October 2014 Moms
TheOtherJacobsons
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Birth Story - TOJ Edition - Updated
TheOtherJacobsons
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tl;dr DD was born on Saturday, September 13th, 2014 at 11:06pm. She was 6 pounds 6 ounces and 19.5 inches long. She was 36 weeks 6 days and 23:06 hours when she decided to make her debut. Just 54 minutes shy of being considered full term. My water broke at approximately 4:00am Friday morning. I labored at home until 6:00am Saturday morning and went to the hospital with 2-3 minutes between surges. Once at the hospital, my surges slowed down and became irregular. I was also GBS positive and needed to be administered antibiotics. After about 14 hours of laboring at the hospital, I ended up taking pitocin to regulate my surges and delivered my baby girl 2 hours later. I practiced hypnobirthing for pain management and had a doula present. I was overall pleased with my experience, but did have to write this to process my experience. As a result of my experience, I will likely opt for a home birth with a midwife/doula for my next delivery.
On Friday morning around 4am, I got up for my middle of the night pee. As I sat down and felt a thud on my pelvis and heard an almost audible pop. I figured that my girl had dropped. I continued to pee even after I had gone back to bed. My first thought was, well, that’s new. I had heard of people peeing when they are pregnant and figured that this might be a new symptom because of the baby’s position. I would feel like I was starting to pee, rush to get to the bathroom and end up peeing anyway. This went on for about an hour. I also had some mild stomach cramping and figured it was an upset stomach from dinner the night before. I had never had any Braxton Hicks contractions, so I didn't know what it would feel like. I was able to fall back to sleep for another couple of hours until DH got up for work.
It was the first day of my maternity leave. I had decided to postpone my maternity leave by one week so that I could train the contractor on month end processes. I got up with DH as I had intended to work because I had been unable to finish everything I needed to finish while training the contractor. I noticed that I had lost my mucus plug and had the “bloody show”. I checked the stages of labor handout that my hypnobirthing instructor had given us to see what that might mean. It indicated that I could be a few days to a few weeks from labor. Considering that I was at the end of my 36th week, that seemed pretty reasonable to me. I told DH to go to work and I’d let him know if he needed to come home.
As the day progressed, it became clear that my water had broken as I continued to leak amniotic fluid and stomach cramping had developed a more noticeable pattern, about every 25-30 minutes. I called DH after lunch to ask him to bring me some pads and he decided to just come home and be with me for the rest of the day. I called the hospital to speak with an OB, but the on call doc said to just come in based on the information I had provided. I called my doula Alicia and we discussed options. Since I tested positive for Group B strep in the first trimester, I knew that they would want to get me on antibiotics as soon as possible and admit me regardless of how much I had dilated. However, I knew that I was nowhere near ready to deliver and I did not want any augmentation if I could avoid it. I decided to continue to labor at home. This meant that I needed to treat myself for GBS and monitor my symptoms. Every 2 hours, I monitored my temperature, took doses of vitamin C and echinacea, and did hibiclens washes. I knew that I would need to go to the hospital with enough time to get at least 1 dose of antibiotics + 4 hours.
During the next 18 hours, DH and I worked on getting everything together for the hospital, as well as the baby. All the while, managing surges and trying to conserve energy and rest. We wrote my birth plan, packed our hospital bags, washed all the newborn clothes and linens 3 times, went grocery shopping for essentials and frozen meals, installed the car seat, put together some music for labor, and managed to sleep for a couple of hours. Alicia recommended drinking a nice big glass of wine to help me sleep. I think I drank half the glass and it really did help. I am pretty sure that after the hour and a half I slept that I woke up a little buzzed.
I let DH sleep for the early morning while I labored in the living room. I wanted him to be fresh for when things got serious. It was about 6 am on Saturday morning and my surges had gotten to 2-3 minutes apart. I had decided that it was time to go to the hospital. I woke up DH and called Alicia and let her know that I was going to head over. She unfortunately had been getting ready to go to the hospital for another reason. Another one of her clients, who was 1 week late, had gone into labor and they were heading to the hospital too. She put me in contact with one of her backup doulas Kim who met me at the hospital.
It was kind of surreal to be on the road while everyone was sleeping. A man walked out into the middle of the road across 2 lanes to see if the bus was on it’s way. A brave homeless woman and her caravan of shopping carts attempted to cross a busy unprotected 4 lane intersection. We also managed to hit every single red light even though there were approximately 3 cars on the road. DH made a joke that this was the kind of stuff that happens before some cosmic event that would cause me to go into labor early and give our kid super powers. The joking was welcomed as the ride to the hospital was less than comfortable and it kept things light.
At 7:30am we were admitted to the hospital. There were so many people delivering that I actually needed to wait for a room to be made available. There was a bit of adjustment that needed to happen when I first got there. I was expecting this as my hypnobirthing instructor told me that the hospital staff just aren't used to people who choose to birth this way, using the hypnobirthing method. I intended to wear my own clothes. I did not want to provide them with a number on their pain scale. I did not want to be hooked up to IV fluids. I wanted a saline lock for the antibiotics and to be removed from the IV when the antibiotics had been administered. I wanted intermittent monitoring and limited cervical checks and I wanted to labor naturally for as long as the baby and I were doing fine. I was actually met with resistance to almost all of these things. One nurse even told me she thought it was a legal requirement for me to give her a number on the pain scale, to which I said that that was not the case and simply refused to give her a number. Fortunately, they were able to accommodate all of my requests except for the monitoring as my membranes had been ruptured for over 24 hours and the GBS made me higher risk.
The nurse made 3 attempts to get the IV needle in my hands, which was not comfortable. The needle was large and she kept pulling and repositioning it once she got it in my arm. She asked another nurse to come in and she ended up putting it in my dominant hand. They left me hooked up to the IV for an hour and when I asked them to remove it as I had requested to be removed from the IV once the antibiotics had been administered, which takes 30 minutes, she noticed that the antibiotics hadn't actually been turned on. In my mind, the antibiotics clock was turned back 1 hour.
The nurse said something about how I looked like a friend of hers. I said that I get that a lot, that there is some chick in Santa Cruz who looks just like me. People would confuse me for her all the time when I lived there and randomly wave at me. She got excited and said that her friend lives in Santa Cruz. Later at the end of her shift, she showed me the photo of her friend. I didn’t see the resemblance and neither did DH, but Kim did. Either way, I told her to let her know that her doppelganger had been found.
There was a lot of time spent adjusting the monitors, taking vitals, hooking up IVs. After I had been given my first dose of antibiotics and had all my vitals checked, I eventually got to leave the room and walk the halls. Movement is really important for getting things going. I would stop and lean on DH while I practiced my relaxation techniques and breathed through the surges. Kim was really good about providing suggestions for hip openers and had some training in hypnobirthing so she used language that I had been used to hearing. She was constantly talking me through the surges.
After a couple of hours the on call doctor, Dr. Anderson, came in to discuss her recommendations. I provided her with a 1 page bullet pointed birth plan, which she looked over in detail. Unfortunately, once I had gotten to the hospital, my surges had slowed from 2-3 minutes to 5-7 minutes. She had some concerns about how long I had been laboring and wanted to start me on pitocin right away. I told her that I wanted to try natural methods like nipple stimulation and/or the use of a breast pump and that if there was no risk to either me or baby, that I would like to continue to labor without augmentation. She seemed very uncomfortable and had trouble making eye contact. She did impress on me that the potential for infection increased the longer we waited to augment labor. Eventually she said that we could try the nipple stimulation and she allowed us to continue to labor on our own.
The nurse who had actually worked on the policy with regards to this procedure came in to let me know the hospital’s approved guidelines for this augmentation method. It did not include the use of a breast pump, so they instead told me what I was allowed to try and provided me with a the 1 page policy and was instructed how to do it. The idea behind the method is to allow the body to produce oxytocin. Which is the hormone your body releases during sex as well as during labor. Pitocin is the synthetic version of oxytocin and while it is similar in molecular composition, it is not the same. At the time I simply knew that the surges would be different, but I didn’t know why. It made sense to me to at least try a natural method before going down the medication road. It seemed that this kind of thing can have a cascading effect and I also thought it was simply too early to thrown in the towel with my body. I mean up until I got to the hospital, things seemed to be going really well.
Honestly, the idea of nipple stimulation weirded me out. I read about it in my hypnobirthing book and laughed at it thinking that the last thing I would be interested in doing was copping a feel in a hospital room or worse, having DH do it. However, after being pushed toward augmentation only 2 hours after arriving at the hospital, I knew that there was a limited time for me to get my body into gear. Everyone left the room and left DH and I alone. We didn’t realize how much we had been deprived of alone time together. It felt really nice. It was quiet and we were able to just be together and give each other affection. I did the nipple stimulation, over my clothing, very skeptically and feeling very silly about the whole thing and then…. literally 1 minute later, I started having a surge. Then another one and another. I had gotten my surges to to go from 5-7 minutes to 4-6 minutes within moments of trying nipple stimulation. I had been converted and no longer felt silly. A few moments later, Kim came back as well as the nurse. I told the nurse of my success and she said that I should cease my efforts as I had met the policy guidelines for when to stop the process.
