Fast progression with no epidural!
Mrs.Jocelyn2007
member
Dear all,
I appreciated reading the birth stories leading up to my delivery, so here's the birth story of Graham Isaiah, born January 26 
For the previous few days leading up to the delivery, there had been
signs that labor was impending -- I was 1 cm dilated and 50% effaced at
my 38 week check-up, my mucous plug was clearly coming out after that
internal check for the next few days, the Braxton-Hicks contractions
were becoming more noticeable -- almost painful! -- and my mother kept
telling me to keep my legs shut until she arrived Thursday evening
(sorry Mom). I had a check-up the day before delivery -- after being up
since 4 am with somewhat painful, at least "obnoxious", contractions --
and I was still only 1 cm dilated, but 75-90% effaced, and the one BH
contraction that I had when on the monitors registered at a healthy 50
(0-100 scale, and painless BHs were normally around the 20s and 30s,
while functional contractions were supposed to start around 60). The
nurse predicted I wouldn't last the week; my doctor said I might.
Apparently I lasted 24 hours!
The delivery day started early -- I
woke up at 2 am and couldn't get back to sleep, as I was feeling the
contractions about every 15 minutes. Let me just preface it by saying
that I never once felt "pain radiating from the back", which is what
everyone told me differentiated BH contractions from the real thing --
so I really did think these were still "fake" contractions. Still they
were obnoxiously noticeable, and after emailing my parents to let them
know that something might be happening, I woke up my husband around 5 am
in frustrated tears because I was uncomfortable and tired and didn't
know what was going on or what to do. He made me a relaxing bubble bath
and then went back to sleep, while I laid in it for a while and relaxed
somewhat. But when I got out of the bath around 6 am for our usual
breakfast time, the contractions came back with a vengeance. They seemed
close together, and I didn't have much of an appetite for breakfast. My
husband's aide, of course, called in sick, and he felt compelled to go
into school at least to get things set up for the rest of the day, so
off he went, after putting the TENS electrodes on me ("just in case"),
setting me up with a website that helped you chart your contractions (by
pressing the start/stop button) and promising to check in with me in an
hour.
It soon became apparent, as I used the website from 7:30
to 8:30 am, that the contractions were 3-4 minutes apart -- but because I
wasn't feeling back pain (perhaps due to using the TENS?), I didn't
know whether they were "real" or not. Yet obviously I knew that when you
are having contractions this close together, at this stage of
pregnancy, you should go and get checked out at the hospital anyway. So
when my husband called at 8:30 -- I had been walking around this whole
time, getting the hospital bag finished -- I told him we should go into
the hospital to get checked regardless of whether they were real. And he
said, "Okay, I've just got another hour of work here to get everything
squared away, and then I'll be home." "Another hour?" I said doubtfully.
"Well, at least a half an hour," said my darling husband, "but I'll be
home in an hour for sure." "Ohhhhhkay?" I said.
Within a half an
hour after that, I was definitely regretting my "Ohhhhhkay". The
contractions definitely felt harder and more painful, like SOMETHING was
moving DOWN. They were still coming every 3 minutes and lasting for
around 45 seconds to sometimes over a minute. I finished the hospital
bag and walked around getting everything straightened for my mom's visit
(looked like she was going to be one day late!), breathing hard during
the contractions, and thinking that this had better be "real" labor,
because if it were fake, I would be getting an epidural IMMEDIATELY upon
real labor as I had no idea how bad the pain would be! Of course my
husband wasn't home after one hour, so I called him in the middle of a
contraction. He picked up saying, "Oh, I'm just leaving school now!" and
I bellowed out, "GET. BACK. HERE." and hung up the phone. He says that
this was when it finally sunk in that he could have a son that day.
Anyway,
my husband got back, packed up his hospital stuff, and off we went to
the hospital, arriving around 10:30 am. They instantly got the
wheelchair out for me and wheeled me up to a monitoring room while my
husband did the paperwork. And it turned out I was 3-4 cm dilated and
definitely having functional contractions every 2-3 minutes! So I guess
it was "real" after all!
After this checkup, they moved us into a
delivery room and hooked me up to an IV to hydrate me. Although at
first I didn't like the idea of being "stuck" in the bed, it turned out
the contractions were so regular and so painful that I didn't really
want to get up anyway! I was continuing to use the TENS and also started
using the "gas" (nitrous oxide) during the contractions. My husband
says the best thing about the gas mask was that it muffled my screams!
I'm not sure if the TENS and the gas did much for the pain, but they did
provide distraction and a small sense of being able to control
SOMETHING. Still, the contractions were so painful (up to 100 on the
0-100 CTG monitor!!) that I finally looked at my husband and started
having the "epidural conversation," where basically I was like, "This
pain is pretty intense, and if it's going to go on for a lot longer and
get even more painful, then I probably need to have an epidural just for
some rest" -- and believe me, the idea of not having to feel this
intensity for a bit of time sounded great right around then. But then
the doctor checked my progress -- and informed us that I was EIGHT
CENTIMETERS dilated! This was around 11:45 or noon -- only a little more
than an hour after checking in at 3-4 cm! So no wonder the contractions
hurt? but it also meant that there was really no point in an epidural? I
was going to be doing this "drug-free."
