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Birth Story
Apr. 28th, 2008 01:55 pmSo, I feel like I should share the birth story at some point. And some pictures. So here goes.
Late in week 40, the doula,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
zedrikcayne and I all agreed that we should try some natural induction methods-I was hoping to go into labor because the midwife and the OB I liked were both on call, and it would have worked out nicely. Unfortunately that didn't happen...all that happened was prodromal labor for days. On Sunday I woke up, ate breakfast, got up to go to the bathroom and the only thing I wanted to do was crawl into bed, or the bathtub-I insisted I needed a cave. I spent hours in the bathtub, wearing sunglasses, or finding other ways to make the room dark. Beta sat with me a lot, perching on the edge of the tub, and I kept dipping towels in the water to cover all of me so it was warm, dark and wet. I had contractions that were regular for a while and then they would fade. I took off my wedding ring and my engagement ring and handed them to Cayne, and told him to put them on a chain around his neck-anything touching me was bothersome, including even putting my hair into a ponytail. And things continued this way for days-the need to cower in dark spaces, the need for quiet-when we were at the chiropractor, her office is next to a church and the chimes rang one evening, and I had to plug my ears...the noise nearly brought me to tears. At some point on Sunday Cayne put the cavalry on alert too by calling Maggie (the doula) though I had insisted it wasn't the real thing and that he should wait. (Don't ask me how I knew, it was just a gut feeling that while I needed to do all these things, it wasn't time yet.)
The prodromal labor continued for days, but we'd decided to get a bit more aggressive with the natural induction methods starting on Monday-mostly to stave off the threat of chemical induction, which would come up on Wednesday at my OB appointment. So on Monday morning, we got up bright and early, and headed out to the acupuncturist who had been recommended to us for a session of acupuncture and reflexology. I also saw the chiropractor that day. The one thing that did happen during the acupuncture session was that I finally wanted to kiss the spouse for the first time in months. (I don't know what pregnancy did but it made kissing him on the mouth revolting. And that was sad.) The prodromal labor continued. Monday afternoon, the chiropractor had her daughter in the office with her and when her daughter (who is about a year older than Naomi) cried, I had contractions. I was irritable, and cranky. My mother and I chatted about as often as we usually do, and she would ask when Naomi was coming (Mom knew that that was one of our top choice names, and was adamant from early on that this baby was a girl.) Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, but included a trip to play skee ball because of the amount of walking/bending/moving/doing things that would encourage my cervix to dilate that didn't involve having sex (which was awkward and uncomfortable, but also not a good idea the day before an OB exam.) Tuesday's acupuncture session also involved a moxibustion treatment. It also involved the acupuncturist making a comment about "no playing with needles" which left Cayne and I giggling far too much. Tuesday also included text messages to Maggie to make sure she could join us for the OB appointment on Wednesday, knowing that we'd have to discuss induction, and knowing that I'd have a difficult or impossible time discussing it rationally and unemotionally.
Wednesday started the same way...breakfast, acupuncture/reflexology. Then the OB's office, where we agreed on an induction date, and had membranes stripped. Maggie was there, she seemed to think things made sense the way we did them, and I resigned myself to letting go of the way I wanted things to go from the outset rather than riding the ride and making the choices as they came. We left the doctor's office, Maggie said she'd call us later to find out the actual scheduled time for the induction. Cayne and I went and got something to eat and decided that we needed to make some really fun plans to do something, in light of the fact that we now had an idea of when the baby was going to arrive rather than just hanging around and waiting. We settled on going out for an indulgent and nice dinner, knowing that we'd probably not get to do that for a while, figuring we'd do that on Thursday night. We headed over to Cindy's office (the chiropractor) so I could get my daily adjustment (parasypathetic nervous system trigger stuff to help spur labor.) Cindy was running behind schedule so I was sitting in her waiting room, dozing off (prodromal labor was really messing with my sleep.) Suddenly, I felt the bag of waters bulge twice. I didn't really think much about it mostly because I'd just had membranes stripped...I figured that it was just things being irritated and we still had plenty of time. I was looking forward to our dinner plans. We went into Cindy's office, and chatted with her for a few minutes about stuff in general-labor plans, anything that might be stressing me out and preventing labor from getting started, all sorts of things. And then, I stood up to get on the table for adjusting. I bent over to stretch my back out for a moment before getting on the table and all of a sudden I looked up and said, "I'm suddenly very wet." Cindy looked at me and said "Can I touch it?" She was referring to the small wet spot on my pants. It didn't smell like urine, but with the small amount, we expected it to be urine. The three of us (Cayne, Cindy and I raced out of the office to the bathroom, startling the receptionist on the way. I emptied my bladder and there was another gush. I ran my fingers across my underpants-slightly slimy. We agreed that it was probably amniotic fluid, decided to go ahead with the adjustment, and the three of us headed back into the office. Cindy adjusted me, we confirmed that we'd call Cindy when we were ready for her to come help out, and we headed home to make dinner, call the important people-family,aquariumgirl and Maggie.