Since DH and I had had the opportunity to reconnect with each other and that connection was now so noticeably lacking, we decided to discuss this with Kim. She had been doing an excellent job at keeping me focused and using hypnobirthing techniques, but DH and I had always intended for him to be my birth partner. We explained how we had felt when we were alone and how, with everything going on, we had sort of lost that connection and wanted DH to play a more active role. She, of course, took this well and started working with DH on things he could try. She gave him a list of affirmations and things to say to guide me through a surge. She asked if she could take our camera and she spent her time taking photos and walking the halls with us. She did show me some cool things she likes to do in the halls. During a surge she suggested that I squat holding on to the hand rails so that the surge was more effective at opening my cervix.
Things seemed to be going well for a while, but the monitors were an issue. They kept moving off of the baby’s heartbeat and were not picking up all of my surges. I also didn’t appear to be progressing further than 5-6 minutes and had started to slow down again. Because we had been so successful last time, I decided to continue with the nipple stimulation. A couple minutes later, more surges came and started to develop another pattern. The nurse came back and had asked me if I had started the stimulation again and I said that I had and was very happy with the results. At that point she told me that if I wanted to attempt this again that I needed to ask their permission and was told to stop as they had concerns about the baby. They were monitoring two things with regards to the baby, the heart rate and the surface tension of my stomach (a measure of the strength of my surges). What they were seeing and what they were worried about was that when I did nipple stimulation, the baby’s heart rate would show a slight decrease, called D-Cells, during my surges.
Dr. Anderson paid us another visit to let us know that her shift would be ending in about 4 hours and that she wanted me to make a decision on the pitocin before she ended her shift. She informed me that the doctor after her was pretty old school and would not be as understanding as her and she wanted a plan in place before she left. I told her that while I was not entirely opposed to the idea of augmentation, I did want to be given the chance to try natural methods and that I had been kept from doing this. I asked her if I could be allowed this time to do this unimpeded. I told her that I did not have an issue with the drug itself and it was not for a lack of understanding of the drug that I wanted to avoid it, but that my goal was to have a natural drug free birth and I simply wanted the opportunity to try. I told her that at the end of her shift I would let her know of my decision. She seemed pleased by my response and looked at the print outs. She agreed that while there were D-Cells, they were not that bad and allowed me to continue. She had also come in to discuss the pattern, or lack thereof, of my surges. She had observed 4-5 surges as she was sitting with us and she said, “Well, you’re clearly having contractions, but the monitors are not picking them up”. She spent a few minutes adjusting the monitors as the nurses had been doing for the last 8 hours or so. She asked Kim to manually mark the printout when I had a surge. Kim, being the smart woman that she is, asked her to let the staff know that she had been authorized to do this.
Kim asked me if I thought that I had been keeping myself from progressing with labor. She said that she thought that because I was so focused on getting the antibiotics administered, that I kept myself from progressing. This honestly made a lot of sense. It took an hour to get admitted and settled in my room, another hour for them to realize that they had not turned on the antibiotics, plus another 4 hours that I needed to have had the antibiotics before giving birth. I could see myself slowing down the process for 6 hours. I also revealed to her that I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be able to handle the pain of transition. I had already gone for so long and I was starting to doubt my pain tolerance. She suggested a hypnobirthing fear release technique, but for whatever reason we didn’t do one.
There was a nurse shift change shortly after and we got a sort of surly woman. She was nice enough, but there was no connection there. She asked me if I had eaten anything and I told her that I had eaten a bit of a protein bar. I had also had some yogurt, fruit, and a gatorade, but I didn’t want to completely confess that I had smuggled food in. She said, “Huh, I wonder why they didn’t offer you lunch, you have been here long enough to have had food”. I told her that they had said I could only have jello, broth, and water. I took this opportunity to ask her for a breast pump, hoping that she had not spoken with the staff from the previous shift. She seemed put off by my request, but I changed my approach and made it seem like she would be doing me a huge favor. I somehow managed to get her to agree to look into getting a breast pump for me. She even smiled. Score!
Surly nurse left and did not return for another hour. I think I got up and went to the bathroom. I saw myself in the mirror for the first time in hours. My hair was a mess and I just looked haggard. I came out and said, “I want to brush my hair”. Kim jumped up and said, “Oh! I’ll do it!”. So I sat there and let her brush my hair. It was very soothing. It was during this time when we realized that we hadn’t really gotten to know Kim. She was a rock star coming in at the last minute and helping us, but we were all sort of thrown into this situation. We decided to start sharing facts about ourselves and just as we started to develop a bit of a relationship Alicia came in the room to relieve Kim. The other laboring mother had had her baby and Alicia was ready to jump in. We thanked Kim for all of her efforts and Alicia walked her out to her car.
When surly nurse came back, I asked her if I would be able to have lunch now and she seemed a bit uncomfortable and told me that I could not. This was really confusing to me. I didn’t ask her why it was that before it would have been ok and now it was not, but I hadn’t really given it too much thought at the time. Looking back on it, it almost felt like they purposefully did not feed me so that I would deplete my energy reserves and eventually go along with whatever they recommended to me. I also asked her if she was able to get the breast pump and she said that she had. I asked her if she could bring it to me and she said that Dr. Anderson told her that she was not allowed to bring me the pump and that if I wanted more information that I would need to speak with Dr. Anderson. I asked her to please let her know I would like to speak with her.
The surly nurse came in about an hour later and let me know that another woman was delivering and that she would need to leave for a couple of hours and introduced me to another nurse, Kirsten. A few minutes later Dr. Anderson and Kirsten came to my room. Dr. Anderson seemed agitated, she did not make eye contact with me at all and wanted to know why I wanted to speak with her and why I had not decided to start pitocin. I reminded her of her promise to me to allow me to try natural methods unhindered. I had also told her that I had requested a breast pump and wanted to know why this was denied to me. She said that it was not part of their policy to allow this. Again, I realized that we needed to take another approach as clearly having the same conversation multiple times was not working. I asked her what the harm was especially since my window of opportunity was closing. I now had less than 2 hours until the new doctor started his shift. I was hoping that she would see that what I was requesting was a really minor thing and that even if she didn’t offer any credence to it, then there was no real need to try so hard to deny me. She considered it for a moment and said that I could have the breast pump and she left.
Alicia brought a fresh energy even though she had been laboring with another mother for the last 12 hours. Kim had kept her up-to-date on what was going on with us and the staff, so she got us started with some acupressure to bring on surges and an herbal labor tincture every 15 minutes combined with nipple stimulation. Alicia needed to recharge a little and left to meet her husband in the parking lot to eat some dinner.
A nurse brought the pump in and left us. She didn’t show us how to use it. I suppose we could have figured it out, but I guess I figured that Alicia could show us also, so we kept going with what we were doing. Kirsten at one point came back and so we stopped what we were doing to talk with her. I am sure she meant well, but she inserted herself into the situation and regardless of her intention, kept us from what we were trying to do. She wanted to know what the issue was, what we had tried, what we think was the cause of the delay, I can’t really remember. All I kept thinking was that she was taking my time from me. I kept looking at the clock and when we had 20 minutes left until the shift change, I politely asked her to leave. DH and I continued to work. Alicia came in with 15 minutes left on the clock, ready to start. She asked if we had used the pump and I said that they hadn’t shown us how to use it and she seemed frustrated at this. We got me all hooked up to the machine and I think we tried it for a couple of minutes. I don’t actually have a clear memory of trying it. A lot of the time in the previous 2 hours sort of ran together and my recollection of the events is sort of hazy.
Enter Dr. Grouchy McPanterson. He briskly walked into our room, flipped the back of his lab coat up and sat on the chair across from us. Alicia took a backseat, literally, and got up to sat in a chair across the room and observed us. I am paraphrasing, but he said, I have attended thousands of births and have worked with Dr. Hill (my OB and the chair of the Department) for over 20 years and I can tell you right now that Dr. Hill would not want to see you labor for over 36 hours. We need to get you started on pitocin. You are going to be tired. Your body cannot handle another day of this. If you do not start pitocin, you will end up not having the birth you want and your likelihood for a C-section will be high. DH and I are both used to dealing with this kind of personality as we have both worked with academics throughout our careers. We spent the next few minutes having the same conversation we had had with Dr. Anderson as well as expressing our concern for the fact that we believed that we had been intentionally kept from attempting natural methods. We discussed pitocin, which I did have one misconception about that got cleared up. I had thought that the surges would be different as a result of the drug as so many other mothers had sited differences, specifically, that the surge loses it’s bell curve of pain in lieu of a plateau of pain. That sort of intensity did not sound appealing to me. However, this was incorrect. He took it as an opportunity to jump on Alicia and he accused her of telling me this. She also handled herself well and his attention went back to us. We got the impression that he was used to having a different conversation with people about the drug, but we at least had an understanding of what it was and how it worked. He even went so far as to refer to pitocin as oxytocin when he was talking to me about the effects of the drug. It was very subtle, but a form of subterfuge none the less. We told him that we needed a few minutes alone to discuss and he left.
Alicia told us how impressed she was with how we handled the situation and how we were able to stand up for ourselves. She said that most parents are not able to do this as effectively as we did. She discussed with us the effects of pitocin in probably the best explanation I had received so far. Dr. Grouchy had left out the fact that because the molecules are slightly different, the drug does not pass the blood/brain barrier, while oxytocin does. It is what allows your body to experience a surge while feeling good about what your body is doing. With pitocin, you get the pain with no benefits of the emotional connection to the experience. Even with this information, I had already decided that I did want to start pitocin. Had he come in and asked me what I wanted to do and not assuming that he had a fight on his hands, I would have told him that. Instead, we had to waste 15 minutes of everyone’s time establishing dominance.
