A little background….Like a lot of expecting ladies out there, I watched The Business of Being Born (with my hubby). The movie scared the bejesus out of me and after some additional research I decided to plan a med-free hospital birth. I discovered that I was absolutely terrified of having a c-section and wanted to do whatever I could to prevent it. Don’t get me wrong, c-sections are absolutely necessary in some deliveries, but I do believe that not being allowed to move around during labor because of epidurals and extensive monitoring, is contributing to the rising rate of c-sections in this country. Why was so I so afraid of a c-section? I had read somewhere that you don’t get to hold your baby for around 40 minutes while they stitch you up. The thought of not getting to hold my baby girl right away terrified me. I don’t know why, it just did. There was no way that my hubs would go for a home birth. So we decided to hire a doula and give the med-free hospital birth a go.
I’ll start at my 36 week doctor appointment. As you know at 36 weeks they have you start coming every week to check your vitals and in some cases, do internals to see if/how you’re progressing. At my 36 week appointment, I was 50% effaced and a fingertip dilated. For those who haven’t been pregnant, that means that my cervix was thinned out 50% and had opened up a fingertip, so not quite a cm. Doc said it could be a tomorrow or it could be 3-5 more weeks. That’s the thing about internals, they really don’t tell you anything, and if you have the choice, I’d recommend not getting one until you are 39 or 40 weeks. They’re not comfortable and there is some research that they increase risk of infection. I am rule follower though and I allowed the internal. My OB had me book an ultrasound for the next appointment so they could measure baby. At 37 weeks I brought my hubs along and we had the ultrasound first, baby measured 5lbs, 5oz. Teeny tiny!. I had another internal, and was 70% effaced and dilated 1cm. She was also at -1 station. Station is how low your baby is in your pelvis. 0 station is even with your pelvis, negative numbers are above your pelvis and positive numbers are below your pelvis. Woah…progress. Still it really didn’t mean anything. My appointment was on a Friday. Saturday evening, I was sitting in my TV watching chair and I felt this sharp pain and a ton of pressure on my bladder. I loved being pregnant and wasn’t sure if I was ready for baby yet, but after this change I was really uncomfortable and started to think that I was ready now. Getting up to pee every 5 minutes sucked and I was just tired.
The morning of Tuesday, January 19th, I was resting in bed, trying to muster the energy to get up for the day. It was around 8am. I felt this tiny little pop. It was nothing really and if I had been up and moving around I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. I went downstairs, grabbed my one cup of coffee that I just couldn’t give up and some PB toast parked my gigantic bottom in my TV chair and ate my breakfast. I really didn’t think anything of the tiny pop I felt until I made my way back up the stairs and felt a bunch of fluid come out. At first I thought I had maybe peed my pants, but I hadn’t had any bladder control issues even after the baby really dropped. When I got upstairs I changed my undies, ripped open the pack of maxi pads I had bought for post-partum recovery and put one in. I also emptied my bladder. Then I called my husband upstairs (we both work from home) and told him that I think that my water may have broke, but I wasn’t sure so just be on standby in case it did. By the time I went back in to pee, about 30 minutes later, I had soaked the pad. When I wiped, there was all this mucus type stuff and I knew that I was about to go into labor. I called the doctor and the triage nurse said that I had to go into the hospital since I had ruptured membranes. This contradicted what my doctor had told me when we discussed how I wanted to labor at home for as long as possible. Like I said, I am rule follower and when it comes to labor, having never been through it before, I figured I was better off listening to the nurse. I told her we’d be in within the next couple of hours then I went downstairs to tell my husband what was going on. He was on a call and immediately told the person on the other end that he had to go. I showered, finished packing the hospital bag and ate a PB & J and a banana – knowing that if today was indeed the day, I wouldn’t get to eat for what could be a long time. We packed up the car, called our doula, told her to standby until we were actually admitted. By the time we left for the hospital I was having contractions. They were toward my back and pretty strong. We didn’t time them because we had to go into the hospital anyways. I remember that I had to kneel over the ottoman a couple of times and the 15 minute car ride to the hospital sucked. I hated sitting down during the contractions. We got to the hospital, were admitted into the maternity assessment area and I changed into my gown. They made me lie down and I was so uncomfortable. Little did I know that I was having the beginnings of back labor. They did a test that is supposed to detect the presence of amniotic fluid. It came back negative. They did another test, it also came back negative. Annoyed and so uncomfortable, I told the nurse that I know I had fluid and that I really, really needed to stand up. She let me stand up by the monitors and said that they were going to check back in an hour. An hour later, I was dilated to three, my labor was progressing and I was officially admitted. They wheeled me up to the labor and delivery floor and by this time I the contractions were really coming along and I was working on keeping calm, letting them come and not fighting them just like I had read about in Mind over Labor. The first nurse that I had was young. I think she was younger than me and I was 29 at the time. She asked me if I wanted any meds and I said no thanks. Then she proceeded to attempt to put and IV in my hand twice, both times blowing up my veins. She also had this uncanny way of asking me questions right in the middle of contractions. I hated her. I wasn’t mean to her and kept my cool, but I loathed her and her questions and IV attempts. By this time my doula, Sally, had arrived. I was so glad to see her. She has this amazing energy and I was glad that she was going to be there for my husband, J, too. I knew he needed just as much support as I did.