So I didn't go play skee ball in labor...had I been having contractions but not broken water, I'd probably have gone-I felt really good. But with the water squishing with the contractions, I decided it was a bad idea.
We called Maggie, came up with a plan for things, was given firm instructions to keep drinking lots, have a glass of wine if I felt like it, and to get some sleep. I ate some dinner, watched TV, played on the computer, posted to LJ, did the usual evening things. I did them all sitting on a couple of towels over a spare shower curtain. I talked to my Mom frequently, and even played a few hands of cards with her (we play games together online at Pogo.com quite often.) Cayne went to bed while I was playing cards. Contractions were happening but still far apart. I finally decided to try and go to bed, but couldn't get comfortable laying down after quite a Herculean effort to do so. I got up and slept siting up on the couch for a while, until somewhere around six in the morning when I woke Cayne and said that my water had been ruptured for more than 12 hours, the contractions were getting a bit closer together and were more consistent, and we should talk about when to go to the hospital. He gave Maggie a call, who told us she was wondering what was going on, and had expected us to call much earlier. She felt strongly that we should go to the hospital soon, and she would meet us there after she put her son on the bus. She also called the midwife we liked, though the OB I liked was also the one on call.
Andy made me some breakfast-I asked for noodles and fruit, and ate some breakfast himself. We both had showers, and we packed up the last few things we wanted for the hospital. We left for the hospital around nine in the morning, with a reminder from Maggie that if we let them know how long my water had been broken, there would be freaking out, immediate antibiotics and probably pitocin too...things I was trying to avoid. We get to the hospital, show our labor pass (this was nice-when we pre-registered at the hospital, they gave us a business card sized paper with a bar code on it so we could bypass a lot of the registration paperwork and head to L&D to get settled.) We got checked in, and went upstairs, where they set us up in a triage room, handed me a gown, got some basic vitals and put me on a contraction monitor which wasn't picking things up. There were nurses in and out, and Maggie showed up. Finally they decided to test the fluid to see if I was in fact ruptured or if I'd ruptured and re-sealed. The hospital is currently testing out a new type of test to check amniotic fluid so they did not one but two different tests-I managed to test positive on one and not the other...but because I tested positive on the one the nurse felt was more sensitive, they decided to admit me and set me up in a labor room. I was about three cm at this point.
We called Cindy, let her know we were being admitted and gave her the room number. She had a patient that morning and so she was going to come in after the patient. The three of us traipsed down the hall, and Andrew went to retrieve the rest of our things from the car. I got settled in and tried to ignore the hospital equipment. We had the tub, the birth ball, all sorts of things at our disposal, which was nice. I spent some time in the tub, which was wonderful. We talked. Contractions were enough to make me pause but not so frequent. Cayne hovered. Lunchtime rolled around, people got hungry. Maggie took out her laptop, and Cayne got very excited to see that the hospital had wireless. She sent Cayne home to get the laptop, and to pick up a few things at the store, and lunch for the rest of them, and a bag of peanut M&Ms for Cindy. (I was supposed to have nothing but clear liquids but I snuck a few pieces of melon in because I was really hungry.) Some time in here, the anesthesiologist came in and explained what my options were for pain relief (demerol, stadol or an epidural)
The nurse came in and discussed Dr. Parker's orders-because my water had been ruptured for quite a while, he wanted to start antibiotics at 2 PM. If things hadn't started moving a bit more quickly by about 5, he wanted to add pitocin. Much as I didn't want this, I consented to it. In all honesty, if Maggie hadn't felt really strongly about getting antibiotics, I'd likely have stayed home a bit longer than we did...though the car ride wasn't exactly easy. I was disappointed, thinking I couldn't be in the tub with the IV, but before the pitocin, I didn't need to be on the monitors, and could hang out in the water. (Seriously thinking I'd like a water birth next time, tyvm.) I spent more time in the tub. Cindy left to see a patient, but did some gentle adjustments before she did. She would return at around 5 in the evening. I was having contractions, but could breathe through them, and was okay with other people chatting and whatnot during them. The contractions were every five to eight minutes apart but not getting closer together, and they hadn't moved much. In the middle of the afternoon, I had decided to try and lay down for a bit, and the contractions changed in intensity a bit...I went through a few minutes of uncontrollable giggling followed by uncontrollable weeping. This startled Maggie a little, but Cayne has seen this behavior before from me in other situations (*cough*) and reassured her that nothing was wrong and I'd be okay in a few minutes once the maniacal laughter had passed.