The reason I had decided to start pitocin was that I did not want to be in the same position I was in the following day. I knew that while I had been doing some really good work: keeping my stress down, managing the pain, and reserving my energy, there was a limit to the amount of time I had to be effective. I had no fear that my body could not do the task ahead, though I did have a fear of the unknown. Part of me had always reserved the right to opt for an epidural. I was worried that the surges from the pitocin would be more intense and that might cause me to throw my whole plan out the window. I kept thinking of what one of my fellow October moms had said in reference to pain medication, “I ain’t nobody’s hero”. However, I was resolved in my intention and I kept the end goal in mind.
Dr. Grouchy came back in and I said, “I am sorry to have put you through the ringer, but I needed you to understand where we were coming from. I do not feel like I had been given the opportunity to try natural methods, however, I do not want to be here this time tomorrow. I had already decided to start pitocin. I do have some requests. I would like to start at the lowest dose and if my contractions develop a pattern, I would like to stop increasing the dose, and if possible, I would like to try stopping pitocin once it is clear that a pattern has been established.” He seemed pleased by this and said, “I would be willing to compromise if it means you will move forward with the pitocin, however, if we stop the pitocin and your contractions start to space out again, we don’t want to jeopardize the progress by reducing it”. This seemed fair and we agreed to the terms.
Then no one came to our room for another hour. I even mentioned to Alicia and DH, “Where’s the urgency?” I guess that’s quite common. You agree to what they want and they leave you alone. Kirsten came back in with the pitocin. DH later told me that he noticed that the bags of pitocin had a large green label on them that said oxytocin as if to deceive people on a subliminal level. After having witnessed their tactics for the last 12 hours, I am certain of this as well. Later Alicia confirmed it by saying that we were right, that all the bags of pitocin say oxytocin and if you look at the actual label below that, it reads pitocin.
It was now about 8:30pm Saturday evening. They turned off almost all of the lights and got me settled in bed to try and get some rest. It was at this time that Alicia suggested that DH leave to get some food. He hadn’t eaten as well and he needed to be alert for me when things escalated. He was really reluctant, but eventually agreed if he could at least be there for when the pitocin was administered. After they started the IV, DH left. I do not believe that I slept at all as I was continuing to have surges, but I did take this time to gather my strength and allow my body to rest. Kirsten talked me through a couple of surges and used hypno language. I asked her if she had any experience with hypnobirthing and she said she had. She also told me that she was currently training to be a midwife. I told her that I could tell as she had been using the terminology. I asked her if she would be my nurse now. I really didn’t want surly nurse to come back. She said that she absolutely would. I let my mind wander. Thought about my fears, acknowledged them, let them go. I resolved myself to having this baby without pain medication. I knew I could do it, I just had to not allow my fear to get the better of me.
About a half hour had passed and the surges started to intensify. I started to describe what I had been feeling to get through them and process them. I believe somewhere in here Kirsten told me that she had lowered my pitocin from 2 to 1. I was thankful that she was honoring my wishes. The surges had started to change and there was a lot more pressure on my pelvic floor. I believe I had about 3 of these when I started to feel the urge to stand up. I also had started to feel a tightening pain on both of my sides. I thought that it was because the monitor straps were too tight, but it was likely the tightening of ligaments in my uterine wall. The ligament pain continued through the surges. They had put a large peanut shaped ball between my legs when I first laid down and I wanted that thing gone and stat. I told them that I needed to get up right then and tried so hard to remove that damn peanut, but for some reason I couldn’t vocalize that and I struggled with the damn thing until someone removed it for me. As soon as it was gone, I started to have another surge. I allowed that one to wash over me and felt much better with the peanut gone. I stayed there for a few more minutes and I think they put a pillow there instead. Then another surge was coming, this one was pushing really hard on my anus. I had to stand up right then. I got up, stood there, and the surge evolved further to include intense pressure on my bladder. I yelled, “Oh my god, I feel like I need to pee and poop at the same time!” The surge passed and I made my way to the bathroom.
It was 9:40pm and Alicia decided to call DH then and left a message, “Aimee is feeling kind of pushy. She has gone through a huge change, the pitocin is in a super low dose and Kirsten just checked her and the baby’s head is in position. You should make your way back as soon as possible.” She didn’t tell me this, but she had been unable to get him on the phone. She had called him a few times before he actually answered. He got the message when he had just gotten back to the parking lot of the hospital. He had gone to the store to get a sandwich, then home to pick up a couple of things, including the checkbook as we had not even given Alicia her check or even met her for our first prenatal visit. We had simply interviewed her and hired her the week before. He rushed to the entrance, but it wouldn’t open, as it was after hours. Since our hospital does not do tours, he didn’t know where to go. He managed to find the after hours entrance that had a call box outside the building. He said he was trying to be as calm as possible, but he said he was speaking really fast and the woman on the other end cut him off and said, “No problem Mr. Jacobson” as if she was fully aware who he was. The door clicked open and he came inside. Apparently he got lost as he had never entered the hospital that way before. He managed to run into some of the hospital staff and asked where Labor and Delivery was. They gave him brief instructions and he went running off.
While this was all happening, I tried to go to the bathroom and could not. There was still pressure on my floor and I was unable to do either bodily function. I gave up, knowing that the pressure was the baby and I had to just get passed it. I got almost all the way back to the bed and another surge came on. This time Kirsten put her arms out and said, “You can lean on me if you want”. I put my arms around her and she held me and we swayed back and forth. The surge instantly subsided and it felt so comforting. I was amazed at how instantly the pain went away. I think I said smiling, “This is nice” and got back into bed. During one of my surges, I felt the urge to push and I did. As soon as it happened, I wanted to make sure that Kirsten knew I didn’t want coached pushing. Unfortunately, I could not use my words. I said, “I don’t, I don’t want, push”. I looked at Alicia for help. She thankfully knew what I was trying to say and said, “She doesn’t want coached pushing”. I think this is when Kirsten checked my cervix and said that I was fully dilated.
DH came back in. Alicia was really excited to see him. He dropped everything he was holding and he came to my bedside. He held my hand and just got into it. He asked me how I was doing and told me I was doing great. He later told me that it was so dark he could hardly see anything and that it was like a furnace it was so hot. Everyone was working in tandem to make sure that I was relaxed. I had my eyes closed for almost the entire time as I was really trying hard to focus. There were different scents as I believe that Alicia used some aroma therapy. They used coconut oil to massage my legs and arms. It was very soothing. I remember thinking how much I loved the smell of the coconut oil. DH had also held one of my legs for me as my legs had started to shake. I wasn’t sure what was happening, so I asked Alicia and she told me that it was due to the hormone shift and it was perfectly normal. It was kind of neat because I was able to have an early warning system for a surge. My legs would tremble, then I would experience pressure on my anus, then intense pressure on my vagina. Once those things happened, the pain would subside. I checked in with my hands on one of my surges because I was holding both Kirsten and DH's hands and wanted to see if I was clenching my fists. I was honestly surprised that there was zero tension in my hands, I was simply holding hands with them.
Dr. Grouchy came in and Kirsten told him that I was 10cm dilated. He said, “Are you sure you checked it right?” and she said, “Yes, I am sure”. Then he said, “There could be a thin layer of skin”. So he checked and said, “You’re right, she’s fully dilated and the baby is in the correct position.” Then he turned to me and said, “Well, she’s got a big head, it’s going to be a while”, and marched off. My thought was that this was a very insensitive thing to say, but honestly not unexpected. I didn’t let it get to me. I was going to meet my baby soon.
Kirsten wanted to move me, so we changed positions. I wanted to use the squat bar so they attached it for me. Every time I moved a surge came on. I rolled on my hands and knees, turned around and leaned on the bar, which was honestly very uncomfortable. My legs started to quiver and I couldn’t really hold myself up easily. I remember feeling a tear in this position. It was a warm sensation at the lowest part of my vagina. I told Alicia what I felt. We moved to the back of the bed and I leaned over there. I think this was by far my favorite position. They wanted me to move to the bathroom. I always thought that laboring in the bathroom was weird. I feel like the bathroom is for expelling waste and not for birthing babies. Even though the hypno breathing exercises are done on the toilet, I still felt like I didn’t want to be there. I walked to the bathroom and on the way in I had pooped: 2 small turds on the floor and one small one in the toilet. Everyone came into the bathroom with me. I guess they had trouble finding the baby’s heartbeat, so Kirsten called another nurse to bring in a doppler. She also came in with some electric candles. Such a nice touch and so thoughtful. They found the heartbeat and I was able to leave the bathroom. I moved back to the bed and I think I leaned over the back of the bed and labored in that position until the end.
My surges were very intense and to get through them I needed to moan deep in my belly. Alicia spent some time telling me to lower the tone and I did. I had stopped bothering to relax my shoulders. There was no way I could deal with that. I had also lost the ability to expand my diaphragm, but I did continue to try. I noticed that not every surge resulted in a push. The pushes did increase in intensity the closer I got to breathing my baby out. I remember that toward the end, I was able to have 2 breaths per push, which is actually a strange sensation. My pelvic floor remained engaged when I gathered my breath and continued to push even deeper. The moans for my final pushes were actually so low that they were inaudible though I was physically moaning. I also felt the baby crown. I could feel my labia sort of pucker out and the baby’s head pop out a little. I lost the ability to speak, but Kirsten lifted my skirt and saw that the baby had crowned. I believe at this point she called the for the doctor. Her and Alicia took my skirt down. I remember calling out, “No, no, no, you can just cut it off”, but they continued working to remove the skirt.
