My Three Day Long Labour Induction Story
The last 2 months of my pregnancy taught me a couple of very important life lessons... one being patience and the other being that plans have a way of flying out the window, and most often do when it comes to giving birth. That being said, all is well that ends well.
After ending up in a big city hospital at only 33 weeks pregnant, I (as well as my doctors) thought that I would definitely end up delivering early. I was placed on bed rest until 36 weeks and taken off of work immediately. I had false labour almost every day for 2 whole months and went into the hospital a handful of times ?knowing? that it must be the real thing... I wouldn?t actually have my baby until 41 weeks, 5 days.
Day 1
My induction was scheduled for Wednesday, December 8th. Around 4am I started having strong but irregular contractions (not unusual those days). My husband and I went into the hospital around 7:30 where I was given Cervadil, which started to work immediately, giving me even stronger contractions that were consistently 8 minutes apart. We were sent home with the instructions to call in every 4 hours, so we went to his grandparents? house and waited for things to get going. My contractions got more and more frequent throughout the day, but became very painful around 5:30pm. By the time we reached the hospital (only 5 minutes away) they were so close that I was not getting a break in between. I was hooked up to the monitors, which showed that my uterus was hyper-stimulated by the Cervadil. They made the decision to remove the Cervadil to prevent fetal distress and kept me overnight hoping that my body would continue to labour on its own. It didn?t. My contractions slowed and got less painful throughout the night. By 9am the next morning they had completely quit; and all I had to show for it all was 2 cm dilation and 3 hours sleep.
Day 2
That morning the doctor decided to take the next step and gave me the prostaglandin gel, which was supposed to start working in 6 hours. When it didn?t start working right away my husband and I had a bad feeling about it. We were right to feel that way, as all it gave me was 2 hours of inconsistent contractions that stopped dead in their tracks hours before the doctor got a chance to come back and see me... still no more dilation. At this point the doctor gave us a new game plan. We were told to go home and get some sleep, and come back in the morning when I would get an epidural (which they rarely do at our small town hospital because they have to call in an anaesthesiologist from another town) and Pitocin in one last attempt to get my labour going. If that too were unsuccessful I would have to get a C-section.
Day 3 Labour
At 3:15am my water broke... everywhere... we rushed back to the hospital, and by the time we got there (30 min) the contractions were extremely painful but still inconsistent. The nurse checked my cervix (still only 2 cm) and gave me some morphine to take the edge off. I spent the next 5 hours sleeping in between contractions (moaning during contractions). When the doctor finally came, she checked my cervix again and found that I had reached 5cm all by myself (YAY for progress!!!). I was wheeled into the Delivery room at 9:30am where I got my epidural (a gift from God). My blood pressure dropped when the epidural was started, so they had to play with the dosages for a while, and the Pitocin was started at 11:00. Around this time my mother in law showed up for support, and they told my husband and I to get some sleep. I woke up an hour and a half later with pressure in my back side, so the nurse checked me and found that I was already 10cm and ready to push! The baby?s head was so far down that she put her gloves on, ready to catch the baby and said to my mother in law ?Go get Lance! We?re having a baby!? and ordered one of the LPNs to get the doctor.
Day 3 Delivery
The doctor got in a couple minutes later (as did my husband) and she let me start pushing right away. It was weird not being able to feel the pain, while being able to feel how hard I was pushing. The doctor told me that she had never seen someone of my size and build push so hard and effectively before, which I was pretty proud of. Unfortunately though, even after 45 minutes of pushing the baby?s head was still stuck behind my pubic bone. I was afraid a couple times that she was going to tell me to stop and wheel me into the OR for a caesarean, so I pushed even harder and was able to convince her to let me keep going. After an hour of pushing the doctor decided to use the vacuum because of the size of baby?s head. The vacuum head popped off twice, which scared me so badly I stopped pushing both times.
Finally after an hour and 35 minutes, at 2:08pm, Wyatt Thomas was born. When they placed him on me I was not only shocked he was a boy (we thought girl for sure) but by the size of him!! He weighed 9lbs, 8.75 on and measured 21.5 inches long. Our doctor was also amazed and said she had seen many larger framed women be unable to birth smaller babies vaginally. It was not without consequence though, as I ripped clear from one hole to the other and had to be stitched for over 45 minutes. There were a couple of other daunting pieces of information we received later on as well; Wyatt?s umbilical cord had a semi-taunt knot in it, and my placenta had already started calcifying as a result of being so far overdue... needless to say we are very blessed to have him here with us today, and even luckier to have been able to deliver him naturally.
Today he is 3 days old and has both his Dad and I wrapped around his not-so-tiny finger. He is an incredibly good baby, we couldn?t possibly be happier!
here is a picture of me a week before giving birth and a picture of Wyatt himself