Annoying nurse went to get someone else to attempt the IV since they can only try twice. When she got back coincidentally I started to feel nauseous. I was definitely going to hurl and I told them so. She got me a bed pan just in time and I puked up my PB&J rather daintily. Seriously, not one drop out of the bed pan. Everyone was amazed. Nurse #2 came in to do my IV and I was in pain, just wanted to get it over with so that I could get up and walk around. When you have back labor, the worst position is to be on your back. Back labor usually occurs because your baby is sunny-side up, or face up toward your belly, and their head is hitting your spine when your uterus contracts…it f-ing hurts. Nurse #2 gets an IV in on the top of my hand, which I would proceed to bump at least a hundred times. My doctor came in, who was actually the on-call doc from my clinic that day/night (Yay) and attempted to rupture my already ruptured membranes. She tore a bigger hole, but said that she definitely thought they had broken earlier…suck it triage nurse. Here’s where things get a little blurry. I’m still med free, and at some point they got enough monitoring to let me out of bed. I labored on the birthing ball, legs spread open and rocked back and forth, moaning low with each contraction. Fluid was leaking down my legs and I alternated between being hot and freezing. My doula applied pressure to my back when I asked her. I made sure to get up and empty my bladder often because I had read that having a full bladder makes things worse.
Sitting on the toilet was awful. You read that laboring on the toilet works for some women. I hated every second of peeing. I also pooped at one point, which really sucked, but I was relieved that I had because maybe that meant that I wouldn’t poop during pushing. I was right…I didn’t poop. Every hour I had to get back into bed for 20 minutes for monitoring. I did my best not to lose my rhythm during those times. At some point I was checked and was at 5 cm. It was dark out, I have no idea what time it was. I went back to my rocking on the ball and moaning my low moans. When they got to high in pitch, my doula would coach me to lower it. We had the iPod going with Etta James, Otis Redding, The Beatles, and Aretha Franklin going. Besides the music, I wanted quiet. My doula politely asked the second nurse I had not to talk to me while I was having a contraction. She tried politely to discourage them from monitoring me quite so much, since I was in such a good rhythm. I loved having her there. All the while, my husband sat back and watched, changing the music when I asked. He said it was incredibly hard to watch me go through such pain and that he felt really helpless.
Three hours after they checked me and I was at 5cm, they came back in to check me again. I was exhausted. It had been about 13 hours now. Thirteen hours of back labor. I wasn’t getting a break between contractions because my back muscles were in spasm. I was completely calm on the outside because I knew that panicking wouldn’t help, but inside, I was fighting the contractions. I tried so hard to just let them come, but I couldn’t. I was just so tired and the back labor was so painful. It feels sort of like you’re being broken in half. I hate to say it because I hate hate hate scary labor stories, but anyone who has had it will tell you that it is very difficult. So it’s three hours later, she checks me and I’m thinking that if I’ve made it to 7cm, I can definitely keep going. I was still at a 5. Crap. I was defeated. I hadn’t made any progress in three hours and I knew that if I didn’t start progressing again, I was in serious danger of having to get a c-section. I made the decision to get a narcotic pain reliever to try and give my back muscles a rest. My doula was so surprised. She said she had no idea I was in so much pain and that she had never seen someone handle labor as well as I did. Gold star for me! It felt so good to hear her say that because I tried so hard. As soon as they pushed the drug into my IV, a nurse came in and said that my doctor had ordered Pitocin. I knew the contractions would get stronger with the Pitocin and I was so unbelievably exhausted from the 13 hours of back labor that I had so strongly, and calmly endured. I looked at my doula and my hubs and said, I think I want the epidural. The nurse who actually was there until I delivered, Mary (I call her Awesome Nurse Mary), came in and we talked. I asked if the epidural would likely stall out my labor and she said I was far enough along that it shouldn’t. Once you hit 5cm, you’ve progressed enough that the epi won’t really have an effect on your progress. Since I wasn’t progressing without the epi, I really had nothing to lose. My med-free birth was planned with an open-mind and with the intention of avoiding a c-section. I made the decision to go ahead and get the epi, with the support of my husband and doula and after asking all the questions I felt necessary to be comfortable that I had enough information to move forward.
