Birth Story, Sept 3, LOOONNG

BecExpecting · September 2010

Sept 3 was my 40-week mark. I woke up at 4:00 AM to go to the bathroom, and feeling frustrated after several days of no progress or labor symptoms, I grumpily said to myself "Happy due date" and went back to bed. One hour later, I woke up to my water breaking.

After showering and eating breakfast (scrambled eggs), we checked into the hospital at 6:00. In triage, they tested to confirm my water had broken as well as doing an internal exam. I was 1.5cm dilated, and 50% effaced - basically no change since 37 weeks. We were taken to the delivery room and left for a couple of hours to settle into labor. Around 10:30, the nurse came in to tell us that my contractions weren't regular or intense enough, so they were starting me on Pitocin. Not part of my original birth plan, but I decided to just go with it.

After that, my contractions went from mild discomfort every 8 minutes, to intense nauseating cramping pain every 2 minutes. I couldn't talk, only writhe and clutch the siderail of the hospital bed and moan. I suffered through as much of it as I could, knowing that first-time labor can take a while and I didn't want to get an epidural until I was at least 4cm dilated. Around 11:30, I was shaking between contractions and couldn't handle it anymore, so we got a nurse in to talk about pain relief meds.

The nurse examined me at 11:45 and I was 6cm! So the epidural went in at noon (not bad), and by 12:30, I was 10cm and fully effaced. I wasn't feeling the urge to push, so the docs and nurses left me alone for a while until I started feeling it. Really I never felt an overwhelming urge, just my epidural wearing off an hour later, so I thought we should get down to it.

I started pushing around 1:20 and at 2:33 PM (after 9.5 hours of labor), Dana Violet was born. 8 lbs, 13.5 oz. I had 3 or 4 stitches put in, and then we got to breastfeeding. She latched on right away.

Things I've learned:

1) Your water breaking feels nothing like pissing yourself. There's no sense of relief like you'd get from emptying your bladder.

2) At 6cm dilated, the epidural needle is NOT a big deal. I have no memory of any discomfort with this procedure.

3) After delivery, the nurse had to "massage" my uterus to get it to contract. Don't let the term "massage" fool you - THIS HURTS A LOT. She basically was sticking her whole hand straight into my abdomen and pushing down. This also makes you shoot blood clots out your vagina, yay.

4) Almost 9-lb babies come out HUNGRY and sometimes colostrum isn't enough. Dana had to go to the nursery her first night to be cup-fed formula, she drank 70 ml's in 5 hours. (The books say that babies that young can only hold 5-7 ml in their stomach at a time. LIES!)

5) If the hospital gives you 600mg of ibuprofen for pain every 8 hours for 2 days, your stomach is probably going to be upset (we're talking bad diarrhea) when you get home.

6) "Baby blues" is a stupid name for the rainbow of postpartum feelings you have: anxiety, inadequacy, sadness, irritability, and general suckiness. I bet a man named it "baby blues".