[Insert obligatory TMI warning here. This is a birth story. Don't read it if you don't want the details.]
The birth actually went well, albeit not the way I had planned. I’m still hashing out how I feel about the changes but the end result is my wonderful baby.
After having bloody show and feeling like 'something' was going to happen in the morning and then having it all go away, my water broke at about 8 Saturday night. I was just lying on the couch, had a strong contraction and felt a weird pop in my abdomen, between my navel and my pubic bone. I felt a little leaking when I sat up and took myself to the toilet where I proceeded to loose a great deal of fluid. Since I’ve been having some problems controlling my bladder, it took me a while to be sure what had happened but after that contractions were regular, about 4 minutes apart. I guess I was expecting something a little more intense because even at 4 minutes apart, they didn't seem too bad. I called the midwife for advice and then opted to head to the hospital about midnight. I was dilated to a 3 when we got there - I knew I would not be much more than that but I didn't want to hassle with check in feeling any worse than I was. Plus I was feeling like I needed Sarah but didn’t want her to have to drive all the way out to the house if I decided to leave for the hospital right after. The contractions were all in my lower back and pretty sucky.
Things progressed well from then until about noon. My midwife was not on call, and Pauline was not actually at the hospital. The nurse took good care of me though. She came in and talked about our birth plan, then proceeded to pay attention to it. We did have to have intermittent monitoring but she was great and spaced it out a bit, even ‘forgetting’ the very last one before she went off shift. I walked around the room, sat on the birth ball, laid over the birth ball and took showers. I could not urinate on the toilet so I would take a shower each time I needed to. In the early morning, around six or seven, I was feeling lots of pressure in my lower back, as though I needed to have a bowel movement, so after some thought I let the nurse check me. I was only a four or five at that point, I think. I wanted to take a bath, but the water pressure was low and not very hot so by the time the tub started filling up the water was cold. So I labored in the shower, on the bed, on the ball, leaning against the table or hanging onto my husband or Sarah. Just wherever seemed comfortable at the moment.
I’m not sure what time the midwife came in. Maybe around nine. She was kind, and solved the problem with the tub by carrying water from the coffee pot. I don’t know how many trips she made... a lot! I labored in the tub for probably a couple of hours. The nurse would come in and hold the monitor on my stomach quite unobtrusively every so often – several times I didn’t even realize she was there. At one point, Pauline asked me how I felt about lying on my side in the tub because the baby didn’t seem to really be aligned the way he should and she though it would encourage him. That actually worked out really well because Sarah was able to perform the lifesaving hip squeeze she learned in our birthing class from that angle and they wrapped some warm blankets around me to keep me comfy. Several times I remember telling Sarah that “I can’t relax – I can’t remember to relax through these contractions.” She would tell me “don’t worry about that, just breathe.” And she could tell when I was not breathing... she would breathe for me and when I heard her inhale and exhale it would remind me without her having to say a thing. The pressure was entirely in my back and the urge to push was getting stronger and stronger so they checked me again – I was almost an eight. Finally I decided to change position and got on my hands and knees in the tub. The pushing urge got the best of me and I pushed through a contraction or two, which resulted in a much needed emptying of my bladder but nothing else. I was thinking that maybe I actually did need to have a bowel movement so I was gave it a try. I also wanted to follow my instincts so I continued to give into the urge, as gently as possible, every now and then.