Dr. Grouchy came back in and examined me. He told me that the position I was in would increase my potential for tearing and suggested that I move onto my back. I would have said yes to anything in that moment even though I had no intention of laboring on my back. I didn’t hear this next part because I was very introverted at this stage of my labor, but Alicia and DH filled me in. Dr. Grouchy wanted to move me on my back and Kirsten said that we couldn’t move me that this baby was coming. He was very flippant and said to just move me and she said, “No, we’re not moving her, this baby is coming now”. Following that, I made 2 final pushes and my baby was born. Kirsten actually was the one to catch my baby, which made me feel good to hear later.
I remember hearing my baby cry out for the first time. I couldn’t turn myself around because the baby was still attached to the umbilical and I was attached to the IV. I just had to sit there and listen to her. It was heartbreaking and exciting at the same time. Dr. Grouchy told me that he did not want to delay cord clamping “because of all the blood above her”. I have no idea what that meant. I did want to delay by at least a minute and it had already been over a minute so I said ok. I had also read that delaying clamping increases the baby’s chance for jaundice, so there are pros and cons on both sides. Alicia knew my wishes and she gave me the are you sure look and I said that it was ok. They clamped the cord and DH walked over and cut it. I still had not seen my baby. I wish I had asked for a mirror, but I didn’t think that I would be turned around in the position I was in. They took the baby over to be cleaned up and DH had removed his shirt as we both wanted to have skin to skin contact with the baby.
It was at this point that they helped me turn around. They removed my shirt and sports bra. I looked at Kirsten and Alicia and said, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought!”. Alicia laughed and I also laughed. She snapped a picture of me. I was so happy. I had given birth to my baby. All our hard work had paid off. I looked over at DH holding her. She was a little gooey bloody mess, but she was mine and she was alive and breathing and healthy. DH recalls that at first he was concerned because he assumed that I would be the one to hold her first, but then when the nurse handed her to him he sat in a chair and held her to his chest. He was looking down at her little face and she was so calm. She nuzzled up to him and didn’t cry at all. He said that it was a powerful experience. It was a brand new life and she was his daughter. We had been working toward this for so long and there she was.
It was at this point that I delivered the placenta. It sort of just, bloop, popped out. The rest was a bit uncomfortable. I believe a nurse pushed on my stomach and there was a lot of prodding of fingers in an effort to clear out all the rest of it. I had commissioned Alicia to encapsulate my placenta. The policy of the hospital was that if your membranes had been ruptured for longer than 24 hours, you needed the hospital’s approval in order to remove it from the hospital. Dr. Grouchy asked why I would want it and I said, “It’s not like I am going to make a shake out of it or cook it like a steak, we’re going to dehydrate it and encapsulate it”. He said, “Well, you probably know what I have to say about that”. DH likes to tell it that I was sort of delirious and said with my eyes half open, “Yeah, you probably think it’s a bunch of malarkey”. Even after all of that, I still had enough wit to make a joke like that. I used an old fashioned term for an old fashioned man. He didn’t really have anything to say back, he just said that she could have it.
He had me spread my legs in the stirrups and he examined the tearing. He let me know that I had only one 2nd degree tear. Then he said to me, “I guess you were made for making babies”. I didn’t say this out loud, but I did think to myself, “Well, I am a woman”. I remember telling him, that I wanted a local anesthetic and he jokingly said, “I thought you wanted to do this all natural” and I sort of hardy-har-har’ed at him. I wanted to say, “I am not a masochist, I just wanted a natural birth”.
It was finally my turn to hold my baby. They brought her over to me and laid her on my chest. I just held her to me and smiled. She was finally here. My sweet baby girl. I remember feeling content and accomplished. While I was holding her, I do remember Dr. Grouchy speaking with Kirsten and he said, “You know, I think she could have done this naturally”. I was literally speechless. While he continued to stitch me up, the nurses all left for a shift change. Kirsten came to my side and said that she was glad that I delivered during her shift. She said that she had planned to stay with me until the end even if I had gone over her shift. Dr. Grouchy interjected that he would also have stayed till the end. I could tell that this was his attempt at humor, but it was lost on me. I told her that I was really glad that she was my nurse and that I felt that we had a connection. She said so too and said that made her happy.
Our baby girl was born on Saturday evening at 11:06pm. Dr. Grouchy said that unfortunately had our baby held out another 54 minutes, she would have been considered full term, but that they had to draw the line somewhere. This mean that she would be subjected to more tests and more strict requirements to pass these tests. He then discussed pain medication for me. He said, “I am going to assume that you don’t want any narcotics for your recovery, so I am going to recommend extra strength ibuprofen”. After he had cleaned up, he made his way to leave, I believe he congratulated DH and me and I said something like, “Now you can say ‘I told you so’”. I am not sure he found my joke funny, but he left in good spirits.
They left the 3 of us to bond for about an hour before they took her to the other end of the room to perform some tests on her as well as administer the recommended vaccines and eye drops. They measured her and took her weight. She measured at 19.5 inches and 6 pounds 6 ounces. I guess they had trouble finding her veins too. She was crying so I suggested that DH to go over and talk to her. As soon as she heard his voice she quieted down. It was really remarkable. She remembered his voice. The nurse attempted to find the vein 3 times and had to give up referred her to a phlebotomist.
I got a lovely “massage” where they basically pushed my blood clots out by applying pressure to my abdomen. I got this massage every 15 minutes for the 2 hours following delivery. The last time she came in, I believe I said, “I am sure you are a nice lady, but I can’t say that I look forward to seeing you”. I got up to go to the restroom since they wanted to see me pee. I remember they were trying to help me stand and walk and I let them know that I was ok. They didn’t believe me, but I showed them that I could walk just fine. They seemed very impressed by this. When I came out, they had a wheelchair waiting for me. They had given Tes her bath and were in the process of taking her foot prints and attaching our matching wristbands. DH packed up our things and they handed her to me. We made our way down the hall to Maternity where we spent the next couple of days being woken up and bothered by pretty much everyone until we checked out on Monday evening. We wanted to check out Monday morning, but found out that our baby had jaundice and needed light therapy. We weren't allowed to leave the hospital until about 7pm that evening. During our stay, I remember walking around the halls seeing other mothers either unable to walk or in a serious amount of pain and walking very slowly. I was honestly really thankful that I was able to have the birth that I wanted. I couldn't imagine being unable to walk or need serious pain medication. The amount of pain that I did go through was manageable. I do not need to forget my experience in order to want to have another child. My body did, in fact, know what to do. Next time I will know with certainty that I can trust my intuition and deliver my baby. The one thing I did take away from this experience is that the next time I am pregnant, if I am low risk, I will deliver with a midwife in the comfort of my home.
ETA: Yesterday I made an appointment with my OB. I had thought I needed to meet with him after 2 weeks, but got that confused with the pediatrician visit and I was about 4 weeks early for my OB. While I was not supposed to be there, Dr. Hill said we'd make the most of it. We spent some time talking about how I had been feeling, about my nursing, my milk supply, my recovery, etc. He was about to leave when I told him that I wanted to discuss some things regarding my delivery. I told him that I had some concerns about how Dr. Growley had treated me and the staff. I told him that some of the things he said were inappropriate and unprofessional. He seemed very interested in what I had to say and sat back to listen. I am sure that he had other appointments, but he made no indication that he needed to be anywhere else, but there listening to me. I told him the entire story with a lot of the extras left out. I mainly centered around my interactions with the doctors and nurses.
He told me that they do really care about the experience of their mothers and that because I had a negative experience, he was taking my concerns to heart. He did say that with respect to my interpretation of Dr. Growley's tactics that there was little he could do about how I interpreted what was said vs what was actually said or what was meant to be said. He did say that had he been the attending physician, he would have known me and known where I was coming from and would have likely approached the situation differently as, with me, more information is better than less. That being said he did say that he would have responded aggressively as there were a lot of factors that made my situation high risk as a result of the GBS. He did express that he was not pleased that I had gone against his recommendation from the week before to go to the hospital as soon as my membranes had ruptured. He said that I was the statistic and that I was honestly lucky that both me and my baby were fine. He said that in his experience, most people are not fine. He said that he is happy that both mother and baby ended up healthy and ultimately that is what really mattered. He said that even I had admitted that I had been pushing against the staff as soon as I got to the hospital and that likely colored how they felt they had to deal with me. He said that there is a stereotype of the kind of person that comes to the hospital, with a doula, and wants to go against everything that they recommend. He said that considering that they did not know me, that they had likely put me into that category of person and responded in kind.
He did seem very concerned with how Dr. Growley had treated Kirsten and said that he would discuss this with him. That there was no need to undermine her in front of anyone. That those kinds of conversations should happen outside of the room and should not ever be said in front of patients. He agreed that regardless of whether or not she had or had not done the exam correctly, that saying that out loud served no purpose and was inappropriate. All he needed to do was check to see if it was done correctly and should not have said what he said. While nothing will be done with regards to how I had been spoken to, I do feel glad that what had happened to Kirsten would be addressed.
On Friday morning around 4am, I got up for my middle of the night pee. As I sat down and felt a thud on my pelvis and heard an almost audible pop. I figured that my girl had dropped. I continued to pee even after I had gone back to bed. My first thought was, well, that’s new. I had heard of people peeing when they are pregnant and figured that this might be a new symptom because of the baby’s position. I would feel like I was starting to pee, rush to get to the bathroom and end up peeing anyway. This went on for about an hour. I also had some mild stomach cramping and figured it was an upset stomach from dinner the night before. I had never had any Braxton Hicks contractions, so I didn't know what it would feel like. I was able to fall back to sleep for another couple of hours until DH got up for work.
