my easy birth story

TheJohns · February 2009

Lost my mucus plug starting at 37 weeks and kept losing it for the next 3 weeks. I had my membranes stripped at my 38 and 39 week appointments and it just gave me bad cramps. I was at 1 cm, 50% effaced and station -2 for those whole 3 weeks.

On Saturday, 2/14 I felt like I might be leaking amniotic fluid so we went into L&D and they tested it and said it looked like it was, but wasn?t. I asked the Dr. to strip my membranes yet again and she did. The rest of the day I felt super crampy and had some period-like pains, but nothing was in any way timeable. I had eggplant parm for dinner that night (OWT that it stimulates labor lol) and after dinner I noticed a little bright red bleeding (enough to need a panty liner). I?d never had any bleeding my entire pregnancy, so I was hoping this was a sign!

On Sunday, 2/15 I woke up at 4:30am and went to pee and there was even more bright red blood. Got back in bed and felt a really intense period-like cramp that lasted about a min. A few mins later I felt another, so I left Cliff sleeping and went downstairs to time them on contractionmaster.com. After an hour of timing, contrax were on average 6 mins apart, so I called the advice nurse and she said to come on in. I woke up Cliff at 6:15am and we started getting ready slowly, dropped the dog off at my parent?s house and were at the hospital by 8:30am.

I was checked into triage by 9am and hooked up to all the monitors and had to wait until 10am before the nurse would check me. The contrax were definitely getting stronger at this point and I now had to focus inward and breath through them. I did NOT like it when Cliff touched me during a contraction. The nurse said I was 3cm, and 90% effaced but I had to wait for the Dr. to come in an hour later to check me before I could be ?officially? admitted. At 11:45am the Dr. came in and checked me and said I?m going to have a baby!

By 12pm we were finally taken to our huge L&D room, and I was given an IV. I was also running a fever around 100.3, so they gave me antibiotics through the IV. Immediately the nurses started asking me when I?d like the epidural and we told them that I was going to try to go natural, but was not opposed to the epi. We watched some movies on the flat screen TV and Cliff played games on his blackberry. The contrax continued to get stronger, longer and closer together and I was in more pain.

At 2:45pm we were allowed to walk the halls for 30 mins, which helped a little bit. The nurse told me to squat during the contrax to encourage the baby to move down and for my pelvis to open ? this felt a little better. By 4pm the contrax were getting so bad that I decided to get the epi, but I was #3 in line for it. While I was waiting I started getting a really painful contraction that started to let up, then another one came, and another? it was basically one on top of another for almost 20 mins and I was moaning and crying. Thirty long minutes after I requested the epi the Dr. came in and gave it to me at 4:53pm. (12 hours of laboring naturally) It was very uncomfortable, especially since I was still having contax almost nonstop while getting it. I also had to get a urine catheter put in which was very uncomfortable. Almost immediately there was SUCH relief! I could not feel any contractions at all. I could still feel my legs though, which was good.

They checked me right after the epi and I was at 4cm and 100% effaced. The doctor broke my waters at 5:17pm, which I did not feel at all. All of the internal checks after the epi were pain-free. They said that the hard part is getting to 4cm, and that I should progress at about 1cm per hour from then on. Now Cliff and I were able to relax a bit, though the epi (and maybe the fever) gave me the shakes, which would come and go and get worse at different points. Got checked again 2 hours later at 7pm and was 6-7cm.

At 9pm the Dr. came in and checked me again and said that I was 9.5cm with just a cervical lip! She said that as soon as I felt any rectal pressure to call in the nurse and I would begin pushing. This was so exciting but also made me extremely nervous ? my baby was really going to be here, and so soon! My shakes got really bad at this point, probably because I was going through the transition phase of labor in addition to the fever and the epi. My whole upper body was tense and my jaw kept popping, which was super painful. At 10:40pm the Dr. checked me and I was fully dilated and at +1 station. The Dr. said to labor down until I felt a strong urge to push.

Around 11:45pm I called the nurse in and said I had a little bit of pressure down there, even though I didn?t really feel like it was that much. I had started to notice that I could feel my contrax, though they were not painful at all. (I had not upped the dose of my epi in over 3 hours) The nurse said that was really good and she wanted me to have more feeling when I pushed. Just after midnight, I tried my first practice push. She held my left leg and Cliff held my right. I was instructed that at the beginning of the contrax to inhale through my nose, hold in the breath, and pull my legs towards my body, put my chin down to my chest and bear down like I was taking a #2. The nurse was so surprised to see the top of the baby?s head on the first push! She said I was an excellent pusher and that it takes most 1^st time moms an hour and a half of pushing to see the baby?s head. The three of us pushed through 3 more contrax and the nurse said it was time to call the doctor in because she was nervous the baby could be out any minute.

The doctor came in and I told her I did NOT want an episiotomy. So while I was pushing 2 more times, she stretched me a lot with her fingers, which was extremely uncomfortable and a bit painful, but I knew it was for my benefit. She then said she may have seen some meconium, so she called the pediatric nurse in. The next contraction I pushed with all my might, and the peds nurse came in and yelled ?HARDER!? and so I gave it my all and the baby?s head was out! A few seconds later they said push one more time and his little body slid right out. It was the biggest rush and feeling of relief imaginable! I could feel my belly actually deflate. The put him on me for a sec and since the Dr. thought she saw meconium, they took him to the warmer to be evaluated by the prediatric nurse (there was no meconium after all), but Cliff didn?t get to cut the cord and I wasn?t able to hold him for about 15 mins.

Landon was born at 12:34am (after less than 30 minutes of pushing) weighing 7lbs, 6 oz and measuring 20 ? inches long. He scored an 8 and 9 on his apgars. During those 15 minutes the Dr. stiched me up. I had 3 small 1^st degree tears. Two on my urethra and one on the perenium. I could feel the stitches so the Dr. gave me local anesthetic but I could still feel the pinching. I did not poop on the table! I feel really blessed to have a perfect little boy and also to have had a pretty easy labor. It was not what I expected, but I am so happy that everything went the way it did.