Five PM rolled around. Cindy came back. They hooked me up to the pitocin drip, and at this point, they required constant fetal monitoring, which gave me a very short tether to the monitors, except when I had to go to the bathroom, which, in all honesty was one of the most comfortable places to labor. The contractions intensified quite noticeably with the first dose of pitocin. Maggie had helped me negotiate a bit, and rather than raising the pitocin dose every fifteen minutes, they were raising it every half hour, giving my body more time to respond and hopefully take over, but if not, to at least respond. I settled on the bed, trying not to lay on my back. They hooked me up to the monitors, which still weren't recording my contractions very well. I labored, and drank apple juice (more apple juice than I've had in years, I think,) ate grape popsicles, and made frequent trips to the bathroom, and changed positions. The nurses came to monitor me. I found that sitting upright was the most comfortable position to labor in. The nursing shift changed, and our night nurse came in and said that she was very much pro-natural birth, that she had given birth to her children that way, and so she was going to do whatever she could to help us make that happen. The pitocin was slowly raised, and I found it less easy to focus during contractions, at one point snapping at Cayne for answering a question that the nurse was asking while I was mid-contraction. At some point also I did growl at Cayne and tell him, "I am never doing this again." I was at six cm for hours and hours on pitocin, though I was having regular contractions that were getting closer together. The pitocin drip stalled though-the nurse couldn't figure out how to override the computer that was controlling the drip and it was stuck at the same level.
In the evening, as labor progressed, my blood pressure began to go up, but my cervix continued to stay at 6 cm. The nurse said she'd have called me 7 and but that Dr. Parker always knocked a centimeter off and so she'd say six just for his sake. With my blood pressure rising, there was strong talk of an epidural or other medication. We found that if I was laying down, my blood pressure remained low enough to keep the doctor and nurses comfortable. Laying on my back was the least comfortable position to be in, but I could manage on my side without too much difficulty...unfortunately this deprived me of the advantage of gravity to help the baby push on my cervix and open it up. But, it was meds or laying down and I figured why not try the lowest intervention method first. I spent hours laying down, breathing and moaning through contractions. Cayne sat by my head some of the time, Cindy would adjust my back or provide pressure, so much so that her legs were shaking. She got Cayne to help provide the right kind and amount of pressure in the right spots.
The nurse who was checking me announced that the water wasn't really broken-that I'd either had a forebag/hindbag or a high leak...she couldn't feel the sutures in the baby's head as she tried to assess what station (how far down in the pelvis) the baby was. She also told us that she though the baby might be a bit sunny side up (ideally, babies are born with the spine facing up and the face, belly and other squishy parts facing the mother's spine...when they're born sunny side up there's more back labor and often, more pain.) Cindy did some other adjustments to help ensure the baby was face down, butt up. I tried some other positions that kept me mostly laying down, but found that the most comfortable thing was laying down. At different points, there were so many different things that helped with the contractions-at one point, it helped to hear people counting through them, at another point I would count the number of deep breaths it took to get through them (it took five deep breaths to get through a contraction, and by counting through them I could tell how close to the end they were. I got frustrated. I asked Cayne to "Play Sting" for me-he knew what I wanted, that I wanted the song we had danced to at our wedding (Sting's "You Were Meant for Me") and he sat there and we listened and got a little teary eyed. I started to feel contractions lower in my back, and into my tailbone. I shivered, suddenly. And I began to sing "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head"-I don't know where it came from, but Cayne sang with me. Perhaps I was channeling my mother (who had been on the phone with Cayne about ever two hours) who used to sing that song when I was a kid. I growled angrily at him about smelling peanut M&Ms. (I don't even think he'd eaten any of them....but for some reason suddenly smelling them made me feel really ill.)