It was the first day of my maternity leave. I had decided to postpone my maternity leave by one week so that I could train the contractor on month end processes. I got up with DH as I had intended to work because I had been unable to finish everything I needed to finish while training the contractor. I noticed that I had lost my mucus plug and had the “bloody show”. I checked the stages of labor handout that my hypnobirthing instructor had given us to see what that might mean. It indicated that I could be a few days to a few weeks from labor. Considering that I was at the end of my 36th week, that seemed pretty reasonable to me. I told DH to go to work and I’d let him know if he needed to come home.
As the day progressed, it became clear that my water had broken as I continued to leak amniotic fluid and stomach cramping had developed a more noticeable pattern, about every 25-30 minutes. I called DH after lunch to ask him to bring me some pads and he decided to just come home and be with me for the rest of the day. I called the hospital to speak with an OB, but the on call doc said to just come in based on the information I had provided. I called my doula Alicia and we discussed options. Since I tested positive for Group B strep in the first trimester, I knew that they would want to get me on antibiotics as soon as possible and admit me regardless of how much I had dilated. However, I knew that I was nowhere near ready to deliver and I did not want any augmentation if I could avoid it. I decided to continue to labor at home. This meant that I needed to treat myself for GBS and monitor my symptoms. Every 2 hours, I monitored my temperature, took doses of vitamin C and echinacea, and did hibiclens washes. I knew that I would need to go to the hospital with enough time to get at least 1 dose of antibiotics + 4 hours.
During the next 18 hours, DH and I worked on getting everything together for the hospital, as well as the baby. All the while, managing surges and trying to conserve energy and rest. We wrote my birth plan, packed our hospital bags, washed all the newborn clothes and linens 3 times, went grocery shopping for essentials and frozen meals, installed the car seat, put together some music for labor, and managed to sleep for a couple of hours. Alicia recommended drinking a nice big glass of wine to help me sleep. I think I drank half the glass and it really did help. I am pretty sure that after the hour and a half I slept that I woke up a little buzzed.
I let DH sleep for the early morning while I labored in the living room. I wanted him to be fresh for when things got serious. It was about 6 am on Saturday morning and my surges had gotten to 2-3 minutes apart. I had decided that it was time to go to the hospital. I woke up DH and called Alicia and let her know that I was going to head over. She unfortunately had been getting ready to go to the hospital for another reason. Another one of her clients, who was 1 week late, had gone into labor and they were heading to the hospital too. She put me in contact with one of her backup doulas Kim who met me at the hospital.
It was kind of surreal to be on the road while everyone was sleeping. A man walked out into the middle of the road across 2 lanes to see if the bus was on it’s way. A brave homeless woman and her caravan of shopping carts attempted to cross a busy unprotected 4 lane intersection. We also managed to hit every single red light even though there were approximately 3 cars on the road. DH made a joke that this was the kind of stuff that happens before some cosmic event that would cause me to go into labor early and give our kid super powers. The joking was welcomed as the ride to the hospital was less than comfortable and it kept things light.
At 7:30am we were admitted to the hospital. There were so many people delivering that I actually needed to wait for a room to be made available. There was a bit of adjustment that needed to happen when I first got there. I was expecting this as my hypnobirthing instructor told me that the hospital staff just aren't used to people who choose to birth this way, using the hypnobirthing method. I intended to wear my own clothes. I did not want to provide them with a number on their pain scale. I did not want to be hooked up to IV fluids. I wanted a saline lock for the antibiotics and to be removed from the IV when the antibiotics had been administered. I wanted intermittent monitoring and limited cervical checks and I wanted to labor naturally for as long as the baby and I were doing fine. I was actually met with resistance to almost all of these things. One nurse even told me she thought it was a legal requirement for me to give her a number on the pain scale, to which I said that that was not the case and simply refused to give her a number. Fortunately, they were able to accommodate all of my requests except for the monitoring as my membranes had been ruptured for over 24 hours and the GBS made me higher risk.
The nurse made 3 attempts to get the IV needle in my hands, which was not comfortable. The needle was large and she kept pulling and repositioning it once she got it in my arm. She asked another nurse to come in and she ended up putting it in my dominant hand. They left me hooked up to the IV for an hour and when I asked them to remove it as I had requested to be removed from the IV once the antibiotics had been administered, which takes 30 minutes, she noticed that the antibiotics hadn't actually been turned on. In my mind, the antibiotics clock was turned back 1 hour.
The nurse said something about how I looked like a friend of hers. I said that I get that a lot, that there is some chick in Santa Cruz who looks just like me. People would confuse me for her all the time when I lived there and randomly wave at me. She got excited and said that her friend lives in Santa Cruz. Later at the end of her shift, she showed me the photo of her friend. I didn’t see the resemblance and neither did DH, but Kim did. Either way, I told her to let her know that her doppelganger had been found.
There was a lot of time spent adjusting the monitors, taking vitals, hooking up IVs. After I had been given my first dose of antibiotics and had all my vitals checked, I eventually got to leave the room and walk the halls. Movement is really important for getting things going. I would stop and lean on DH while I practiced my relaxation techniques and breathed through the surges. Kim was really good about providing suggestions for hip openers and had some training in hypnobirthing so she used language that I had been used to hearing. She was constantly talking me through the surges.
After a couple of hours the on call doctor, Dr. Anderson, came in to discuss her recommendations. I provided her with a 1 page bullet pointed birth plan, which she looked over in detail. Unfortunately, once I had gotten to the hospital, my surges had slowed from 2-3 minutes to 5-7 minutes. She had some concerns about how long I had been laboring and wanted to start me on pitocin right away. I told her that I wanted to try natural methods like nipple stimulation and/or the use of a breast pump and that if there was no risk to either me or baby, that I would like to continue to labor without augmentation. She seemed very uncomfortable and had trouble making eye contact. She did impress on me that the potential for infection increased the longer we waited to augment labor. Eventually she said that we could try the nipple stimulation and she allowed us to continue to labor on our own.
The nurse who had actually worked on the policy with regards to this procedure came in to let me know the hospital’s approved guidelines for this augmentation method. It did not include the use of a breast pump, so they instead told me what I was allowed to try and provided me with a the 1 page policy and was instructed how to do it. The idea behind the method is to allow the body to produce oxytocin. Which is the hormone your body releases during sex as well as during labor. Pitocin is the synthetic version of oxytocin and while it is similar in molecular composition, it is not the same. At the time I simply knew that the surges would be different, but I didn’t know why. It made sense to me to at least try a natural method before going down the medication road. It seemed that this kind of thing can have a cascading effect and I also thought it was simply too early to thrown in the towel with my body. I mean up until I got to the hospital, things seemed to be going really well.
Honestly, the idea of nipple stimulation weirded me out. I read about it in my hypnobirthing book and laughed at it thinking that the last thing I would be interested in doing was copping a feel in a hospital room or worse, having DH do it. However, after being pushed toward augmentation only 2 hours after arriving at the hospital, I knew that there was a limited time for me to get my body into gear. Everyone left the room and left DH and I alone. We didn’t realize how much we had been deprived of alone time together. It felt really nice. It was quiet and we were able to just be together and give each other affection. I did the nipple stimulation, over my clothing, very skeptically and feeling very silly about the whole thing and then…. literally 1 minute later, I started having a surge. Then another one and another. I had gotten my surges to to go from 5-7 minutes to 4-6 minutes within moments of trying nipple stimulation. I had been converted and no longer felt silly. A few moments later, Kim came back as well as the nurse. I told the nurse of my success and she said that I should cease my efforts as I had met the policy guidelines for when to stop the process.
Since DH and I had had the opportunity to reconnect with each other and that connection was now so noticeably lacking, we decided to discuss this with Kim. She had been doing an excellent job at keeping me focused and using hypnobirthing techniques, but DH and I had always intended for him to be my birth partner. We explained how we had felt when we were alone and how, with everything going on, we had sort of lost that connection and wanted DH to play a more active role. She, of course, took this well and started working with DH on things he could try. She gave him a list of affirmations and things to say to guide me through a surge. She asked if she could take our camera and she spent her time taking photos and walking the halls with us. She did show me some cool things she likes to do in the halls. During a surge she suggested that I squat holding on to the hand rails so that the surge was more effective at opening my cervix.
Things seemed to be going well for a while, but the monitors were an issue. They kept moving off of the baby’s heartbeat and were not picking up all of my surges. I also didn’t appear to be progressing further than 5-6 minutes and had started to slow down again. Because we had been so successful last time, I decided to continue with the nipple stimulation. A couple minutes later, more surges came and started to develop another pattern. The nurse came back and had asked me if I had started the stimulation again and I said that I had and was very happy with the results. At that point she told me that if I wanted to attempt this again that I needed to ask their permission and was told to stop as they had concerns about the baby. They were monitoring two things with regards to the baby, the heart rate and the surface tension of my stomach (a measure of the strength of my surges). What they were seeing and what they were worried about was that when I did nipple stimulation, the baby’s heart rate would show a slight decrease, called D-Cells, during my surges.
