Unmedicated Hospital Birth (very very long!)
Two
days before my due date I had a regular doctors appointment. During the
internal exam, the doctor told me I was 2 centimeters dilated and 50
percent effaced. He then proceeded to strip my membranes and stretch my
cervix. I had been having frequent, strong, but not painful
contractions for a few weeks, but as soon as I left his office I felt
different. The contractions seemed to be getting slightly painful by
the time I went to bed last night and woke me up at 4 am the next
morning because they were noticeably painful.
I
stayed in bed for about a half hour timing the contractions and found
they were about 5 minutes apart and slightly painful, but nothing
serious. I was excited though since all the other contractions I had
felt up until that point had been completely painless. I decided to get
out of bed and clean the kitchen and time the contractions some more.
They were 4-5 minutes apart and getting slightly more painful. Soon I
had to go to the bathroom and noticed some bloody mucus, which I
assumed was my bloody show. I called my mom and told her I thought we
would be having a baby today, then woke up my husband around 6:30 to
tell him what was going on and start getting showered and ready to go
to the hospital.
We
got to the hospital a little before 8 am and told the staff I thought I
was in labor. The nurse checked me and said I was about 3 centimeters
dilated and 80% effaced. Then she hooked me up to the monitors and
immediately the baby?s heart rate dipped significantly, enough that we
were all looking at each other pretty worried. The dip only lasted
about 5 seconds, but was still worrisome. The nurse said she wasn?t
convinced I was in labor, but baby?s heart rate just bought me a ticket
to be admitted. I wasn?t really worried at that point since the baby?s
heart picked right back up and stayed normal. Maybe 30 minutes later
the nurse administered an IV per my doctor?s orders and the baby?s
heart dipped again.
The
nurse began the admissions process and asked me a ton of questions.
When she asked me if I wanted an epidural, I said no. She said she
would advise that I get one because if the baby?s heart rate dipped and
I had to go in for an emergency c-section they would have to knock me
out if I didn?t already have an epidural in. The nurse said my doctor
wanted her to break my water and start me on Pitocin. At this point I
got pretty stressed out because I really wanted to have as natural of a
birth as possible. No epidural, no augmentation drugs, and especially
no c-section and now the nurse was telling me I would need all of those
things. Luckily, my nurse was very understanding of my concerns. I told
her I wanted her to break my water and see how things progressed before
starting any Pitocin. She agreed and got me situated in a labor room at
around 10:30 am.
At
this point the contractions were still noticeably painful, but I was
able to talk through them easily. The nurse proceeded to break my water
and noticed that there was a little bit of meconium in it. She said it
was very light though and was not worried. Once she broke my water, my
contractions started to get progressively stronger and to the point
that I couldn?t talk through them easily and had to focus on my
breathing. They were still not that bad and when the nurse checked me
at around 11:30 she said I was about 4 centimeters dilated and let us
know that I would dilate about 1 centimeter an hour.
The
contractions really started to pick up and I was getting more and more
uncomfortable. Now when a contraction would start I would have to
totally focus on it and try hard not to moan. Once a contraction would
peak, I would start to relax as it was coming down. The contractions
were about 2 minutes apart. The nurse checked me again around 1:00 and
said I was about 6 centimeters. She was pleased with my progress and
didn?t seem to think I would need any Pitocin. I was happy I was over
halfway dilated and hadn?t had an epidural despite how painful the
contractions were. The nurse asked if I wanted to try the birthing ball
and I said I?d love to. I was able to sit on the ball and rock my hips,
but during a contraction all I could do was hang onto my husband and
wait for it to be over.
After
about an hour on the birthing ball, the nurse came to check on me
again. I told her I was feeling a lot of pressure in my bottom and she
said she wanted to check me and said I was about 8 centimeters and the
baby?s head was ?right there?. That was a lot of progress in a small
amount of time which was very encouraging. I also knew that the last
couple of centimeters would be very difficult.