It was getting late, it was ten or so in the evening and I was still stuck at six or seven cm. This was certainly frustrating for me, but also getting to the point where there was talk of further intervention-an epidural to help me relax enough to dilate the rest of the way, a c-section. I got a very stern pep talk from Maggie about having to let go and stop holding back. I got a passionate reminder from Cindy about letting go allowing me to do what she couldn't do (she had planned a home birth and ended up transferring to the hospital for an epidural after about 18 hours of labor and finally getting a c-section.) I cried a little because I was feeling so much pressure from outside and I was having trouble letting go and allowing things to happen. The nurses were talking about what to do next. I found out after the fact that the doctor was getting ready to come in and discuss a c-section with me. I'm glad he didn't...I'm not sure I'd have been in the right frame of mind to say "Why? Is there any reason?"
The nurses were also getting nervous-they were having trouble keeping the monitor on the baby enough to watch her heart rate, which was stressing them out. There were concerns about whether my cervix was swelling, which could have prevented dilation and would have led to other interventions.
What I really needed at that point, but wasn't going to get was to not be attached to monitors and things. I needed to be able to relax, and let go, but that wasn't going to happen when I was being interrupted to check on pitocin and contractions and all sorts of things. As I was getting lectured by the nurses on what they were going to need to do next (give drugs for this or that, how they were jeopardizing their licenses by not having records of the baby's heart rate for long stretches of time) I finally spoke up. I asked if it was possible to stop the pitocin, to give me twenty minutes off the pitocin to get back into the tub, to regroup, to relax, and to just focus. There was quite a bit of resistance to this, because of course it wouldn't work.
I won. They shut the pitocin off, and let me go in the bathtub. I left the lights off, I felt each real contraction, I tried to relax and let go. I spent some time with Cayne. Maggie came in and massaged my face. Cindy came in and did some mild adjustments to my neck. My time passed too quickly but the time I'd negotiated for was so valuable. I got out, refocused, and got back into the bed with the pitocin, lay back down and tried to breathe through. Some more time passed, and I failed to progress further. Still more talk of an epidural, and when Maggie was beginning to talk about it, I got scared. The nurses still had trouble monitoring the baby, and made one more suggestion. I was still at about seven cm. They suggested breaking the bag of waters and using an internal fetal monitor, which attaches to the baby's scalp. It was a last resort before the epidural or a c-section and so after much thought and some consultation, we said yes. On my back, water broken the rest of the way, and the monitor inserted. I felt terribly guilty about this, but it was one of our best chances for the unmedicated birth I wanted. I rolled back on my side and the contractions got closer together and more intense. The contractions continued, stronger and stronger. Still at 7 cm. The nurse said to me, "I'll come back in fifteen minutes to check you again." Many reminders not to push yet.
A few minutes later-much less than fifteen minutes, I made some kind of a noise and cried out, "I'm not pushing but the head is coming." Cindy woke up from the chair she had dozed off in and said "No pushing, don't push, stop pushing." Maggie raced over to the side of the bed and stood near my leg, Cayne sat bolt upright. The nurses and doctor came racing in and three contractions later, while the doctor was still pulling on a gown and the nurse still hadn't checked me yet, the charge nurse said "I've got the head in my hand" and the rest of the baby just slid out. No pushing. I still had no idea whether this baby was a boy or a girl. Cayne stood there, staring and stunned, Maggie finally nudged him and said "Tell her what it is Dad." He paused, choked up and said "It's a girl. We have a daughter." They put Naomi on me, cut the cord, and took her away to weigh/measure/clean her up. I looked up and said, "That's it?" I had been looking forward to the pushing, and was a little disappointed to have missed out on it.
I had to still deliver the placenta, which took two pushes, Cayne went with them while they bathed Naomi-there was some concern about her breathing because she'd come through the birth canal so quickly and not really had an opportunity to expel the fluid in her lungs. Dr. Parker held up the placenta and commented on how beautiful it was. I was surprised at how big it was. I had no tears and obviously, no episiotomy, just a "skid mark" that wasn't even worth a stitch.
A clean, bundled up Naomi was returned to me, and we got her latched on and tried to breastfeed. I ate a sandwich, nursed the baby and tried to soak in what had just transpired.
Analysis? It was the best hospital birth with an OB that I could have had. It wasn't the perfect birth that I'd envisioned but it also wasn't so awful that I regret it. I still wouldn't choose a hospital birth if I'm in a situation to choose something else in the future, but I would have another birth with this OB if I needed to have an OB and a hospital birth. I'm hoping that when it's time for the next one that we'll be at home, in the water, but that's not necessarily the best thing for everyone, and if it turns out not to be the right thing for me, I know I can have a reasonably peaceful birth at the hospital. I won't put up with the same garbage from the hospital pediatrician again though.
