Finally getting around to posting this! Wanted to share with the July mommas before I forget:
On the night of 7/6/11 (40 weeks 5 days pregnant), DH and I went for a walk around 8pm. I cried through part of it as I told him that I felt like I was never going to go into labor on my own?I would have to be induced?I felt so miserable?etc. etc.
Fast forward to 10:30pm. I get into bed and immediately start to feel a little crampy with each contraction I?m getting. I?m kind of annoyed and try to sleep, but by 11pm realize the cramping is turning towards pain, and the contractions might be timeable. By 11:30pm I had DH awake and using his contraction timer app, which showed they were 5-8 minutes apart.
1am 7/7/11, I knew I wasn?t going to be able to sleep through these contractions as they kept getting more painful, so I got up and walked around the house a bit. 1:15 I went to the bathroom and noticed I was losing a little bit of my mucus plug. That plus the increased intensity of the contractions made me decide it was time to get in the shower, we were going to the hospital.
We took our time getting everything together, eating a bit, etc. and got to the hospital around 3am. They checked me into L+D but said they wanted to do an internal before deciding if they would be keeping me for the long haul. The resident who came in checked me at 3cm and 80% effaced, compared to 2 days ago when I was 1 cm 50%. So the party had begun!
I was feeling wired, so the nurse held off on hooking up my IV and DH and I did a bunch of laps around the L+D floor in order to keep labor going. After a while I headed back to the room so they could check baby on the monitor and get my IV going. I tried to rest for a bit, but the contractions were being pretty persistent, so I couldn?t sleep. After a while I decided to labor on the birthing ball for a bit, which was much more comfortable than trying to labor in the bed.
At 6:30am, one of the other residents came in to check me again. He said I hadn?t changed, and he wanted to break my water. I was a little nervous about this?our childbirth class instructor drilled it into my head that breaking water means ?your clock is ticking!!!? and if I didn?t progress on my own, there was now a time limit to how long I could be in labor before baby had to come out. But, I figured I had already been in labor for 8 hours with no change, so if this would help, let?s go for it.
After the water was broken, the one downside was that I had to stay on the monitor a lot more, which meant less mobility. However, my contractions also started getting REALLY bad. I had been breathing well through them before and feeling confident about being able to handle them without drugs, but they amped up a whole lot after the water broke. For a few hours, I was able to continue with my breathing and deal with them, but around 11am I lost it. The contractions hurt so bad that I was having trouble breathing at all, let alone slowly?they had to put me on oxygen and I was shaking so bad that I was freaking myself out. An internal showed I was still only 5 cm and 80% effaced after having the water broken 4.5 hours earlier, so finally I started begging for the epi.
Just to clarify?the reason I hadn?t wanted an epi was not because I wanted to ?go natural? but more because I have pretty bad scoliosis and even the hospital anesthesiologists had said it would be ?challenging? to place one correctly on me. I was afraid to have them monkeying with my back if I could help it. But at this point I really didn?t care anymore?the pain outweighed my epi fears.
Of course both the attending and resident anesthesiologists were in emergency c-sections, so I had to wait. I took a shower, which helped a little bit with controlling the shakes and taking my mind off the pain for a bit. At 12:00 they came in to place the epi. I had requested that the attending do it herself (because of my scoliosis situation) but she insisted that the resident could do it (joys of a teaching hospital). Finally she agreed to stay in the room while the resident did it, to put me at ease. And let me tell you?I want to kiss the ground that resident walks on. He placed it in one shot and I got fully numbed (something they did not think would happen because of my vertebrae placement). SWEET RELIEF. DH said I was like a totally different person after it went in, ha!
I was finally able to take a little nap and relax while the epi did its thing. It sucked that I couldn?t get out of bed anymore, but it was worth the relief. At 2:45 they checked me at 7cm 100% effaced. At 4:00 the nurses put me in what they called the ?running man? position: laying on my left side, with my left leg bent towards the back and right leg towards the front (DH had to hold it up because I couldn?t feel it, haha). They swore this position was great for getting epidural patients to dilate quickly. Turns out they were right?by 5:00 (1 hour later) I was 10 cm! They had me do one set of practice pushes, but the doctor told me he didn?t want me to really push too much yet, because the baby?s head wasn?t quite low enough and he didn?t want me to overexert myself early on.
So, they told me to ?labor down? for a while. The only thing was, my epi was starting to wear off on the right side. Amazing Anesthesiology Resident came in to amp it up, but it didn?t take. Luckily it didn?t fully wear off, and I was really just feeling pressure more than pain?but the pressure was getting pretty intense. Finally by 6pm I said I couldn?t take it anymore, I had to push.
The time block from 6pm to 7:44pm feels like it took place in an alternate universe, honestly. I pushed during all that time and after a while it started to feel like an out of body experience! By now I had been awake since 6am the day before, hadn?t eaten for 18 hours and was subsisting on ice chips?plus having to push like my life depended on it. They had me on oxygen because I started having a little trouble breathing after each push set, and I got the uncontrollable shakes again. DS's head got stuck right at the end of the birth canal for probably 45 minutes?everyone kept telling me ?Oh just one more push!? and after a while all I could think is, ?They are LYING LIARS and they are only telling me this so I won?t stop pushing!!!? But turns out it was true, he was just being stubborn with his big noggin. DH said I looked like a warrior through all the pushing, he had never seen me so determined to anything in my life. Proven by the fact that I ended up blowing out all the blood vessels in my face during the pushing! I had no idea you could even do that. I looked like I got in a gang fight. lol.
Finally at 7:44pm Desmond James made his entrance into the world. It was the most amazing feeling ever?all I could do was cry, and stare at him, and hug DH, and cry some more. The nurses? shift change was at 7pm but the day staff had actually stayed to watch him be born, because they were all dying to know if it was a boy or girl and what the name was. So we had about 9 people in the room when I delivered (again, teaching hospital!) and a lot of them were crying too. It was a really ridiculously awesome moment.
I honestly didn?t even feel it when the placenta was delivered (epi was still working) and was only mildly uncomfortable while they sewed me up. (Apparently I got an episiotomy?didn?t even know they did it, but had a 2nd degree tear which wasn?t too bad)
They put Desmond right up on my chest and I was able to start breastfeeding right away. I was able to have him on my chest for a full hour before they took him off to do his Vit K, weigh in, etc. So glad I was able to do that! Afterwards we started letting our families in to visit and share him with us.
So, overall: I originally intended to go med-free, but I am not at all unhappy that I decided to go with the epidural. It was the right decision for me at the time and I'm glad that I didn't go in with a dead-set birth plan (I would have felt a lot more disappointed in myself if I had been so rigid with my planning). Labor is both the most difficult and rewarding thing I've ever been through, and I think my experience was as ideal as 20 hours of labor can be!
Re: Desmond's birth story (long)
6/14/10 BFP; 6/30/10 Dx ectopic
11/16/10 BFP #2; DD born 7/26/11
Congrats momma! Cant wait to see pictures of baby Desmond.