Baby is here...almost had the birth I wanted

caralck · July 2012

Long story...

Well, baby Maia is here and is now a week old (born 7/6/12 at 3:48 am). I prepared for her birth with hypnobirthing and while we ended up with the opposite of a natural birth, I'm happy with what I was able to achieve before it went awry. Woke up at 2:30ish with cramping on 7/5 that actually was uncomfortable. Went to the bathroom and had some bloody show. When I went back to bed, I thought maybe I had a slow leak of fluid so covered the bed with towels and a crib liner to prevent destruction to the bed from fluid (turns out I wasn't ruptured, just extra juicy). Tried to go back to sleep but kept getting contractions every 3-8 minutes. Eventually got out of bed at 5 am, showered, and started tracking contractions about an hour later. They got to every 2 minutes after about 5 hrs and I started getting the shivers so I was a bit worried that I was progressing faster than I thought was possible. So we went in to the hospital. 4 cm. Oh well. Decided to stay and use the jacuzzi tub. Oddly enough, the water did not provide much relief and actually made my contractions stronger and more frequent and intense. After an hour, had to get out for intermittent monitoring and decided to stay out since bouncing on the birth ball provided better relief anyway. so I was 4 at 11 am and 4-5 at 5 pm so decided to do AROM to get things moving forward. Got to an 8 and stalled out there for 5 hrs. The first 2 hours I was doing great and managing with the breathing but the last 3 were really hard and extremely painful. Kept changing positions because any one position would be comfy for only short bursts of time. Nothing sucks more than having the strong urge to push your baby out and your cervix is only 8 cm...for 3 hours. Tried the water again at the suggestion of my doctor and the nurse. And again, the contractions intensified in strength and frequency though were shorter in duration. At one point it felt like she was trying to come out. Nothing gets people moving faster than telling them you think your baby is coming out in a tub when they don't do water births. Turns out I was still an 8. So after 5 hrs of no progress and unable to not push, decided to get the epidural to see if this would allow me to relax and let the last 2 cm go away so I could at least get a vaginal birth. An hour later, I got to 9 but the contractions stopped so pitocin was started and after 2 hrs, still at 9 and baby was no longer tolerating labor. I was getting very strong contractions with only 2 units of pit. I sat up hoping that the extra cervical pressure would help but it dropped her HR into the 90s so I laid back down and we prepared for the c-section. The thought was that maybe she was a little asynclitic or possibly direct OP because of coupling of the contractions and the back pains. She was actually OA/LOA when they pulled her out (they had to push her head back up before starting the section). Our night nurse was awesome and used our camera and took amazing photos of her coming out of my incision and being up and out of me. Since she was crying her little head off, they did delayed clamping for 2 minutes, since that's the new hospital policy for any birth if baby is fine, even in sections. She weighed 8lbs 10 oz, 21 inches long and even for all that medical intervention, she calmed right down and was so peaceful, looking around. They wrapped her up and brought her next to my head and she started sucking on my chin. Once I was back in the recovery area, we did skin-to-skin time and she started crawling towards my left breast on her own so the nurse helped her latch on since I had to lay completely flat to keep my BP up. She nursed for 30 min then they put her onto my right breast and she stayed there for another 30 min. Thinking she was done, we put her back in the middle and she crawled right back over to the left breast for 30 more minutes of sucking. Again, we put her back in the middle and she made moves for the right breast. It was time to move back to the room and they needed to do the vit K and erythromycin plus she was still a little gurgly so we did those to try to get her to fuss and cry that stuff out. She wimpered then calmed right back down again. So maybe 22 hrs of med free was enough to compensate for the last 3 hrs with meds. She's been a very calm baby since birth...except when hungry or wet/poopy. My milk took 5 days to come in and that did make for some rough times for the both of us but thankfully now she's nursing well, I'm making enough milk for her to be satisfied, I'm healing very well from my surgery (my nipples were hurting far more than my incision once the staples came out). Sad that I didn't get the med free vaginal delivery but happy that in the end, we have a healthy baby girl to love. My doctor and his group support VBAC so I know that can still be an option for me in the future. I was quite surprised the water didn't help much. I felt 100% supported in my choices the whole time and obviously they weren't pressuring me to make choices quickly when they let me chill at 4-5 cm for well over 6 hrs and then at 8 for 5 hrs. Turns out chanting "open cervix" doesn't make your cervix open. I figured it was worth the shot. My doctor later in the morning came by to check on me and apologized that he wasn't able to get me the vaginal birth I desired. Certainly wasn't for the lack of trying or patience!

Jcrab · July 2012

Congrats on your little girl! I'm sorry you didn't get the natural birth you worked towards. It sure sounds like you gave it every chance and coped quite well. You should be proud of yourself. If you choose to have another child I hope you can have a VBAC. I needed a C/S for DS (never labored with him) and just had a very empowering HBAC. Congrats again!

sschwege · July 2012

I'm sorry you didn't have the birth you had prepared for, but it still sounds like such a beautiful birth-day for your LO! I loved reading about how alert and calm she was. The fact that you got to do the breast crawl is awesome! Congratulations mama, enjoy your little bundle!