Hunter's Birth Story (aka "Everything but the kitchen sink labor")

Scheduled induction for 9/9/09 (40 weeks 6 days). Went to doctor's appointment on 9/8/09 for u/s and found out amnio fluid was low (4.6  - needed to be 5). Doctor decided to induce then. Sent to hospital at 1:15PM, ate lunch, hung out, got IV and fetal monitoring. 7PM started Prostin gel to ripen cervix (at 1 cm dilated, 50% effaced, -2 station). Took 2 doses of this and was up all night with contractions - about 6 per hour.

Morning came and the doctor offered to try another dose to see if labor would not progress naturally without Pit. Tried several natural labor induction methods and then caved for the Pit around 5PM. I was told that the Pitocin would be upped every half hour by one CC until we reached twenty and that was as high as we would go. An hour and a half later I was at 7 CCs. Not quite sure what happened there! Worked with doula (must-have investment), husband, and attending nurse to labor naturally on Pitocin until 3AM. There definitely was a very quick progression with the contractions. Contracted every other minute for 6 hours. Intense but not horrible until about 16 CCs. Asked to be checked to get in tub (needed to be 4 cm). No progress!!! At this point doctor did u/s to see if baby was breech - he wasn't. Was told that this labor could go on for a couple more days and that my best bet was to get pain relief if I was going to stay on Pit.

Accepted Epidural at around 3AM. Labored for 20 more minutes waiting on the anestheiologist. Toughest 20 minutes of my life. Something about knowing that relief was coming made me lose focus big time. Got epidural...cake. Woke up in the morning with oxygen on. Babies heart rate was dropping, contractions stopped. Doctor explained I had three choices:

1) Continue Pit and possibly labor for days - ending up in an emergency c-section.

2) Break waters and continue Pit - ending up in an emergency c-section.

3)C-section.

I took the choice that was best for baby after no food and laboring for a couple days...c-section. C-section was cake. Couldn't really stay awake when baby was coming out but was able to get it together to feed immediately after when we got to the room.

Hunter was born on 9/10/09 at 10:09AM. 9/9 on Apgars and not a single issue. He just didn't want to come out!

In fact, he is latched on as I am typing this, lol, the life of a mom!

I learned a great deal from my experience:

1) All of the things I didn't want I got and it turns out the reasons I didn't want them were valid...induction = ended in c-section, Pitocin = too hard to labor through with little to no results, Epidural = immediately caused issues with the baby that were not prevalant before, C-section = missed baby's first moments and miracle of giving birth.

2) All of that being said - nothing went the way I wanted but everything still turned out perfectly and ended with a happy baby. I gave it my all to give him the birth I know he needed and therefore am very content with how things turned out. I have no regrets as I truly tried my hardest.

3) Monitoring - it is horrible! By far the worst part of everything I experienced was the inability to be free to move. To go pee - I had to get out of bed, unhook myself, set off an alarm to the nurse and God forbid I go poo or she would just stand there and wait for me. Also in my most intense moments of natural labor I had a nurse pushing a monitor into my stomach and making me lay on my back (the worst). I made it very clear that I will not be in a hospital next time around. It was like being a prisoner and not conducive to my laboring at all.

4) The things you think are tough are very, very easy. Staying awake, not eating, epidurals, needles, c-sections, c-section recoveries. All of those things just were easy. The natural labor I experienced on the Pit was intense but still not unbearable. It felt amazing to labor with him. He would give a little kick right before the rise of the contraction to warn me it was coming and then we would rest together at the end - it was amazing working together with him.

So that is that. Give it your all and stay true to your instincts and then just go with the flow. As we all know, the end result is so worth the journey.