Late in week 40, the doula,
zedrikcayne and I all agreed that we should try some natural induction methods-I was hoping to go into labor because the midwife and the OB I liked were both on call, and it would have worked out nicely. Unfortunately that didn't happen...all that happened was prodromal labor for days. On Sunday I woke up, ate breakfast, got up to go to the bathroom and the only thing I wanted to do was crawl into bed, or the bathtub-I insisted I needed a cave. I spent hours in the bathtub, wearing sunglasses, or finding other ways to make the room dark. Beta sat with me a lot, perching on the edge of the tub, and I kept dipping towels in the water to cover all of me so it was warm, dark and wet. I had contractions that were regular for a while and then they would fade. I took off my wedding ring and my engagement ring and handed them to Cayne, and told him to put them on a chain around his neck-anything touching me was bothersome, including even putting my hair into a ponytail. And things continued this way for days-the need to cower in dark spaces, the need for quiet-when we were at the chiropractor, her office is next to a church and the chimes rang one evening, and I had to plug my ears...the noise nearly brought me to tears. At some point on Sunday Cayne put the cavalry on alert too by calling Maggie (the doula) though I had insisted it wasn't the real thing and that he should wait. (Don't ask me how I knew, it was just a gut feeling that while I needed to do all these things, it wasn't time yet.) The prodromal labor continued for days, but we'd decided to get a bit more aggressive with the natural induction methods starting on Monday-mostly to stave off the threat of chemical induction, which would come up on Wednesday at my OB appointment. So on Monday morning, we got up bright and early, and headed out to the acupuncturist who had been recommended to us for a session of acupuncture and reflexology. I also saw the chiropractor that day. The one thing that did happen during the acupuncture session was that I finally wanted to kiss the spouse for the first time in months. (I don't know what pregnancy did but it made kissing him on the mouth revolting. And that was sad.) The prodromal labor continued. Monday afternoon, the chiropractor had her daughter in the office with her and when her daughter (who is about a year older than Naomi) cried, I had contractions. I was irritable, and cranky. My mother and I chatted about as often as we usually do, and she would ask when Naomi was coming (Mom knew that that was one of our top choice names, and was adamant from early on that this baby was a girl.) Tuesday was a repeat of Monday, but included a trip to play skee ball because of the amount of walking/bending/moving/doing things that would encourage my cervix to dilate that didn't involve having sex (which was awkward and uncomfortable, but also not a good idea the day before an OB exam.) Tuesday's acupuncture session also involved a moxibustion treatment. It also involved the acupuncturist making a comment about "no playing with needles" which left Cayne and I giggling far too much. Tuesday also included text messages to Maggie to make sure she could join us for the OB appointment on Wednesday, knowing that we'd have to discuss induction, and knowing that I'd have a difficult or impossible time discussing it rationally and unemotionally.
Wednesday started the same way...breakfast, acupuncture/reflexology. Then the OB's office, where we agreed on an induction date, and had membranes stripped. Maggie was there, she seemed to think things made sense the way we did them, and I resigned myself to letting go of the way I wanted things to go from the outset rather than riding the ride and making the choices as they came. We left the doctor's office, Maggie said she'd call us later to find out the actual scheduled time for the induction. Cayne and I went and got something to eat and decided that we needed to make some really fun plans to do something, in light of the fact that we now had an idea of when the baby was going to arrive rather than just hanging around and waiting. We settled on going out for an indulgent and nice dinner, knowing that we'd probably not get to do that for a while, figuring we'd do that on Thursday night. We headed over to Cindy's office (the chiropractor) so I could get my daily adjustment (parasypathetic nervous system trigger stuff to help spur labor.) Cindy was running behind schedule so I was sitting in her waiting room, dozing off (prodromal labor was really messing with my sleep.) Suddenly, I felt the bag of waters bulge twice. I didn't really think much about it mostly because I'd just had membranes stripped...I figured that it was just things being irritated and we still had plenty of time. I was looking forward to our dinner plans. We went into Cindy's office, and chatted with her for a few minutes about stuff in general-labor plans, anything that might be stressing me out and preventing labor from getting started, all sorts of things. And then, I stood up to get on the table for adjusting. I bent over to stretch my back out for a moment before getting on the table and all of a sudden I looked up and said, "I'm suddenly very wet." Cindy looked at me and said "Can I touch it?" She was referring to the small wet spot on my pants. It didn't smell like urine, but with the small amount, we expected it to be urine. The three of us (Cayne, Cindy and I raced out of the office to the bathroom, startling the receptionist on the way. I emptied my bladder and there was another gush. I ran my fingers across my underpants-slightly slimy. We agreed that it was probably amniotic fluid, decided to go ahead with the adjustment, and the three of us headed back into the office. Cindy adjusted me, we confirmed that we'd call Cindy when we were ready for her to come help out, and we headed home to make dinner, call the important people-family,
aquariumgirl and Maggie. So I didn't go play skee ball in labor...had I been having contractions but not broken water, I'd probably have gone-I felt really good. But with the water squishing with the contractions, I decided it was a bad idea.
