were still manageable enough that the car ride wasn’t too uncomfortable. The worst part was that I already had hemorrhoids so sitting had its challenges.
To be continued...