At this point, I
started to freak out a little and "think" about things too much. The
nurses kept telling me to tell them if I felt like I needed to push, but
in fact I felt the opposite -- I didn't WANT to push. I accidentally
(!) visualized what I was going to have to do re: delivery and then had
to calm myself down from starting to cry and hyperventilate. My husband
was very very supportive this entire time, boosting the TENS for me
during contractions, holding my hand, encouraging me -- he says he was
disappointed that I never had a "I HATE YOU, YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!"
moment, but I never once went there -- it was incredibly comforting
having him there and he did a great job.
Finally I felt an
unmistakable pressure and I let the nurses know that I was feeling like I
could start to push (not that I was going to!) and that if my doctor
wasn't here yet, I just needed any doctor because this baby was coming!
Luckily my regular ob-gyn arrived just at that time -- she came in on
her day off for me! although clearly she wasn't expecting me to progress
so quickly -- and after that things got pretty intense. They broke the
bed down into the delivery mode and there were people on every side of
me, holding my legs, elbowing my stomach down, stretching me out -- you
know what I mean, it's the most intense and invasive thing ever. At
every contraction -- a minute apart at this point, or less? -- I was
told to push, and the pushing did NOT come naturally to me because of
the weird breathing/pushing combo (chin down on chest, deep breath in
and then breathing it out with my mouth closed while pushing down toward
my butt). I couldn't get my mind to stop thinking about what was
actually happening down there, which was freaking me out. I kept
thinking, "Other women have managed to push a baby out, I can do it
too!" but after several tries and the head still not out, I really got
scared, just thinking that I would be stuck there forever, that I'd
never be able to get the baby out, that it would cause fetal distress
and I'd be rushed to an emergency c-section, etc etc. So even though my
doctor knew I didn't want an episiotomy except as a last resort, she
said to me, "Look, you're narrow and your baby's head is big, if we do a
small cut then he'll come out much faster," and at that point I just
wanted it to be over with. Everything was too painful and too intense
and too scary. And I would make the same decision again even with the
recovery process, looking back on it, as soon after the cut, thankfully
the baby's head came out -- then I was thinking "oh my God, the
shoulders are next!!" -- but they came out pretty quickly afterward and
the absolute best feeling in the entire world was that of the umbilical
cord coming out -- because I knew if THAT was out, then the baby
attached to it was out too!
They immediately put Graham on my
chest, which was great for my husband and I to be able to see him and
touch him -- he was crying so we knew he was okay, but he was blue
because the umbilical cord had been wrapped around his neck (another
reason I'm glad we chose to do the episiotomy), so my husband had to
quickly cut the cord and then they whisked him off for cleaning and
monitoring. We found out later that his Agpar scores were 9/10 in the
first minute and 10/10 after five minutes, so he was a real trooper
through all of this. They must have given me the Pitocin shot to get the
placenta expelled quickly, because I found myself shivering/shaking a
bit and the placenta came out right away.After that they were just
sewing me up and cleaning me off as my husband and I looked at each
other, trying to comprehend what just happened. We stayed for two hours
in the room for recovery, and soon Graham was brought back to us -- in
some random hospital baby clothes because we hadn't even had time to get
the bag out of the car! -- and we were able to cuddle him and hold him
and he even started breastfeeding right away (he is clearly his father's
child). My husband got him an outfit from the car and we just sat there
holding him for the next couple of hours. This is also when we realized
that both of us had absolutely NO credit on our cell phones -- mine ran
out after talking to my parents for two minutes -- nice planning on our
parts!
For the rest of our (cushy) three-day hospital stay -- we
were upgraded for free to a two-room private suite with two full
bathrooms, couch beds, sitting room area, lamps and artwork on the
walls, mini-fridge, etc etc -- we had Graham with us all day long but
had him in the nursery at night so he could be watched and we could get
some sleep (a good call considering the sleep patterns we've had since
bringing him home?). He did a great job at breastfeeding right away, so
my milk came in over the third night -- that was an insane feeling --
and it seems like he's been getting plenty of nutrients ever since. And that's that!
Some tips:
- The contractions may never feel like they are starting from the back -- go by the timing! And walk around a lot in early labor, because you are not going to feel like walking later on?
- The TENS and the nitrous oxide were both helpful distractions. And the contractions were really not terrible. It was just the actual delivery?
- Don't bother with anything fancy to wear in the delivery room -- you will never want to see the clothes you had on ever again. Just wear the hospital gown. You don't need socks -- you'll be sweating like crazy!
- Things to bring to the hospital that aren't on normal lists: the boppy feeding pillow (so helpful for holding the baby), abdominal binder (I found it really helpful for back support and helping my uterus contract), bite-sized individually wrapped chocolates for visitors and the hospital staff (really appreciated!) -- and make sure you have credit on your cell phone! (duh)
- Tip for surviving labor and delivery: do NOT think ahead. Stay in the present moment. No visualization of the delivery. No thinking "what if he doesn't come out???" Shut your mind down. And then feel proud of yourself afterward!
Re: Fast progression with no epidural!
Congratulations to you and your little family!