The
baby?s heart rate hadn?t dipped since the nurse broke my water, which
was great. But when I was on the birthing ball the monitor kept sliding
around on my belly and losing her heart rate. The nurse said she wanted
to insert an internal fetal monitor so that she could keep an eye on
the baby?s heart rate. I declined since I didn?t want my baby to have
anything inserted into her scalp and decided to get off the birthing
ball and back into the bed even though I really didn?t want to.
The
last two centimeters really were hard. The contractions were
excruciating and seemed to be coming back to back. I was laying on my
side grasping the rails of the bed and couldn?t keep myself from
moaning through the contractions. At about 3:00, another nurse came in
to ask if I was okay and if I felt like I needed to push. I told her I
did feel like pushing during contractions. My nurse came and checked on
me and said there was just a small lip of cervix left. She had me push
during the next contraction and quickly told me to stop and not push
while she got the doctor. It was torture waiting for him. When the
nurse told me to push during the contraction all the pain I was in
completely disappeared. Pushing felt so good and I couldn?t wait for
the doctor to get to my room.
Also,
the nurse noticed that the meconium had gotten thicker and decided to
alert the NICU team just in case. I waited for the doctor and NICU team
for about 15 minutes still moaning and groaning through contractions
and trying to hard not to push. The nurse said I could do ?small grunty
pushes? but no big pushes until the doctor came. Those small pushes
were great and took the contraction pain away.
The
doctor finally showed up at 3:15 and my legs were put up in the
stirrups. When the next contraction came I pushed as hard as I could
and could already feel the baby moving down and the contraction pain
was gone. Pushing didn?t hurt at all, it was a relief. I only pushed
for 15 minutes and our baby was born at 3:31 pm on October 6th. Her
dad got to cut the cord, then she was quickly whisked away to the other
side of the room so the NICU team could make sure there wasn?t any
meconium aspiration. I felt such a relief the second she was born. All
the pain was gone. I also felt a horrible emptiness because I couldn?t
hold my baby right away. I felt helpless watching the nurses making
sure she was breathing okay while my doctor stitched up two very small
tears. He put one stitch in each just for good measure.
The
nurses said they needed to take the baby to the NICU to make sure she
had the fluid out of her lungs. They quickly swaddled her and let me
hold her for about a minute before taking her away. My husband went
with her and was by her side during all of the checks and the baby was
given a clean bill of health. I was moved to a post-partum room and sat
in the bed by myself not really sure what to do. I felt like I should
be cuddling my baby and instead I felt lonely and confused. Finally,
about 2 hours after she was born, my husband wheeled her crib into the
room and I was able to hold her without someone coming to snatch her
away. I tried to breastfeed her right away but did not have any
success. A nurse gave me some pointers that were not helpful at all,
but I was just happy to have my baby with me.
Overall,
I am happy with the birth. I got my med-free birth despite the scares
with the baby?s heart rate. I am disappointed about how things went
right after she was born, but I am also glad that we were in a hospital
where extra precautions were taken to make sure our baby was okay.
Breastfeeding was not working at all the first few days and I was
becoming frustrated and worried. I had to supplement with some formula
which made me feel like a failure. On the fourth day, I decided to
contact a lactation consultant who came to our home for about 3 hours
and taught me and baby how to latch on correctly. She visited us again
on the fifth day to make sure things were still going well. It feels
wonderful to nurse my baby and bond with her the way we are supposed
to. Despite the trouble we had in the beginning, things are going great
now and I am so happy and in love with our perfect little baby.
Re: Unmedicated Hospital Birth (very very long!)
Congrats on your birth! Sounds like you did a good job advocating for yourself and managing the contractions.
I had kind of a similar hospital birth experience--natural and pretty awesome but they whisked her across the room right away to check her out because there was meconium. Luckily for us I got her back for good about 5 minutes later. I'm happy with my overall birth experience but I still mourn the loss of those first 5 minutes we could have spent together and the fact that they cut her cord right away. I don't know why the NICU team can't just do their initial assessment on your chest while she gets the benefit of all the rest of her blood that's in the cord at birth. Seems like kind of a no-brainer to me.
I'm glad bfing is going better for you now--way to be persistent.