Dr. Anderson paid us another visit to let us know that her shift would be ending in about 4 hours and that she wanted me to make a decision on the pitocin before she ended her shift. She informed me that the doctor after her was pretty old school and would not be as understanding as her and she wanted a plan in place before she left. I told her that while I was not entirely opposed to the idea of augmentation, I did want to be given the chance to try natural methods and that I had been kept from doing this. I asked her if I could be allowed this time to do this unimpeded. I told her that I did not have an issue with the drug itself and it was not for a lack of understanding of the drug that I wanted to avoid it, but that my goal was to have a natural drug free birth and I simply wanted the opportunity to try. I told her that at the end of her shift I would let her know of my decision. She seemed pleased by my response and looked at the print outs. She agreed that while there were D-Cells, they were not that bad and allowed me to continue. She had also come in to discuss the pattern, or lack thereof, of my surges. She had observed 4-5 surges as she was sitting with us and she said, “Well, you’re clearly having contractions, but the monitors are not picking them up”. She spent a few minutes adjusting the monitors as the nurses had been doing for the last 8 hours or so. She asked Kim to manually mark the printout when I had a surge. Kim, being the smart woman that she is, asked her to let the staff know that she had been authorized to do this.
Kim asked me if I thought that I had been keeping myself from progressing with labor. She said that she thought that because I was so focused on getting the antibiotics administered, that I kept myself from progressing. This honestly made a lot of sense. It took an hour to get admitted and settled in my room, another hour for them to realize that they had not turned on the antibiotics, plus another 4 hours that I needed to have had the antibiotics before giving birth. I could see myself slowing down the process for 6 hours. I also revealed to her that I was starting to worry that I wouldn’t be able to handle the pain of transition. I had already gone for so long and I was starting to doubt my pain tolerance. She suggested a hypnobirthing fear release technique, but for whatever reason we didn’t do one.
There was a nurse shift change shortly after and we got a sort of surly woman. She was nice enough, but there was no connection there. She asked me if I had eaten anything and I told her that I had eaten a bit of a protein bar. I had also had some yogurt, fruit, and a gatorade, but I didn’t want to completely confess that I had smuggled food in. She said, “Huh, I wonder why they didn’t offer you lunch, you have been here long enough to have had food”. I told her that they had said I could only have jello, broth, and water. I took this opportunity to ask her for a breast pump, hoping that she had not spoken with the staff from the previous shift. She seemed put off by my request, but I changed my approach and made it seem like she would be doing me a huge favor. I somehow managed to get her to agree to look into getting a breast pump for me. She even smiled. Score!
Surly nurse left and did not return for another hour. I think I got up and went to the bathroom. I saw myself in the mirror for the first time in hours. My hair was a mess and I just looked haggard. I came out and said, “I want to brush my hair”. Kim jumped up and said, “Oh! I’ll do it!”. So I sat there and let her brush my hair. It was very soothing. It was during this time when we realized that we hadn’t really gotten to know Kim. She was a rock star coming in at the last minute and helping us, but we were all sort of thrown into this situation. We decided to start sharing facts about ourselves and just as we started to develop a bit of a relationship Alicia came in the room to relieve Kim. The other laboring mother had had her baby and Alicia was ready to jump in. We thanked Kim for all of her efforts and Alicia walked her out to her car.
When surly nurse came back, I asked her if I would be able to have lunch now and she seemed a bit uncomfortable and told me that I could not. This was really confusing to me. I didn’t ask her why it was that before it would have been ok and now it was not, but I hadn’t really given it too much thought at the time. Looking back on it, it almost felt like they purposefully did not feed me so that I would deplete my energy reserves and eventually go along with whatever they recommended to me. I also asked her if she was able to get the breast pump and she said that she had. I asked her if she could bring it to me and she said that Dr. Anderson told her that she was not allowed to bring me the pump and that if I wanted more information that I would need to speak with Dr. Anderson. I asked her to please let her know I would like to speak with her.
The surly nurse came in about an hour later and let me know that another woman was delivering and that she would need to leave for a couple of hours and introduced me to another nurse, Kirsten. A few minutes later Dr. Anderson and Kirsten came to my room. Dr. Anderson seemed agitated, she did not make eye contact with me at all and wanted to know why I wanted to speak with her and why I had not decided to start pitocin. I reminded her of her promise to me to allow me to try natural methods unhindered. I had also told her that I had requested a breast pump and wanted to know why this was denied to me. She said that it was not part of their policy to allow this. Again, I realized that we needed to take another approach as clearly having the same conversation multiple times was not working. I asked her what the harm was especially since my window of opportunity was closing. I now had less than 2 hours until the new doctor started his shift. I was hoping that she would see that what I was requesting was a really minor thing and that even if she didn’t offer any credence to it, then there was no real need to try so hard to deny me. She considered it for a moment and said that I could have the breast pump and she left.
Alicia brought a fresh energy even though she had been laboring with another mother for the last 12 hours. Kim had kept her up-to-date on what was going on with us and the staff, so she got us started with some acupressure to bring on surges and an herbal labor tincture every 15 minutes combined with nipple stimulation. Alicia needed to recharge a little and left to meet her husband in the parking lot to eat some dinner.
A nurse brought the pump in and left us. She didn’t show us how to use it. I suppose we could have figured it out, but I guess I figured that Alicia could show us also, so we kept going with what we were doing. Kirsten at one point came back and so we stopped what we were doing to talk with her. I am sure she meant well, but she inserted herself into the situation and regardless of her intention, kept us from what we were trying to do. She wanted to know what the issue was, what we had tried, what we think was the cause of the delay, I can’t really remember. All I kept thinking was that she was taking my time from me. I kept looking at the clock and when we had 20 minutes left until the shift change, I politely asked her to leave. DH and I continued to work. Alicia came in with 15 minutes left on the clock, ready to start. She asked if we had used the pump and I said that they hadn’t shown us how to use it and she seemed frustrated at this. We got me all hooked up to the machine and I think we tried it for a couple of minutes. I don’t actually have a clear memory of trying it. A lot of the time in the previous 2 hours sort of ran together and my recollection of the events is sort of hazy.
Enter Dr. Grouchy McPanterson. He briskly walked into our room, flipped the back of his lab coat up and sat on the chair across from us. Alicia took a backseat, literally, and got up to sat in a chair across the room and observed us. I am paraphrasing, but he said, I have attended thousands of births and have worked with Dr. Hill (my OB and the chair of the Department) for over 20 years and I can tell you right now that Dr. Hill would not want to see you labor for over 36 hours. We need to get you started on pitocin. You are going to be tired. Your body cannot handle another day of this. If you do not start pitocin, you will end up not having the birth you want and your likelihood for a C-section will be high. DH and I are both used to dealing with this kind of personality as we have both worked with academics throughout our careers. We spent the next few minutes having the same conversation we had had with Dr. Anderson as well as expressing our concern for the fact that we believed that we had been intentionally kept from attempting natural methods. We discussed pitocin, which I did have one misconception about that got cleared up. I had thought that the surges would be different as a result of the drug as so many other mothers had sited differences, specifically, that the surge loses it’s bell curve of pain in lieu of a plateau of pain. That sort of intensity did not sound appealing to me. However, this was incorrect. He took it as an opportunity to jump on Alicia and he accused her of telling me this. She also handled herself well and his attention went back to us. We got the impression that he was used to having a different conversation with people about the drug, but we at least had an understanding of what it was and how it worked. He even went so far as to refer to pitocin as oxytocin when he was talking to me about the effects of the drug. It was very subtle, but a form of subterfuge none the less. We told him that we needed a few minutes alone to discuss and he left.
Alicia told us how impressed she was with how we handled the situation and how we were able to stand up for ourselves. She said that most parents are not able to do this as effectively as we did. She discussed with us the effects of pitocin in probably the best explanation I had received so far. Dr. Grouchy had left out the fact that because the molecules are slightly different, the drug does not pass the blood/brain barrier, while oxytocin does. It is what allows your body to experience a surge while feeling good about what your body is doing. With pitocin, you get the pain with no benefits of the emotional connection to the experience. Even with this information, I had already decided that I did want to start pitocin. Had he come in and asked me what I wanted to do and not assuming that he had a fight on his hands, I would have told him that. Instead, we had to waste 15 minutes of everyone’s time establishing dominance.
The reason I had decided to start pitocin was that I did not want to be in the same position I was in the following day. I knew that while I had been doing some really good work: keeping my stress down, managing the pain, and reserving my energy, there was a limit to the amount of time I had to be effective. I had no fear that my body could not do the task ahead, though I did have a fear of the unknown. Part of me had always reserved the right to opt for an epidural. I was worried that the surges from the pitocin would be more intense and that might cause me to throw my whole plan out the window. I kept thinking of what one of my fellow October moms had said in reference to pain medication, “I ain’t nobody’s hero”. However, I was resolved in my intention and I kept the end goal in mind.
Dr. Grouchy came back in and I said, “I am sorry to have put you through the ringer, but I needed you to understand where we were coming from. I do not feel like I had been given the opportunity to try natural methods, however, I do not want to be here this time tomorrow. I had already decided to start pitocin. I do have some requests. I would like to start at the lowest dose and if my contractions develop a pattern, I would like to stop increasing the dose, and if possible, I would like to try stopping pitocin once it is clear that a pattern has been established.” He seemed pleased by this and said, “I would be willing to compromise if it means you will move forward with the pitocin, however, if we stop the pitocin and your contractions start to space out again, we don’t want to jeopardize the progress by reducing it”. This seemed fair and we agreed to the terms.