We called Maggie, came up with a plan for things, was given firm instructions to keep drinking lots, have a glass of wine if I felt like it, and to get some sleep. I ate some dinner, watched TV, played on the computer, posted to LJ, did the usual evening things. I did them all sitting on a couple of towels over a spare shower curtain. I talked to my Mom frequently, and even played a few hands of cards with her (we play games together online at Pogo.com quite often.) Cayne went to bed while I was playing cards. Contractions were happening but still far apart. I finally decided to try and go to bed, but couldn't get comfortable laying down after quite a Herculean effort to do so. I got up and slept siting up on the couch for a while, until somewhere around six in the morning when I woke Cayne and said that my water had been ruptured for more than 12 hours, the contractions were getting a bit closer together and were more consistent, and we should talk about when to go to the hospital. He gave Maggie a call, who told us she was wondering what was going on, and had expected us to call much earlier. She felt strongly that we should go to the hospital soon, and she would meet us there after she put her son on the bus. She also called the midwife we liked, though the OB I liked was also the one on call.
Andy made me some breakfast-I asked for noodles and fruit, and ate some breakfast himself. We both had showers, and we packed up the last few things we wanted for the hospital. We left for the hospital around nine in the morning, with a reminder from Maggie that if we let them know how long my water had been broken, there would be freaking out, immediate antibiotics and probably pitocin too...things I was trying to avoid. We get to the hospital, show our labor pass (this was nice-when we pre-registered at the hospital, they gave us a business card sized paper with a bar code on it so we could bypass a lot of the registration paperwork and head to L&D to get settled.) We got checked in, and went upstairs, where they set us up in a triage room, handed me a gown, got some basic vitals and put me on a contraction monitor which wasn't picking things up. There were nurses in and out, and Maggie showed up. Finally they decided to test the fluid to see if I was in fact ruptured or if I'd ruptured and re-sealed. The hospital is currently testing out a new type of test to check amniotic fluid so they did not one but two different tests-I managed to test positive on one and not the other...but because I tested positive on the one the nurse felt was more sensitive, they decided to admit me and set me up in a labor room. I was about three cm at this point.
We called Cindy, let her know we were being admitted and gave her the room number. She had a patient that morning and so she was going to come in after the patient. The three of us traipsed down the hall, and Andrew went to retrieve the rest of our things from the car. I got settled in and tried to ignore the hospital equipment. We had the tub, the birth ball, all sorts of things at our disposal, which was nice. I spent some time in the tub, which was wonderful. We talked. Contractions were enough to make me pause but not so frequent. Cayne hovered. Lunchtime rolled around, people got hungry. Maggie took out her laptop, and Cayne got very excited to see that the hospital had wireless. She sent Cayne home to get the laptop, and to pick up a few things at the store, and lunch for the rest of them, and a bag of peanut M&Ms for Cindy. (I was supposed to have nothing but clear liquids but I snuck a few pieces of melon in because I was really hungry.) Some time in here, the anesthesiologist came in and explained what my options were for pain relief (demerol, stadol or an epidural)
The nurse came in and discussed Dr. Parker's orders-because my water had been ruptured for quite a while, he wanted to start antibiotics at 2 PM. If things hadn't started moving a bit more quickly by about 5, he wanted to add pitocin. Much as I didn't want this, I consented to it. In all honesty, if Maggie hadn't felt really strongly about getting antibiotics, I'd likely have stayed home a bit longer than we did...though the car ride wasn't exactly easy. I was disappointed, thinking I couldn't be in the tub with the IV, but before the pitocin, I didn't need to be on the monitors, and could hang out in the water. (Seriously thinking I'd like a water birth next time, tyvm.) I spent more time in the tub. Cindy left to see a patient, but did some gentle adjustments before she did. She would return at around 5 in the evening. I was having contractions, but could breathe through them, and was okay with other people chatting and whatnot during them. The contractions were every five to eight minutes apart but not getting closer together, and they hadn't moved much. In the middle of the afternoon, I had decided to try and lay down for a bit, and the contractions changed in intensity a bit...I went through a few minutes of uncontrollable giggling followed by uncontrollable weeping. This startled Maggie a little, but Cayne has seen this behavior before from me in other situations (*cough*) and reassured her that nothing was wrong and I'd be okay in a few minutes once the maniacal laughter had passed.
