Labor Story

It has been SO LONG since I last blogged. I’m sorry about that. The reason is twofold. First, I was kind of worried that, if I blogged about how wonderful and perfect my pregnancy was, I’d jinx something, and the end of pregnancy would be terrible. And second, I was so big and uncomfortable at the end of pregnancy, when I was pretty sure I couldn’t jinx anything, that I refused to sit at our computer, in the wooden folding chair, to type. Wasn’t going to happen.

But I’m ready to blog now, now that I’m home with my beautiful baby, and Brian’s back to work and not here to entertain me. (;

I’m going to blog out of order. I’ll start with the labor, then go back to the pregnancy. There’s just so much to remember about the labor, that nature wants you to forget, so I want to get this down now.

First I’ll say that, if our living situation was different, I would have wanted a homebirth. I think birth is a natural process that doesn’t need to take place in a hospital. But we live in a teeny apartment with neighbors above and to the side of us, and I never asked our landlords, but I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t have been keen on the idea of us planning to give birth in their building. There are also no birthing centers closer than San Francisco. So we found an OB that worked with midwives. We usually saw the midwives during our visits. And although we would have to give birth in the hospital, at least the midwife present would advocate for us and our desire to have a natural birth.

My due date was May 5^th, but I was quite sure that I would be late. A week or two wouldn’t have surprised me. When a woman passes her due date, she starts getting antsy to have her baby. She’s huge, uncomfortable, and wants to meet the little one that’s been hanging around inside of her for nine months. Although I was a little antsy, I was handling being overdue quite well. I knew that the due date was just an estimate and that first time mothers are usually late.

Of course I was annoyed to have to go to the midwife’s again a week after my due date. I was, frankly, tired of going to that office. I just wanted to wait out the rest of my pregnancy in peace.

I have a feeling that this appointment, exactly one week after my due date, was the beginning of the end of my birth plan. I was supposed to see one of the midwives, but the midwife was at a birth, so we had to see the OB (a prickly woman whose poor bedside manner was amusing at the beginning of the pregnancy, not so much at the end). If having to see the OB didn’t stress me out enough, when I mentioned to the receptionist that I was supposed to do the non-stress test that day, she explained that the room that had the machine in it was being used for acupuncture, and basically blamed me for not telling her when I made the appointment that I would be having the test next time. Like telling her that was my responsibility!

After these two frustrating realizations, I had to go get my blood pressure tested, and surprise surprise, it was high!

Because the non-stress test machine was not available, our OB decided to do an ultrasound. The ultrasound showed that I was carrying a very large baby, 9 pounds plus or minus one pound (not a shock to me, always knew he’d be about 9 pounds). And that my amniotic fluid was low, which again was not surprising to me considering how tightly I’d always carried him. I couldn’t have been as small as I was, carrying a 9 pound baby, if I had a bunch of excess amniotic fluid. If we’d seen the OB more than 3 times throughout the pregnancy, she probably would have realized this about me.

So considering the blood pressure (even though it was lower later in the visit), the lack of fluid, and my puffy ankles (which had been the same degree of puffy for 3 weeks), she suggested we “go to the hospital and have that baby!”

I think she expected us to be more excited about the prospect of meeting our child, but for people who had been educating themselves to have a natural childbirth, the idea of induction didn’t sit right at all.

So she gave us the option of getting some tests done to see if I was on the way to preeclampsia. My friend Evaly explained that they tested creatine levels, blood urea nitrogen levels, blood ast, clotting issues with a complete blood count, and platelets. Not sure if I copied that right. But anyway, they were testing for markers of preeclampsia.

We came back the next day and saw one of the midwives. She told us my blood tests were all normal. My blood pressure was still on the high side but lower than the day before. Unfortunately, the OB still maintained that I needed to give birth, that the high blood pressure was more important than any other marker, and the midwives agreed.

What could we do? Our medical team came to a consensus that I needed to be induced for the health of my baby, and I couldn’t argue with that. So I cried a little, then asked if there was an alternative to just going to the hospital and starting Pitocin.

They decided that they could try to “manually” induce me first. This consisted in inserting something like a catheter with two bulbs on it into my cervix. One would be inflated inside the cervix, the other outside.

But first I had to take the non-stress test to make sure the baby was not in distress. I passed no problem. This was the test I was supposed to take the day before, that would not have shown the OB how much amniotic fluid I had.

So they placed the catheter at noon on May 13^th, and told us we needed to check into the hospital at midnight. The catheter could only be in for 12 hours, then they would start the Pitocin (if I hadn’t gone into labor naturally from the manual induction).

At that point, we got excited. Labor wasn’t happening how we expected, but we couldn’t do anything about that now. We may as well think about how soon we would be meeting our little guy.

We started calling people, telling them that I would be induced at midnight. We, being complete novices, thought we might have a baby the next day, the next morning even. So our friends and family started making plans to leave Atascadero early Friday morning. Rachel even drove up Thursday night so she could be here if he came quickly.