Then no one came to our room for another hour. I even mentioned to Alicia and DH, “Where’s the urgency?” I guess that’s quite common. You agree to what they want and they leave you alone. Kirsten came back in with the pitocin. DH later told me that he noticed that the bags of pitocin had a large green label on them that said oxytocin as if to deceive people on a subliminal level. After having witnessed their tactics for the last 12 hours, I am certain of this as well. Later Alicia confirmed it by saying that we were right, that all the bags of pitocin say oxytocin and if you look at the actual label below that, it reads pitocin.
It was now about 8:30pm Saturday evening. They turned off almost all of the lights and got me settled in bed to try and get some rest. It was at this time that Alicia suggested that DH leave to get some food. He hadn’t eaten as well and he needed to be alert for me when things escalated. He was really reluctant, but eventually agreed if he could at least be there for when the pitocin was administered. After they started the IV, DH left. I do not believe that I slept at all as I was continuing to have surges, but I did take this time to gather my strength and allow my body to rest. Kirsten talked me through a couple of surges and used hypno language. I asked her if she had any experience with hypnobirthing and she said she had. She also told me that she was currently training to be a midwife. I told her that I could tell as she had been using the terminology. I asked her if she would be my nurse now. I really didn’t want surly nurse to come back. She said that she absolutely would. I let my mind wander. Thought about my fears, acknowledged them, let them go. I resolved myself to having this baby without pain medication. I knew I could do it, I just had to not allow my fear to get the better of me.
About a half hour had passed and the surges started to intensify. I started to describe what I had been feeling to get through them and process them. I believe somewhere in here Kirsten told me that she had lowered my pitocin from 2 to 1. I was thankful that she was honoring my wishes. The surges had started to change and there was a lot more pressure on my pelvic floor. I believe I had about 3 of these when I started to feel the urge to stand up. I also had started to feel a tightening pain on both of my sides. I thought that it was because the monitor straps were too tight, but it was likely the tightening of ligaments in my uterine wall. The ligament pain continued through the surges. They had put a large peanut shaped ball between my legs when I first laid down and I wanted that thing gone and stat. I told them that I needed to get up right then and tried so hard to remove that damn peanut, but for some reason I couldn’t vocalize that and I struggled with the damn thing until someone removed it for me. As soon as it was gone, I started to have another surge. I allowed that one to wash over me and felt much better with the peanut gone. I stayed there for a few more minutes and I think they put a pillow there instead. Then another surge was coming, this one was pushing really hard on my anus. I had to stand up right then. I got up, stood there, and the surge evolved further to include intense pressure on my bladder. I yelled, “Oh my god, I feel like I need to pee and poop at the same time!” The surge passed and I made my way to the bathroom.
It was 9:40pm and Alicia decided to call DH then and left a message, “Aimee is feeling kind of pushy. She has gone through a huge change, the pitocin is in a super low dose and Kirsten just checked her and the baby’s head is in position. You should make your way back as soon as possible.” She didn’t tell me this, but she had been unable to get him on the phone. She had called him a few times before he actually answered. He got the message when he had just gotten back to the parking lot of the hospital. He had gone to the store to get a sandwich, then home to pick up a couple of things, including the checkbook as we had not even given Alicia her check or even met her for our first prenatal visit. We had simply interviewed her and hired her the week before. He rushed to the entrance, but it wouldn’t open, as it was after hours. Since our hospital does not do tours, he didn’t know where to go. He managed to find the after hours entrance that had a call box outside the building. He said he was trying to be as calm as possible, but he said he was speaking really fast and the woman on the other end cut him off and said, “No problem Mr. Jacobson” as if she was fully aware who he was. The door clicked open and he came inside. Apparently he got lost as he had never entered the hospital that way before. He managed to run into some of the hospital staff and asked where Labor and Delivery was. They gave him brief instructions and he went running off.
While this was all happening, I tried to go to the bathroom and could not. There was still pressure on my floor and I was unable to do either bodily function. I gave up, knowing that the pressure was the baby and I had to just get passed it. I got almost all the way back to the bed and another surge came on. This time Kirsten put her arms out and said, “You can lean on me if you want”. I put my arms around her and she held me and we swayed back and forth. The surge instantly subsided and it felt so comforting. I was amazed at how instantly the pain went away. I think I said smiling, “This is nice” and got back into bed. During one of my surges, I felt the urge to push and I did. As soon as it happened, I wanted to make sure that Kirsten knew I didn’t want coached pushing. Unfortunately, I could not use my words. I said, “I don’t, I don’t want, push”. I looked at Alicia for help. She thankfully knew what I was trying to say and said, “She doesn’t want coached pushing”. I think this is when Kirsten checked my cervix and said that I was fully dilated.
DH came back in. Alicia was really excited to see him. He dropped everything he was holding and he came to my bedside. He held my hand and just got into it. He asked me how I was doing and told me I was doing great. He later told me that it was so dark he could hardly see anything and that it was like a furnace it was so hot. Everyone was working in tandem to make sure that I was relaxed. I had my eyes closed for almost the entire time as I was really trying hard to focus. There were different scents as I believe that Alicia used some aroma therapy. They used coconut oil to massage my legs and arms. It was very soothing. I remember thinking how much I loved the smell of the coconut oil. DH had also held one of my legs for me as my legs had started to shake. I wasn’t sure what was happening, so I asked Alicia and she told me that it was due to the hormone shift and it was perfectly normal. It was kind of neat because I was able to have an early warning system for a surge. My legs would tremble, then I would experience pressure on my anus, then intense pressure on my vagina. Once those things happened, the pain would subside. I checked in with my hands on one of my surges because I was holding both Kirsten and DH's hands and wanted to see if I was clenching my fists. I was honestly surprised that there was zero tension in my hands, I was simply holding hands with them.
Dr. Grouchy came in and Kirsten told him that I was 10cm dilated. He said, “Are you sure you checked it right?” and she said, “Yes, I am sure”. Then he said, “There could be a thin layer of skin”. So he checked and said, “You’re right, she’s fully dilated and the baby is in the correct position.” Then he turned to me and said, “Well, she’s got a big head, it’s going to be a while”, and marched off. My thought was that this was a very insensitive thing to say, but honestly not unexpected. I didn’t let it get to me. I was going to meet my baby soon.
Kirsten wanted to move me, so we changed positions. I wanted to use the squat bar so they attached it for me. Every time I moved a surge came on. I rolled on my hands and knees, turned around and leaned on the bar, which was honestly very uncomfortable. My legs started to quiver and I couldn’t really hold myself up easily. I remember feeling a tear in this position. It was a warm sensation at the lowest part of my vagina. I told Alicia what I felt. We moved to the back of the bed and I leaned over there. I think this was by far my favorite position. They wanted me to move to the bathroom. I always thought that laboring in the bathroom was weird. I feel like the bathroom is for expelling waste and not for birthing babies. Even though the hypno breathing exercises are done on the toilet, I still felt like I didn’t want to be there. I walked to the bathroom and on the way in I had pooped: 2 small turds on the floor and one small one in the toilet. Everyone came into the bathroom with me. I guess they had trouble finding the baby’s heartbeat, so Kirsten called another nurse to bring in a doppler. She also came in with some electric candles. Such a nice touch and so thoughtful. They found the heartbeat and I was able to leave the bathroom. I moved back to the bed and I think I leaned over the back of the bed and labored in that position until the end.
My surges were very intense and to get through them I needed to moan deep in my belly. Alicia spent some time telling me to lower the tone and I did. I had stopped bothering to relax my shoulders. There was no way I could deal with that. I had also lost the ability to expand my diaphragm, but I did continue to try. I noticed that not every surge resulted in a push. The pushes did increase in intensity the closer I got to breathing my baby out. I remember that toward the end, I was able to have 2 breaths per push, which is actually a strange sensation. My pelvic floor remained engaged when I gathered my breath and continued to push even deeper. The moans for my final pushes were actually so low that they were inaudible though I was physically moaning. I also felt the baby crown. I could feel my labia sort of pucker out and the baby’s head pop out a little. I lost the ability to speak, but Kirsten lifted my skirt and saw that the baby had crowned. I believe at this point she called the for the doctor. Her and Alicia took my skirt down. I remember calling out, “No, no, no, you can just cut it off”, but they continued working to remove the skirt.
Dr. Grouchy came back in and examined me. He told me that the position I was in would increase my potential for tearing and suggested that I move onto my back. I would have said yes to anything in that moment even though I had no intention of laboring on my back. I didn’t hear this next part because I was very introverted at this stage of my labor, but Alicia and DH filled me in. Dr. Grouchy wanted to move me on my back and Kirsten said that we couldn’t move me that this baby was coming. He was very flippant and said to just move me and she said, “No, we’re not moving her, this baby is coming now”. Following that, I made 2 final pushes and my baby was born. Kirsten actually was the one to catch my baby, which made me feel good to hear later.
I remember hearing my baby cry out for the first time. I couldn’t turn myself around because the baby was still attached to the umbilical and I was attached to the IV. I just had to sit there and listen to her. It was heartbreaking and exciting at the same time. Dr. Grouchy told me that he did not want to delay cord clamping “because of all the blood above her”. I have no idea what that meant. I did want to delay by at least a minute and it had already been over a minute so I said ok. I had also read that delaying clamping increases the baby’s chance for jaundice, so there are pros and cons on both sides. Alicia knew my wishes and she gave me the are you sure look and I said that it was ok. They clamped the cord and DH walked over and cut it. I still had not seen my baby. I wish I had asked for a mirror, but I didn’t think that I would be turned around in the position I was in. They took the baby over to be cleaned up and DH had removed his shirt as we both wanted to have skin to skin contact with the baby.
