Our Birth Story

I've planned on posting this entry for days now, but motherhood is tougher than I thought.  There's always a feeding to do, or diapers to change, or a baby to adore :)  But I really want to post our birth story, so I don't forget one part of it...  So here goes...

For background, I really wanted to have a natural childbirth.  To that end, I read tons of books about the dangers of epidurals, induction, and other interventions.  I took a 12-week Bradley method course, dragging Don along for 2-hour sessions on the importance of avoiding all intervention and completely natural childbirth.  

On Tuesday, I had my last midwife visit with Holly Powers.  She did an exam, and I was at 2 cm.  She stripped my membranes at the same time.  I don't know exactly what that means, but it often can help trigger labor.  She also recommended that I stop working, and I was only too happy to oblige.  

Wednesday morning, I passed my mucous plug, which can often be a good sign that labor's on the way.  I called my parents to let them know.  Mom was hoping that labor wouldn't come, because terrible storms were predicted for later that day.  Luckily for her, nothing doing.  

In the next few days, I slept, relaxed, and prepared for labor.  Friday evening, Don and I settled down and watched a movie.  For the first time in several days, I said, "I think it's going to be a while before we have this baby."  Every day before that, I'd been sure that the baby was on the way.  Somehow, though, I felt like it wasn't going to be that night.  We went to bed around 11:30.  Don fell asleep almost immediately.  I was dozing off at 12:30 am, when suddenly I felt a warm burst of fluid, cried out, "My water just broke!" and ran to the bathroom.  Things started happening almost immediately.  By the time I emerged, Don was fully dressed and packing up the cameras and getting his bag ready.  I gave triage a call to let the nurse midwife know my water had broken.  I was hoping to stay at home as long as possible before going in.  Then I called Mom and Papa to let them know that a baby was definitely coming within the next 24 hours or so...  I then went back to bed.  The contractions started immediately but weren't too bad.  I let Don know each time I had a contraction, and they were 3-6 minutes apart.  I wanted to stay in bed as long as possible (part of my Bradley class teachings), but Don started getting nervous as the contractions started getting closer together, so I called the midwife and let her know that we'd be coming in.  

We got to the hospital around 1:30 am and checked in to triage.  They did 20 minutes of monitoring, with everything looking good.  I was dilated to 3 cm at that time.  We then walked over to our labor/delivery room, stopping twice along the way for contractions.  Because we were interested in a natural childbirth, we got priority for one of the rooms with a labor tub.  I was looking forward to using it to ease the pain of the contractions.  The contractions were getting more intense, and I was starting to feel them only in my back.  My nurse was running the tub, which seemed to take forever.  I paced around the room, since the contractions seemed less intense when I was standing.  As soon as the tub was full, I got in.  It helped for a few contractions, but the back pain just got worse and worse.  By the time I got out, each contraction caused me to "flail like a fish" (Don's words), consumed by pain.  I felt like I had to push or something to deal with the pain.  No matter how much I tried, I couldn't relax and the pain was unbelievable; Don was coaching me on breathing and coaching me using some of the relaxation techniques we'd learned in class, but it didn't help.  I got out of the tub and tried to deal in bed.  Still not working.  The midwife checked me out--only 5 cm.  I asked for an epidural...3 times (I'd told Don that I had to ask 3 times before getting an epidural).  Everything in me really didn't want to have an epidural, but I'm glad I did it.  I don't think I could have made it without it.  The back contractions were so painful, and I don't think I could have allowed myself to relax enough to continue to dilate and for the baby to move down.  My midwife thought the baby was probably posterior, which leads to the back labor.  I've always heard that babies in the posterior position lead to the most intense and painful contractions.  Not having had a regular labor,  I can't say, but the pain in my back was SOOOOO awful.  I needed the epidural to help me deal.

So, the epidural was placed some time around 5 am.  Mom and Papa arrived at the hospital at 6:30 or 7 (it took them 5 hours or so because of near-blizzard conditions along their trip).  We all just settled in and relaxed.  We had a few scares with the monitor.  Every time I left my right side and switched to the left, the baby's heartrate dropped a lot, a sign that the cord might be getting compressed.  At one point, they handed Don the C-section suit and the room was full of nurses putting me back on my right side and starting oxygen.  I WAS able to get onto my hands and knees and do some hip rotations and pelvic rocks to try to get the baby to shift from the posterior to the anterior position, which worked, I think.  

So, after several hours of waiting, the midwife checked me out again around noon, and I was at 10 cm and could start pushing.  The thing was...I couldn't really feel the contractions, so it was hard to know when to push and where to push.  But I wanted to see our baby so much that I started pushing with contractions.  My first pushes weren't very productive, so we had them dial down the epidural 2 times.  We kept pushing and pushing (a total of 2.5 hours!)  That was hard work!  Near the end, I could definitely feel where to push, and the pushing became a lot more productive.  The worst part was that I had a terrible burning pain in my left sciatic nerve that I could feel between each contraction.  That was worse than the contractions because there was nothing I could do about it.  But finally, at 2:55 pm, our little one emerged.  A little purple floppy baby arrived briefly on my belly, with Don crying out "It's a girl!"  Don didn't want to cut the cord, so Papa did it, and then, because of some meconium staining, she had to be whisked away to be checked out by the pediatricians.