Birth Stories
UrbanLe1
member
Options
My "quick and dirty" birth story
UrbanLe1
member
This is going to be really really long--sorry guys! So, it looks like I might have my first 15 minutes in this whole week without a baby at my boob, so I decided to entertain you ladies with our birth story. Sam was born last Saturday, 2/27.First of all, let's start this party off with the fact that I went to the doc last Friday morning--and was only a fingertip dilated and not effaced at all. As we were past 38 weeks, my doc started talking induction due the the slew of complications I had--nothing too serious, but nothing she wanted to drag out to 42 weeks. I was crampy that day and chalked it up to my first internal. I did lose my mucus plug, though. I started feeling some slightly "different" contractions on Friday evening--not lots more painful, just more regular--and went to bed at 11 sure they'd go away as they always had before. They didn't. By 2 am, I started timing them. Hrm...5 minutes apart and a minute long. So, I got in a hot shower, sure they'd go away. Nope--so I walked back into the bedroom and told DH that we should probably think about calling the doctor. We did, and he told us to come in.So, to the hospital we go. We stayed for 3 hours (6 to 9), and although I was definitely adhering to the 5-1-1 rule, I wasn't progressing. When the resident did my internal, I was still at the 1 cm I'd been the previous morning. Deflated, he told us it was probably early or latent labor, and to go home for a few days and keep an eye on them. Basically, he told me to stop timing the contractions entirely--"when you can't talk or move, give us another call--and of course, if your water breaks, come back in right away, but I really doubt it."We walked home and crawled back into bed, as I hadn't slept at all. And...then the fun began. The contractions became much more intense around 11 am, with pain radiating from my back. And, in the middle of one at about noon, I felt this wet gush as I laid in bed. I crawled out of the covers and made it to the bathtub--and wow, that sac of waters went everywhere! Laughing, we got redressed and went back to the hospital around 12:30.The docs couldn't believe it. Nor could they believe that I'd gone from 1 cm to 4 cm in less than 3 hours! Needless to say, the contractions were coming hard and fast--about every 2 minutes, over a minute long, all in my back. I could barely breathe. I think I always thought I'd have a long labor--you hear that all the time about first-timers, so I wasn't prepared AT ALL for things to progress so quickly. The back labor meant I could barely move my legs, especially during a contraction, so I was in a lot of pain. However, I knew I wanted to put off an epi until at least 5 cm, so I kept trying to breathe through the pain. It finally got so intense that I was begging DH to get the doc to check me again--no one thought I was that far, so they just kept putting it off. When she came in...lo and behold, over 6 cm!My epidural was absolutely perfect--blocked the pain but left me with movement in my legs. Thank god for dedicated-OB anesthesiologists! When they finally got it placed, I was at 7 cm--it was hard to stay still, but I concentrated on LO's heartbeat as my focus. Then, sweet bliss. I took a deep breath for the first time in 5 hours.Then things got a bit crazy. I was doing fine, feeling pressure from the contractions but no pain, even as the pressure got more intense. I spent about an hour on the epi before they decided to start a light Pitocin drip, because my contractions were starting to "space out" since I wasn't in so much pain--they didn't want me to lose my active labor. About 30 minutes after starting the drip, I felt an extremely hard contraction--I felt the pressure through my whole body, even my eyes. We didn't think anything of it, but about 5 minutes later I saw DH look at my fetal HR monitor and his eyes got really wide (he's a doc, so he was keeping up with our stats the whole time). He walked over to my bed and started fussing with my monitors, saying something like "baby, I think he moved, so it's not picking up his heartbeat. I'm going to go get someone to reposition it."I knew he was lying. He can reposition monitors. And I know that look in his eyes--he was terrified. As he walked away quickly from my bed, about a dozen docs and techs came bursting into my room. They rolled me over, started me on oxygen, and placed an internal fetal monitor on LO. It was organized chaos--I was just trying to stay calm and do what they told me as I heard LO's rate get slower and slower. I thought I was headed for an emergency c/s for sure, and I started trying to find DH to tell him just to keep the baby safe. Finally, it started to rise--a tiny little "ping ping ping" from the internal monitor. I only found out later that he actually dropped below 30 bpm. We were both fine--they don't know what caused it. It could have been the strong contraction, or something else entirely. My doc said it was probably like LO was on a too-fast rollarcoaster--I dilated so quickly that he literally dropped into the birth canal and onto my tailbone.When they were in there placing his internal monitor, they discovered I was already at 10 cm and 100% effaced (which I had tried to tell them). But, because of his drop in heartrate, they wanted me to put off pushing to give him some time to recover. Which I did. It was agony. It was like someone was crushing my pelvis the entire time--but I just kept listening to that fast little heartrate and trying to keep LO safe. I finally reached the point that I knew I couldn't handle it any more--the nurse didn't think I was ready, but I was begging for the doc. And sure enough, when the doc came in, she said LO and I were ready.But, I could tell she was just appeasing me. It was like "oh sure, you can start pushing, but this is going to take a while." My awesome nurse helped me into position (still on my side, holding both legs), and I pushed through the next contraction. The doc and resident looked on with eyes wide--they started laughing, and pulling on their paper scrubs. My doc said, "do you even know what you just did? Most women take over an hour to do what you just did in one push!" Needless to say, they had to get the table ready quickly. I delivered LO with just 19 minutes of pushing--about 7 or 8 contractions, with 3 or 4 pushes per contraction. He arrived about 7 hours after my water broke. I had 2 small second degree tears, nothing major at all. I guess those old dancer's muscles are good for something after all!Those first moments with the baby were absolutely unbelievable. I don't think I can even describe it, so I won't. But, I will say they were moments full of terror and love, disbelief and awe. He was 7lb 8oz, 20 1/4 in, with a full head of hair and big ol' feet. I love him desperately.And, just a word about DH--he never left my side. He never let me get too scared. He kept telling me I could do it, even as I moaned that I couldn't. He fought for me with my docs, and he made sure I got the best nurse. He managed to be both a doctor and my husband and the father of our son that night. I love him more than words can say.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: My "quick and dirty" birth story