In the mean time, we hung out at home. We got Indian food with Ben Ebert. We watched movies and finished packing our hospital stuff. I tried to sleep, but was too excited.

At midnight we arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital. We had to go through the ER, not a pleasant experience (accidents and sickness on the way to labor and delivery, great). Another pregnant couple came in right after us. She was 37 weeks, her water had broken, and her baby was breech. Interesting how different every experience is.

We got up to L&D, signed in, and were taken to our room. Immediately, I had to put on a gown. Our nurse, Amy (nice, middle-aged lady from Arizona), came in and hooked me up to Pitocin and a monitor. She explained that they would start the Pitocin really low, then raise it as time went by. We had to keep the monitor on all the time because of the Pitocin, another birth plan request altered (we had requested “intermittent monitoring”).

We tried to sleep that night, but it was hard considering we were in a hospital. My contractions still weren’t very strong.

In the morning, our first nurse left and we got Melissa (she had a weird energy to her).

That whole day we just hung out. I got Melissa to hook me up to a machine that let me walk around with my monitor (telemetry machine?). At separate points that day, all our parents came in to visit, and Rachel came to visit. We read magazines and ate lunch. In the afternoon, we popped Zoolander into the laptop. Rachel came up and sat with me while Brian went to talk to our guests.

During the movie, my contractions started getting stronger. Rachel left, we turned the movie off, and started dealing with a more active labor.

At this point, or possibly earlier, I can’t give you times or hours. I mean, everything took hours and hours.

I was having fairly strong contractions in the afternoon but nothing like true active “you’re-gonna-have-a-baby-soon” contractions. I was almost at the limit of Pitocin, so my midwife asked if it would be ok to break my bag of waters. At that point, my birth plan was so out-the-window that I said, “what the hell. If it can help get this kid out.”

So the bag of waters was broken, and it really worked. From then on I was in full-blown labor.

I have to believe that Pitocin-induced labor is more painful and more awful than natural labor. The contractions were 2 minutes apart, each as bad if not worse than the one before. I tried all sorts of positions to get through it: on the ball, walking down the hall, leaning over the ball on the bed. We spent a long time in the shower with me sitting on the ball and Brian helping position the nozzle and holding me. I was in so much pain that I threw up several times. I was crying during contractions. This went on for many hours. I was useless at implementing the relaxation techniques we had learned in our Bradley class. The nurse Melissa taught us some breathing techniques with sounds that really helped.

The pain was horrible, but the worst thing about my labor was being checked after all of it, after hours of pain that I could hardly bear, and being told I was only 4 centimeters dilated. I was crushed.

I made it through a couple more contractions and then asked for an epidural. If getting to 9 centimeters added even another hour to my labor, I felt like I wouldn’t make it.

My midwife conceded that my pain level was obviously high enough to merit the epidural.

They called the anesthesiologist. He got there quick, but it was so hard to handle those contractions from when I asked to when it kicked in. To put the epidural in, they make you sit on the edge of the bed and bend your head forward, curling your spine. The anesthesiologist actually complimented my back. The midwife said she’d never heard an anesthesiologist compliment someone’s back before. Well that was nice, but he was kind of a jerk besides that. Even after the epidural had kicked in, my contractions were still a little more painful than they should have been. The nurse had told me not to push the button for more “juice” before calling her, and when the anesthesiologist came back to “top off” my epidural he said, “next time you feel pain, push the button right away, otherwise it won’t work!” But the nurse told me . . . grumble . . .

By that time we had a really cool nurse named Katie. She couldn’t have been much older than us, and she had a dry sense of humor that we really appreciated.

The epidural was truly heaven at that point. After hours of excruciating pain, to have it nearly go away was incredible! I got to relax. The next time the midwife checked me, I was 7 centimeters! She said that I was able to dilate because the epidural relaxed me. I don’t know if it was that or if the 4 centimeters was my plateau and that I was just about to reach 7 anyway. But that was great news.

I took a nap. I had to wear an oxygen mask at that point because his heart rate was dipping a little, but it soon regulated. As a reaction to the epidural, I started shivering quite badly. It was annoying, but I was pain-free, so I didn't care. At some point, they put an internal monitor in to measure the strength of my contractions. It wasn’t the internal monitor that hooks into the baby’s head, but they type that goes past the baby into the amniotic fluid.

A couple hours after getting the epidural, I had to start pushing. Brian tells me I pushed for an hour and a half (12:45 a.m. – 2:05 a.m.), but it really doesn’t seem like it took that long, because I was getting somewhere! Every push helped. I mean, it was suuuper painful at the end. Probably more painful than the earlier contractions because it is a sharper pain, and I truly remember thinking (and possibly saying), “I can’t do this anymore.” I was crying. But at least his head was right there, and I knew I was about to see our baby.

