Better late than never...Lucys birth story

jj0313 · November 2014

I woke up Tuesday (4 days past due date) morning at about 5am with a weird kind of jolt. Sort of like a mega kick I hadn't felt before-it registered me as something different and I thought, I wonder if this is it. I had had no Braxton hicks up until the point so didn't know what to expect but knew I felt weird. I went to the bathroom and had bloody show, hmmm, this could be it. Went to lay down again and pretty quickly started with some contractions. I had slept in the guest room the night before and went back up to our bed. I called my husband in and told him I didn't know if anything was going to happen today but he should pack a bag and prepare not to go to work.

I started timing my first contraction at 5:22. They were much closer and shorter than I expected. About 20-40seconds long and probably 2:30-5 or 6 mins apart. This threw me off because I expected they would 8 or 9 minutes apart. Less than a minute long but close?? What does this mean?!? Heck if I know. I called my midwife a couple of times and she encouraged me to stay at home, she didn't want me to be disappointed and sent home. I was annoyed but just tried to settle into the contractions as much as possible at home. I took a bath, had DH give massages, used my labor ball and laid everywhere in between and just moaned. By around 230 I told my husband to call the midwife, I didn't want to wait any longer as I didn't want to drive. Midwife agreed to let us come in for a check. Contractions at this point were closer to 50 seconds and still around the same frequency-hard to track.

Got to the hospital around 330 and they checked us into a triage room. Contractions at this point were much less noticeable and I began to get scared they were in my head and they were going to say I hadn't progressed (I was 1cm dilated and 80% effaced) since my last appt. seriously freaking out id have to go home. Gal finally checks me at 420 and gives me this weird, "weellll," (freaking out in my head) and says, "you are an absolute rock star Julia, you are dilated to 8cm!" I start bawling. I'm so happy I can't believe it.

They admit me and now I'm having an internal struggle over whether or not I want an epidural. My whole mindset going in was that Id never been in labor before so I didn't know if I'd need an epi or not-but deep down I always thought I'd have one I think. I just wasn't committed enough to the idea of med free. But now, things were interesting because I'd managed to labor on my own much further into the process than Id imagined before. Maybe I could handle this? Scratch that, I could
Handle it but did I want to? My midwife and doula were great about not pressuring me and making sure I knew the decision was mine.

Ultimately I decide, I'd like the epidural. I'm still at an 8 two hours later and while my contractions are for sure manageable, I'm very tired and could use the rest.

I love the epidural. This was the right decision for me for sure. In turn the tv on and watch The Voice. My midwife breaks my water at 815. I'm fuzzy on times from here on out but it took me a couple of hours to get to get to a 10. I'm really hoping to have this baby by midnight so she is an 11/11 baby.

I'm ready to push around 11 and that's where things get interesting and I don't feel like it's beneficial to get to negative but things got really, really hard. I ended up pushing for over 2.5 hours. My epi wasn't touching the contractions and they were right on top of each other. I was able to try lots of different positions so I guess that was a positive. Baby isn't progressing much no matter how much I push. I start to break down and am crying and screaming a lot. I beg for a c-section. The midwife tells me if I keep pushing 15 more mins with no progress she will bring in a OB to talk about other options. I proceed to push for 30. They bring in the OB who spends several pushes feeling for the head while I push. I'm having a very hard time. Finally she tells me I have 3 options. 1) keep pushing (baby is not in distress) 2) try for a vacuum assisted birth 3) go straight for the c-section. I ask how long it will take to tell if we try the vacuum, she says 10 minutes but I need to give it everything I have. I say lets go for the vacuum.

Several minutes and the most intense pushing of my life I can tell from my husband that the baby is visible-he is begging me to push just a little harder and crying. I don't think I can push any harder but I did. And it worked. I can't believe it. My midwife even said she was surprised the vacuum was able to work in this case-very talented work on the part of the ob.

Baby was 8pounds1oz 20 1/4 inches long. She was very alert right from the start-didn't eve come out crying. She was just straight chilling up there.

It's been a week now and the trauma of it all is starting to fade. Hands down the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But obviously worth it. It was a labor that went from quick and easy to long and hard. A little bit of everything.