Five PM rolled around. Cindy came back. They hooked me up to the pitocin drip, and at this point, they required constant fetal monitoring, which gave me a very short tether to the monitors, except when I had to go to the bathroom, which, in all honesty was one of the most comfortable places to labor. The contractions intensified quite noticeably with the first dose of pitocin. Maggie had helped me negotiate a bit, and rather than raising the pitocin dose every fifteen minutes, they were raising it every half hour, giving my body more time to respond and hopefully take over, but if not, to at least respond. I settled on the bed, trying not to lay on my back. They hooked me up to the monitors, which still weren't recording my contractions very well. I labored, and drank apple juice (more apple juice than I've had in years, I think,) ate grape popsicles, and made frequent trips to the bathroom, and changed positions. The nurses came to monitor me. I found that sitting upright was the most comfortable position to labor in. The nursing shift changed, and our night nurse came in and said that she was very much pro-natural birth, that she had given birth to her children that way, and so she was going to do whatever she could to help us make that happen. The pitocin was slowly raised, and I found it less easy to focus during contractions, at one point snapping at Cayne for answering a question that the nurse was asking while I was mid-contraction. At some point also I did growl at Cayne and tell him, "I am never doing this again." I was at six cm for hours and hours on pitocin, though I was having regular contractions that were getting closer together. The pitocin drip stalled though-the nurse couldn't figure out how to override the computer that was controlling the drip and it was stuck at the same level.
In the evening, as labor progressed, my blood pressure began to go up, but my cervix continued to stay at 6 cm. The nurse said she'd have called me 7 and but that Dr. Parker always knocked a centimeter off and so she'd say six just for his sake. With my blood pressure rising, there was strong talk of an epidural or other medication. We found that if I was laying down, my blood pressure remained low enough to keep the doctor and nurses comfortable. Laying on my back was the least comfortable position to be in, but I could manage on my side without too much difficulty...unfortunately this deprived me of the advantage of gravity to help the baby push on my cervix and open it up. But, it was meds or laying down and I figured why not try the lowest intervention method first. I spent hours laying down, breathing and moaning through contractions. Cayne sat by my head some of the time, Cindy would adjust my back or provide pressure, so much so that her legs were shaking. She got Cayne to help provide the right kind and amount of pressure in the right spots.
The nurse who was checking me announced that the water wasn't really broken-that I'd either had a forebag/hindbag or a high leak...she couldn't feel the sutures in the baby's head as she tried to assess what station (how far down in the pelvis) the baby was. She also told us that she though the baby might be a bit sunny side up (ideally, babies are born with the spine facing up and the face, belly and other squishy parts facing the mother's spine...when they're born sunny side up there's more back labor and often, more pain.) Cindy did some other adjustments to help ensure the baby was face down, butt up. I tried some other positions that kept me mostly laying down, but found that the most comfortable thing was laying down. At different points, there were so many different things that helped with the contractions-at one point, it helped to hear people counting through them, at another point I would count the number of deep breaths it took to get through them (it took five deep breaths to get through a contraction, and by counting through them I could tell how close to the end they were. I got frustrated. I asked Cayne to "Play Sting" for me-he knew what I wanted, that I wanted the song we had danced to at our wedding (Sting's "You Were Meant for Me") and he sat there and we listened and got a little teary eyed. I started to feel contractions lower in my back, and into my tailbone. I shivered, suddenly. And I began to sing "Raindrops Keep Falling on my Head"-I don't know where it came from, but Cayne sang with me. Perhaps I was channeling my mother (who had been on the phone with Cayne about ever two hours) who used to sing that song when I was a kid. I growled angrily at him about smelling peanut M&Ms. (I don't even think he'd eaten any of them....but for some reason suddenly smelling them made me feel really ill.)