The narcotic wore off after what seemed about an hour. There is no concept of time while you are in active labor. Minutes are really hours, hours seem like days. You have no idea how long it’s been since anything. I now had to stay in the bed because they are required to monitor you while you are on Pitocin because there is a greater risk of fetal distress, and that period of time between the drugs wearing off and the epidural was by far the hardest part of my entire labor. When the anesthesiologist finally came in I swore it was Jesus himself. I was so glad to see him. As he was doing his work, I was hunched over on the side of the bed with my feet on the chair trying very hard to be still while enduring contractions. I think I had at least two during the procedure. I kept wiggling my toes to make sure that I wasn’t paralyzed. My husband noticed and thought it was pretty adorable. The epi was heaven. A normal person would rest at this point, but I was full of all the adrenaline that my body released during my med-free laboring and I was completely wired. My husband took a video, post-epi, that I’ll share with you. It’s 12:30 am in the video and I think it was about a half hour after I had the epidural.
I stayed up all night talking with my doula, my husband snoozed a bit, and the blood pressure cuff went on and off every twenty minutes. I was so thirsty and couldn’t seem to get enough water. I guess the pee in my catheter bag was dark yellow even though they were pushing fluids through my IV constantly. Awesome Nurse Mary came in and helped roll from side to side every hour or so. Each time I would ask about the baby. I was so worried that her heart rate would drop. Awesome Nurse Mary said that our Baby Girl was doing wonderfully. I was so relieved.
Around 4:45am, she came in and checked me and said that it was time to start pushing. Yay! I wasn’t scared at all. I was still so wired, ready to meet my little girl and announce her name to our friends and family. Pushing was by far the easiest part. The epidural definitely helped, but I think it was because I had endured the back labor for so long without meds. After that, anything would seem easy. We all chatted the whole time I pushed. We talked about what freezer meals I had made the weekend before and lots of other things. I’d push and pick right back up in the conversation in between contractions. My husband was astonished and my doula said that it was wonderful how much I was enjoying the whole process. Once I got the hang of pushing – it can take a while to learn how to do it correctly – it became an easy rhythm. In between one of the contractions, I was there with my feet up in the stirrups, Sally on one side, my husband on the other and Awesome Nurse Mary at the bottom and I started passing gas. I tried to hold it in, but couldn’t. I apologized and Mary said that it was a good thing; it meant that baby was moving down. There is no shame or modesty in giving birth. Your body is going to do what it’s going to do. Puke, poop, fart, pee – you have to just go with it. I pushed for an hour and ten minutes – each time the excitement in the room was gaining. They could see the head, she had hair, it was twisting around (which I could feel). The pressure continued to build and then Awesome Nurse Mary said to stop pushing. I laid there for about 15 minutes, until my doctor finally got there. She was only on call until 7am and it was just past 6am. She said, “Oh, my gosh you are ready!” Yes I was laying there with my legs up in the air and crowning head coming out of my hooha waiting for the doctor to arrive. It was pretty uncomfortable. I pushed two more times and she was born. It’s all a blur of pressure and shoulders being pulled out and crying and a writhing, red baby girl being plopped on my chest. I laid my head back and cried. I was so relieved. My girl was here, on my chest. She was covered in vernix and the my doctor said that she was really cheesy. I was 37.5 weeks pregnant when my daughter Kinley was born. She weighed 6lbs. 9oz and was 18 ¾” long.
I looked at her on my chest completely amazed. She was crying loudly and loved hearing her little lungs work. The doctor was pushing and shaking my stomach, trying to get the placenta to release. It wasn’t comfortable, but eventually I felt some pressure again and something come out of my body. Suddenly the room got a little frantic and my doctors hands were up inside of me. The nurse asked if she could take my baby and I said okay. There was all of this shoving going on down there. I looked between my legs and asked if everything was okay. My doc’s eyes were huge and she gave me this tiny little head shake. Then someone told me that my uterus had inverted. WHAT!? I laid my head back trying not to panic, not really processing what they meant. Wave of shoving occurred. My husband said that the doc was seriously elbow deep. He nearly lost his shit, thinking that I was going to die or we’d never have another baby. I was too exhausted to process all of that. I just laid there and moaned with each shove. She finally got it back in, flipped right side out and the chaos stopped. I would later learn that this happens in 1 in 22,000 vaginal births and that I was lucky that I had the epidural or it would have been too painful for her to put my uterus put back in, and I would have likely been in emergency surgery. There is only a little time before the cervix clamps back down and if they don’t get things back into place by then, surgery is your only option. I had a second degree tear that the doc stitched me up, they lowered the stirrups and then I got my baby back.