It was at this point that they helped me turn around. They removed my shirt and sports bra. I looked at Kirsten and Alicia and said, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought!”. Alicia laughed and I also laughed. She snapped a picture of me. I was so happy. I had given birth to my baby. All our hard work had paid off. I looked over at DH holding her. She was a little gooey bloody mess, but she was mine and she was alive and breathing and healthy. DH recalls that at first he was concerned because he assumed that I would be the one to hold her first, but then when the nurse handed her to him he sat in a chair and held her to his chest. He was looking down at her little face and she was so calm. She nuzzled up to him and didn’t cry at all. He said that it was a powerful experience. It was a brand new life and she was his daughter. We had been working toward this for so long and there she was.
It was at this point that I delivered the placenta. It sort of just, bloop, popped out. The rest was a bit uncomfortable. I believe a nurse pushed on my stomach and there was a lot of prodding of fingers in an effort to clear out all the rest of it. I had commissioned Alicia to encapsulate my placenta. The policy of the hospital was that if your membranes had been ruptured for longer than 24 hours, you needed the hospital’s approval in order to remove it from the hospital. Dr. Grouchy asked why I would want it and I said, “It’s not like I am going to make a shake out of it or cook it like a steak, we’re going to dehydrate it and encapsulate it”. He said, “Well, you probably know what I have to say about that”. DH likes to tell it that I was sort of delirious and said with my eyes half open, “Yeah, you probably think it’s a bunch of malarkey”. Even after all of that, I still had enough wit to make a joke like that. I used an old fashioned term for an old fashioned man. He didn’t really have anything to say back, he just said that she could have it.
He had me spread my legs in the stirrups and he examined the tearing. He let me know that I had only one 2nd degree tear. Then he said to me, “I guess you were made for making babies”. I didn’t say this out loud, but I did think to myself, “Well, I am a woman”. I remember telling him, that I wanted a local anesthetic and he jokingly said, “I thought you wanted to do this all natural” and I sort of hardy-har-har’ed at him. I wanted to say, “I am not a masochist, I just wanted a natural birth”.
It was finally my turn to hold my baby. They brought her over to me and laid her on my chest. I just held her to me and smiled. She was finally here. My sweet baby girl. I remember feeling content and accomplished. While I was holding her, I do remember Dr. Grouchy speaking with Kirsten and he said, “You know, I think she could have done this naturally”. I was literally speechless. While he continued to stitch me up, the nurses all left for a shift change. Kirsten came to my side and said that she was glad that I delivered during her shift. She said that she had planned to stay with me until the end even if I had gone over her shift. Dr. Grouchy interjected that he would also have stayed till the end. I could tell that this was his attempt at humor, but it was lost on me. I told her that I was really glad that she was my nurse and that I felt that we had a connection. She said so too and said that made her happy.
Our baby girl was born on Saturday evening at 11:06pm. Dr. Grouchy said that unfortunately had our baby held out another 54 minutes, she would have been considered full term, but that they had to draw the line somewhere. This mean that she would be subjected to more tests and more strict requirements to pass these tests. He then discussed pain medication for me. He said, “I am going to assume that you don’t want any narcotics for your recovery, so I am going to recommend extra strength ibuprofen”. After he had cleaned up, he made his way to leave, I believe he congratulated DH and me and I said something like, “Now you can say ‘I told you so’”. I am not sure he found my joke funny, but he left in good spirits.
They left the 3 of us to bond for about an hour before they took her to the other end of the room to perform some tests on her as well as administer the recommended vaccines and eye drops. They measured her and took her weight. She measured at 19.5 inches and 6 pounds 6 ounces. I guess they had trouble finding her veins too. She was crying so I suggested that DH to go over and talk to her. As soon as she heard his voice she quieted down. It was really remarkable. She remembered his voice. The nurse attempted to find the vein 3 times and had to give up referred her to a phlebotomist.
I got a lovely “massage” where they basically pushed my blood clots out by applying pressure to my abdomen. I got this massage every 15 minutes for the 2 hours following delivery. The last time she came in, I believe I said, “I am sure you are a nice lady, but I can’t say that I look forward to seeing you”. I got up to go to the restroom since they wanted to see me pee. I remember they were trying to help me stand and walk and I let them know that I was ok. They didn’t believe me, but I showed them that I could walk just fine. They seemed very impressed by this. When I came out, they had a wheelchair waiting for me. They had given Tes her bath and were in the process of taking her foot prints and attaching our matching wristbands. DH packed up our things and they handed her to me. We made our way down the hall to Maternity where we spent the next couple of days being woken up and bothered by pretty much everyone until we checked out on Monday evening. We wanted to check out Monday morning, but found out that our baby had jaundice and needed light therapy. We weren't allowed to leave the hospital until about 7pm that evening. During our stay, I remember walking around the halls seeing other mothers either unable to walk or in a serious amount of pain and walking very slowly. I was honestly really thankful that I was able to have the birth that I wanted. I couldn't imagine being unable to walk or need serious pain medication. The amount of pain that I did go through was manageable. I do not need to forget my experience in order to want to have another child. My body did, in fact, know what to do. Next time I will know with certainty that I can trust my intuition and deliver my baby. The one thing I did take away from this experience is that the next time I am pregnant, if I am low risk, I will deliver with a midwife in the comfort of my home.
ETA: Yesterday I made an appointment with my OB. I had thought I needed to meet with him after 2 weeks, but got that confused with the pediatrician visit and I was about 4 weeks early for my OB. While I was not supposed to be there, Dr. Hill said we'd make the most of it. We spent some time talking about how I had been feeling, about my nursing, my milk supply, my recovery, etc. He was about to leave when I told him that I wanted to discuss some things regarding my delivery. I told him that I had some concerns about how Dr. Growley had treated me and the staff. I told him that some of the things he said were inappropriate and unprofessional. He seemed very interested in what I had to say and sat back to listen. I am sure that he had other appointments, but he made no indication that he needed to be anywhere else, but there listening to me. I told him the entire story with a lot of the extras left out. I mainly centered around my interactions with the doctors and nurses.
He told me that they do really care about the experience of their mothers and that because I had a negative experience, he was taking my concerns to heart. He did say that with respect to my interpretation of Dr. Growley's tactics that there was little he could do about how I interpreted what was said vs what was actually said or what was meant to be said. He did say that had he been the attending physician, he would have known me and known where I was coming from and would have likely approached the situation differently as, with me, more information is better than less. That being said he did say that he would have responded aggressively as there were a lot of factors that made my situation high risk as a result of the GBS. He did express that he was not pleased that I had gone against his recommendation from the week before to go to the hospital as soon as my membranes had ruptured. He said that I was the statistic and that I was honestly lucky that both me and my baby were fine. He said that in his experience, most people are not fine. He said that he is happy that both mother and baby ended up healthy and ultimately that is what really mattered. He said that even I had admitted that I had been pushing against the staff as soon as I got to the hospital and that likely colored how they felt they had to deal with me. He said that there is a stereotype of the kind of person that comes to the hospital, with a doula, and wants to go against everything that they recommend. He said that considering that they did not know me, that they had likely put me into that category of person and responded in kind.
He did seem very concerned with how Dr. Growley had treated Kirsten and said that he would discuss this with him. That there was no need to undermine her in front of anyone. That those kinds of conversations should happen outside of the room and should not ever be said in front of patients. He agreed that regardless of whether or not she had or had not done the exam correctly, that saying that out loud served no purpose and was inappropriate. All he needed to do was check to see if it was done correctly and should not have said what he said. While nothing will be done with regards to how I had been spoken to, I do feel glad that what had happened to Kirsten would be addressed.
FTM - BFP: 1/23/14 - EDD: 10/5/14 - DD Born 9/13/14
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Re: Birth Story - TOJ Edition - Updated
Your baby is beautiful. I loved all the pictures you included as well. :x
TFMC 08.02.13 at 19+ weeks. Everyday I grieve for my little Olive.
It took me about 4 weeks before I could walk without pain last time. There are definitely things I would do differently. I don't think hospitals are trying to trick people. But there are definitely things that they could do differently, especially in terms of presenting things as mandatory that are actually not and that's frustrating and sad.
Eh... They do it with insulin. The stuff I take is definitely man-made, but is a naturally occurring hormone in people with functioning pancreases. Not saying it's right, but not unheard of either. However, that's neither here nor there.
You have inspired me to ask about any nipple stimulation policies at my appointment today. Which is silly and I shouldn't have to ask my doc if I can play with my boobs during labor, but, I guess I do!
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And thyroid hormones, such as synthroid, which is generic levothyroxine. Even though the hormones exist in nature we can't really "harvest" them and provide them to the millions of people who require supplementation, and so there are lab created versions. It's allowed to have the same name as the counterpart, because in many cases it truly is a molecular clone.
TFMC 08.02.13 at 19+ weeks. Everyday I grieve for my little Olive.
I'm planning a hypnobirth as well and it's so encouraging to hear your experience!
Congrats on your sweet baby!
Thank you for sharing your story. It sounds like we have a very similar birth plan and it was really helpful to hear how you dealt with the doctors and nurses. Gives me some good ideas on how to exert my own voice amidst the hospital policies and bureaucracy.