My "Huh? It's time to push?" birth story

HopingForOne · May 2009

My due date was May 17^th, 2009

I had a doctor?s appointment on Thursday, May 21. I was only ?one fingertip? dilated. We spoke about delivery, and scheduled an induction for Tuesday, May 26.

Friday, May 22 - at 7:30am, I realized that I was having pain in my lower back that was coming at timeable intervals. All day, the small contractions came on every 7-20 minutes, and lasted about 30 seconds. I went to bed just after midnight, with no major change.

Saturday, May23 ? I began waking up every ten minutes with a contraction. The labour was still ALL in my back, and by 5:30am, I realized that the pain was becoming more and more intense, and lasting longer, and that I would probably be having my baby either that day or the next!

By 6:30am, I was getting very bothered by the contractions and could not sleep anymore. I ran and bath and decided to labour in the water for awhile. It helped to relax me a little bit, but it was too difficult to get into a comfortable position due to the ? back labour?, so I migrated to the couch where I tried different positions to get the pressure off of my back ? hands and knees, lying down on my side, etc. Nothing really helped to relieve the pain, but I was once again able to fall asleep in between contractions.

At 8:30am, I started having a LOT of trouble handling the pain ? but the contractions didn?t seem to be getting any closer together (still eight to ten minutes apart) . I ate some cereal to give myself some energy, and tried sitting in the bath again. This time, it did not help at all. By 9:30, I had had enough and decided that I was going to head to the hospital soon. I showered, and started timing the contractions once again. Luckily, at this point they were close to five minutes apart!

10:00am ? I woke up my husband (who I had not yet informed of the morning?s events) and told him that it was baby time! We finished packing the hospital bag (which had mostly been packed in advance) and got ready to head off.

10:30am ? I threw up. Perhaps having breakfast wasn?t the best idea.

10:35am ? off to the hospital! (contractions still five minutes apart!)

At 10:45, we arrived at the hospital. They sent me to a room to be monitered, to check to see how dilated I was, and to determine whether or not to officially admit me.

As soon as the monitors were hooked up to me, I had a contraction, and the baby?s heart rate dropped quite a bit. Luckily, the baby handled the following contractions much better. Around 11:00, nurse Carole came to check my cervix, and I was 3cm dilated. Despite the timing of the contractions, I was admitted!

I immediately asked about pain relief, and was told that I could have an epidural when I reached 4cm. This upset me ? my OBGYN had assured me that I could have an epidural whenever the pain became hard to handle, and that was what I was expecting. At this point, it felt like my spine was trying to separate itself from the rest of my body, and I worried about how long it would take me to dilate another centimetre!

I got moved to a Labour & Delivery room where I would stay until after the baby arrived. My nurse went on her lunch break, and another nurse came in to check on me. She brought out a ? birthing ball? for me to sit on to help with the pain of the contractions (it did help a bit). She hooked up my IV (although it took her two attempts ? the first time she ? blew? my vein and my wrist filled with fluid).

The fill-in nurse came back and asked me if I needed pain relief. I explained to her my concerns regarding waiting for the epidural. She decided to go see where the anaesthesiologist was. The ?epidural man? arrived fifteen minutes later. At 1:00pm, I had my epidural.

At 2:00pm, my cervix was checked again. Only 4cm! At this point, my ? main? nurse was back, and said that 4cm was okay, but that if I would probably end up getting Oxytocin later to speed up labour.

Then, my epidural began to ? fail?. At first it wasn?t too bad, but after about half an hour, the pain became more intense. I was only feeling pain on one side of my back, and it wasn?t quite as bad as it had been earlier ? but still, it was bad enough. The nurse gave me more medicine in my epidural drip.

4:00pm ? I was 6-7cm dilated. No Oxytocin necessary. My doctor was not on call this weekend, so the attending doctor broke my water to move things along even more.

My epidural still wasn?t working, so the nurses had me lie on one side of my body, then another, because apparently epidural do work a bit by gravity and they wanted to make sure that the medication was being distributed evenly. That didn?t work too well, so they gave me the maximum dose of medication into the epidural line. Eventually, this did the trick.

At 6pm, the nurse checked me again, and I was fully dilated! The baby?s head was still a bit high in the birth canal, so there was no need to start pushing yet. I didn?t feel the sensation of needing to push anyway, so it became a waiting game.

7:00pm ?the nurse checked me and said that the baby?s head was very low, and that she was going to go call the doctor.

At 7:35pm, she came back to say that the doctor was on his way, and that I could start to push! I barely felt the need to push, so the nurse simply had to tell me when to start pushing. I pushed a few times before the doctor came in. In between contractions, I was comfortable enough to be talking and joking with the doctor (he even razzed my sister about wanting to have a drug-free birth).

At one point, the head started crowing, and the nurse grabbed my hand and put it on the baby?s head for me to feel ? that was a very strange feeling!

Shortly after 8:00, the doctor went over to the intercom and paged the Nurses? station and said ? I need a baby nurse in here?. He turned around to me, putting on a clean gown, and said ?Okay, and on the next push you will be delivering your baby?. I didn?t really believe him ? it felt surreal. I had no idea I was that close to pushing. It had only been 35 minutes, and many people push for much longer! But, he was right.

At 8:11pm, I delivered my baby girl, Aaralyn Mollie Elisabeth ? born on my late grandmother?s birthday!

And her head was perfectly shaped ? no cone head or anything.

I had a second-degree tear, and the epidural kept my legs numb for more than five hours afterwards...and I had the misfortune of actually seeing the placenta (yuck)...but my baby girl was here safe, and that?s all that mattered!