At noon, after laboring on hands and knees in the bed for quite a while I was feeling it even more, so they checked again. I was almost 9 centimeters with a lip of cervix and it was swelling. Around then my contractions started getting further apart instead of closer. It went from about every two minutes to 4 minutes or more apart. Everything was in my back, and while, with the help of Sarah I was dealing the pain just fine, I kept having the urge to push – in fact it was getting insane and I was pushing a little whether I wanted to or not. I'm afraid that was why the cervix swelled to begin with. The midwife said I might want to think about the possibility of an epidural to try to relax things and then add pitocin to speed things back up. She said I was exhausted and my uterus was tired. I was so determined not to go that route that I asked for more options and time. I wish she would have been more encouraging and helpful, but she did bring a breast pump and then leave us alone. Sarah was awesome, and incredibly supportive. I rested for a while,(at this point I was dozing between contractions) and then we tried the breast pump, and every position we could think of, including the ones that had been working well before. We walked the halls as well. By 2:30 though, nothing had changed and the midwife came back in to talk it over. The cervix was more swollen, things were slowing down even more and she felt I was making negative progress. I didn't see any other options at that point. I went ahead and consented to the epidural, because I didn't feel that adding pitocin alone would help the issue with the cervix. I cried and cried. That just wasn't the way it was supposed to go. I wasn't unable to handle the labor, which is what hurt me the most. I honestly and truly felt that things being the way they were, an epidural might help with relaxation.
After the epidural I did get some sleep, and after giving me a chance to rest and seeing no change, they started the pitocin. I was not completely numb... I could feel my legs and the pressure in the vaginal area but not the complete contraction. I could feel a bit at the very top of my uterus. Two hours later though, when she came back to check, nothing had changed. She started talking about how I only had a few hours until the doctor would want to perform a cesarean. Although she explained that we were not going to do anything right then, in a way it sounded like she was about to go sign me up for one – I am not the only one who felt that way. Everyone in the room heard what I heard. I was devastated. At that point there was nothing I could say or do or think of. My husband wouldn’t look at me. I thought he was upset that I was resisting what was best for the baby but I realized later that he was too emotional about the whole thing and didn’t want to get me more upset. And while he wanted to say something to the midwife at that point he was not sure what to do either. Pauline said that she wanted to place an internal monitor - not the one on the baby's scalp but one to measure the contractions. She said it would show her the strength and what was happening. I had never heard of this... I can't figure out where I missed it in all of my research. In order to do that, she had to place a catheter to empty my bladder. As she was feeding the little tube up and feeling around, suddenly everything changed. She found the baby was headed down the birth canal, was able to push the remaining lip of cervix aside and was asking me to try pushing to see if he was moving down. I'm sure it took a little longer than I remember, but it seemed so sudden – like five minutes or less before I had a group of people around me and was pushing him out. I pushed about 30-45 minutes at the most before he was born. I was so thankful that I was able to feel the pressure indicating the urge to push and ended up being able to do it somewhat effectively.
When his head was crowning, Pauline asked me if I wanted to reach down and feel it. Then they asked if I wanted a mirror and I did. I wasn’t sure before if I would want a mirror but at that point, knowing that I was about to push out my son, and already being somewhat robbed of my ability to be an active participant I wanted that mirror. I have seen many birth videos, but I am glad I got the mirror. It was really a great experience to get to watch him be born. Once his head was out I guess I leaned back in relief because I felt his body rotate out but I didn’t see it.
And then he was here, and everyone was crying and our lives changed forever.
As soon as Ethan was out, they placed him on my chest. I don’t remember all that much about what was going on, I just know that I was crying and holding him and kissing his head. I could tell he wasn’t a small baby and I heard them talking about how big he was. Only a few minutes passed before Pauline told me that the cord had stopped pulsing and asked if they could cut it. I was a little shocked to look down and see Darrell cutting the cord. He had said before he wasn’t interested in doing it which was fine with me. But later he told me that after all that we'd been through, he figured he owed it to Ethan. It was sweet.
I only had one small tear, and they didn't even stitch it because it was so small and not bleeding. Little boy was perfectly healthy and no one had any problems at all. Deborah (my sister) had arrived right before we started pushing, so she and her husband were there and they took pictures and made phone calls and made sure we were all taken care of before they headed to our house to take care of our neglected furry brown child, who had been at home alone with no bathroom facilities for over 24 hours at that point. They came back the next day to keep us company and shuffle things back and forth from the house.
I’m still a little bit in shock, I think. I look over at my little sleeping baby and it’s still kind of like a dream. I can’t believe that after all that waiting he’s really here, and really mine. I love him so much. Everything I went through to get him barely even matters.