Our midwife, at some point during the pushing, asked if I wanted to set up the mirror so I could see the head coming out. I declined, and I’m glad. Brian and the nurse were excited when they could see the head just a little. I was in so much pain at that point that I needed to think his whole head was RIGHT THERE, and that just a couple more pushes and he would be out.

Brian also said later that the scene was pretty gruesome, and that I didn’t really need to see it.

It was a great moment when I was instructed to touch him, and I felt his soft fuzzy head. It was amazing and not at all what I imagined.

So I pushed more and even harder, and Everett came out screaming!

It was 2:05 am on May 15^th, and he weighed 9 pounds 4 ounces and was 20.5 inches long (even though we think he was longer since he measured much longer at his first pediatrician’s appointment).

He was placed on my chest, still crying and red and wet and gunky. The nurse, Katie, noticed that he had a strong cry and a weak, whiny cry. The weaker cry worried Katie because it could have meant a lung problem, so she wanted to take him over to the examination area, just to the side of me, and check him all out. This meant cutting the umbilical cord, which we had asked to leave attached at least until the placenta was out and the cord had stopped pulsing. Our midwife mentioned that it was another deviation from our birth plan, but that the cord wasn’t pulsing. And by this time, I didn’t really care. Our big, healthy baby was out, and I couldn’t imagine the cord making much of a difference.

Brian cut the cord, and Katie took him to be checked out. He must have been fine, or fine enough at that point, because he was soon given back to me. He’d been crying this whole time. So much that it seemed to surprise the midwife and nurses. Right after birth, Brian and I noticed that colostrum was coming from my nipple, so when I got Everett back, I put him to my breast, and he started eating. This was the first time he stopped crying after he was born.

While I was nursing, our midwife was able to tug a little and the placenta came out with no pain. She showed it to me, showed me the “pretty” side, and I didn’t really care. I was busy with my little guy. Before the birth, Brian and I had talked about what to do with the placenta. Not seriously. We were pretty sure we wouldn’t do anything with it, but there was a part of me that was kind of sentimental about it. Maybe we could plant it under a tree? But at that point, after the birth, that idea didn’t make sense at all. I just wanted to take our baby home, not the placenta.

I needed a few external stitched, but for the most part, I made it through the pushing pretty well.

It was the middle of the night, and our parents and close friends had been waiting for the news for many many hours. Brian asked if I thought people could come in and meet him, but I was trying to breast feed, and I didn’t know how the next bit would go, so I said “no”. I felt really bad, but I wanted as long as I could get “skin to skin” with Everett before going to Mother/Baby.

Brian went out to our loved ones and said, “it’s a boy!” He showed them a picture, then told them to go to the hotel and get some sleep. They could meet him in the morning.

You’re only allowed to stay in Labor & Delivery for two hours after the birth, which really seemed like no time. Pretty soon they were whisking us away to Mother/Baby. I sat in the wheel chair, held Everett, and was wheeled down the hall. Brian wheeled all our stuff. I thought Everett was annoyed by the bright lights in the hallway but realized later that lights phased him very little.

I won’t write much about our stay in Mother/Baby, since this blog is long enough just being about the labor. It was a nice room that the three of us stayed in alone (I know that some hospitals have shared Mother/Baby rooms). We stayed there and started getting used to feedings and changings and self care (momma was kinda beat up after labor). Nurses came in every few ours and checked him and me. During the day, we saw our parents, Darby, and Garrett. The first time our parents visited, Everett was asleep. The second time, he was awake but really sweet and quite. Our parents brought us sushi and a sandwich with turkey lunchmeat, two things I had avoided throughout the pregnancy.

We checked out “early”, having only spent two nights there. It’s hard when your baby is born at 2:00 in the morning, because a bunch of things happen 24 hours after birth, and no one’s going to come visit you at 2:00 the next morning, so you’re forced to spend another night. Everett had a high bilirubin count at first, so they wanted us to stay another 24 hours, we opted instead to bring him back 24 hours later. We just wanted to go home!

So midmorning on Sunday the 16^th of May, we got to take our baby home.

I hope this account didn’t seem too negative. I had the best possible outcome, a healthy baby. I also had my second goal attained, not having a c-section. This was my #1 fear because I don’t heal well (note neck scar), and I’d love to have our next child vaginally and at home, and no midwife would do a VBAC at home, and many OBs won’t even do VBACs at all, opting to do another c-section (VBAC = vaginal birth after cesarean).

But I also feel that a little negativity is warranted. I still feel that Everett and I were in little danger because of my high blood pressure (which never tested high in the hospital during labor). I think, if given the opportunity to wait and go into labor naturally, I would have needed fewer interventions. I was able to deal with a very high level of pain caused by the Pitocin contractions, and I think I could have handled all the contractions of a natural labor.

But how can a normal person stand up to a doctor when that doctor is telling her she’s endangering her child? She can’t.

I’d like to finish this blog by thanking Brian. He was an amazing support. I couldn’t have done it without him. He was always there, and he kept telling me how strong I was. Everett and I are very lucky to have Brian to help take care of us. I love you!