She was so beautiful, so totally worth it all. We hung out in that room for two hours I think. I got some antibiotics because of the uterus incident and they gave me a shot to help my uterus shrink up and prevent hemorrhaging. I also got some pain killers, since I was likely to be feeling things once the epi wore off for good. I ate, we help Baby K and took videos and pictures. I attempted to nurse for the first time, she suckled for a bit. I called my parents and gave them the news. Awesome Nurse Mary came in to say good-bye and took a picture with us and then another nurse came in and helped me to the bathroom so I could pee, change my gown, and put on my mesh undies with those awesome icepack things with tons of tucks on them for the swelling. Those ice pack things are THE BOMB! Too bad they wear off really quickly. I also loved those mesh undies that they give you.
I sat in the wheel chair holding my baby while my husband pushed a cart of our belongings behind us and the nurse wheeled me up to the recovery floor. People smiled at me along the way and congratulated me. They play twinkle-twinkle little star over the PA system at our hospital each time a baby is born. Since Kinley was born at 6:15 am they didn’t play it because it was before 8am, so as they wheeled me past the desk they played the song and I cried. They actually did it twice for us because they didn’t get to do it at the actual time of her birth. We settled into our new room and it was all very surreal and completely chaotic. I wanted so badly to take a shower, and kept asking the nurse when I would be able to. They kept my IV in because they were concerned about hemorrhaging after the uterus fiasco and she said that I couldn’t take one because of the IV. I stunk, felt downright disgusting and just wanted to feel the warm water run over my head, wash the blood and labor stank off of me. Her shift ended and I asked the next nurse. She said no too. My in-laws came to visit after work so that they could meet their first grandchild and I was nasty. It was embarrassing and I hated getting my photo taken in that state. Finally, the second nurse’s shift ended and a new nurse came on duty. I asked her in a kind of like, if you don’t let me I’m just going to do it without your permission way, if I could take a shower and that the other nurses had said no. I basically told her that they were either going to have to take the IV out or I was going in with it. She told me, no problem and taped a latex glove over my hand. It wasn’t easy showering like that, but damn that shower felt good. It was around 7pm when I finally got to wash up. I did my best to get my curly hair to what would be a reasonable state, and put on my nursing jammies and robe that I had brought. I was tired and sore, but so happy to be clean.
The thing is that hospitals aren’t restful places. They are always coming in your room to take vitals, change or check on something. Baby K wasn’t really nursing that first night, and I was terrified to go to sleep thinking that she would cry and I wouldn’t hear it. When I finally closed my eyes I was having hallucinations about the shoving that occurred after she was born. Phantom labor is what I called it. I am sure it was due to the Purcocet. I also kept thinking that I was still pregnant. It was weird. My husband made the mistake of taking Tylenol PM to get some sleep, and he was all out of it throughout the night. I must have dozed off at some point. At 6am they came in and poked my baby’s heel and made her scream. My doped up husband was oblivious until the screams started. I held her close and cried because they had hurt her and she was so tiny. Hearing your baby scream like that when you haven’t really slept in two days is a lot to take. Later the pediatrician came in from our office and broke the news that Kinley had high bilirubin levels (jaundice) and would need to be put under bili lights. She would get to stay in our room. When he found out that she hadn’t really nursed, he ordered a lactation consultant to come right away. When he left, I broke down. I was inadequate, couldn’t nurse my baby and now she was sick. Turns out that near term babies often have jaundice and that 60% of all babies have it.
As all this was happening, the photographer that we ordered arrived to take photos, and then a person to change the sheets and then our meals and then someone to change the garbage. I think the phone rang too. My husband got pissed, went out to the nurse’s station, said no more people, and that he wanted the lactation consultant there now. In minutes she was there. She put Baby K on my chest and asked if she could touch my breast. When K leaned one way, she grabbed that breast and attempted to help me get her to latch. She asked me to try myself and I did. We were doing everything “right,” but she wasn’t sucking. The LC left and came back with a nipple shield and showed me how to put it on. It was a miracle! My girl sucked away with that thing on. The LC said she would be back tomorrow to check on me and left us alone to do our thing. I was so grateful to her. There is nothing that will make you feel more helpless than breastfeeding issues – especially when you really want to breastfeed.
Because of the jaundice, our Ped instructed the nurses that we were to supplement with 20 cc’s of formula and that I was to start pumping after each feeding to get my milk to come in faster. Every three hours, I would feed K for 10 minutes on each side, then hand her off to my husband to syringe feed her the formula while I pumped for 15 minutes. It was craziness, but my milk came in, and even though we battled the bili levels for two weeks after we brought her home, we were able to stop the formula supplementation. After three weeks of using the nipple shield, I was able to get K to start nursing without it. That was a great day! Nipple shields are messy and it was so nice to be rid of it. I am grateful to that little piece of silicone for making breastfeeding a possibility.
So there you have it, my birth story. It was an amazing ride, and it’s true what they say, you don’t remember the pain. You remember that you were IN pain, but now what that pain felt like or at least I don’t. I can’t wait to do it all over again, and the next time with more knowledge and experience to draw from.
Baby K in the bili bed
Baby K
Hubs feeding K formula