It was getting late, it was ten or so in the evening and I was still stuck at six or seven cm. This was certainly frustrating for me, but also getting to the point where there was talk of further intervention-an epidural to help me relax enough to dilate the rest of the way, a c-section. I got a very stern pep talk from Maggie about having to let go and stop holding back. I got a passionate reminder from Cindy about letting go allowing me to do what she couldn't do (she had planned a home birth and ended up transferring to the hospital for an epidural after about 18 hours of labor and finally getting a c-section.) I cried a little because I was feeling so much pressure from outside and I was having trouble letting go and allowing things to happen. The nurses were talking about what to do next. I found out after the fact that the doctor was getting ready to come in and discuss a c-section with me. I'm glad he didn't...I'm not sure I'd have been in the right frame of mind to say "Why? Is there any reason?"
The nurses were also getting nervous-they were having trouble keeping the monitor on the baby enough to watch her heart rate, which was stressing them out. There were concerns about whether my cervix was swelling, which could have prevented dilation and would have led to other interventions.
What I really needed at that point, but wasn't going to get was to not be attached to monitors and things. I needed to be able to relax, and let go, but that wasn't going to happen when I was being interrupted to check on pitocin and contractions and all sorts of things. As I was getting lectured by the nurses on what they were going to need to do next (give drugs for this or that, how they were jeopardizing their licenses by not having records of the baby's heart rate for long stretches of time) I finally spoke up. I asked if it was possible to stop the pitocin, to give me twenty minutes off the pitocin to get back into the tub, to regroup, to relax, and to just focus. There was quite a bit of resistance to this, because of course it wouldn't work.
I won. They shut the pitocin off, and let me go in the bathtub. I left the lights off, I felt each real contraction, I tried to relax and let go. I spent some time with Cayne. Maggie came in and massaged my face. Cindy came in and did some mild adjustments to my neck. My time passed too quickly but the time I'd negotiated for was so valuable. I got out, refocused, and got back into the bed with the pitocin, lay back down and tried to breathe through. Some more time passed, and I failed to progress further. Still more talk of an epidural, and when Maggie was beginning to talk about it, I got scared. The nurses still had trouble monitoring the baby, and made one more suggestion. I was still at about seven cm. They suggested breaking the bag of waters and using an internal fetal monitor, which attaches to the baby's scalp. It was a last resort before the epidural or a c-section and so after much thought and some consultation, we said yes. On my back, water broken the rest of the way, and the monitor inserted. I felt terribly guilty about this, but it was one of our best chances for the unmedicated birth I wanted. I rolled back on my side and the contractions got closer together and more intense. The contractions continued, stronger and stronger. Still at 7 cm. The nurse said to me, "I'll come back in fifteen minutes to check you again." Many reminders not to push yet.
A few minutes later-much less than fifteen minutes, I made some kind of a noise and cried out, "I'm not pushing but the head is coming." Cindy woke up from the chair she had dozed off in and said "No pushing, don't push, stop pushing." Maggie raced over to the side of the bed and stood near my leg, Cayne sat bolt upright. The nurses and doctor came racing in and three contractions later, while the doctor was still pulling on a gown and the nurse still hadn't checked me yet, the charge nurse said "I've got the head in my hand" and the rest of the baby just slid out. No pushing. I still had no idea whether this baby was a boy or a girl. Cayne stood there, staring and stunned, Maggie finally nudged him and said "Tell her what it is Dad." He paused, choked up and said "It's a girl. We have a daughter." They put Naomi on me, cut the cord, and took her away to weigh/measure/clean her up. I looked up and said, "That's it?" I had been looking forward to the pushing, and was a little disappointed to have missed out on it.
I had to still deliver the placenta, which took two pushes, Cayne went with them while they bathed Naomi-there was some concern about her breathing because she'd come through the birth canal so quickly and not really had an opportunity to expel the fluid in her lungs. Dr. Parker held up the placenta and commented on how beautiful it was. I was surprised at how big it was. I had no tears and obviously, no episiotomy, just a "skid mark" that wasn't even worth a stitch.
A clean, bundled up Naomi was returned to me, and we got her latched on and tried to breastfeed. I ate a sandwich, nursed the baby and tried to soak in what had just transpired.
Analysis? It was the best hospital birth with an OB that I could have had. It wasn't the perfect birth that I'd envisioned but it also wasn't so awful that I regret it. I still wouldn't choose a hospital birth if I'm in a situation to choose something else in the future, but I would have another birth with this OB if I needed to have an OB and a hospital birth. I'm hoping that when it's time for the next one that we'll be at home, in the water, but that's not necessarily the best thing for everyone, and if it turns out not to be the right thing for me, I know I can have a reasonably peaceful birth at the hospital. I won't put up with the same garbage from the hospital pediatrician again though.
