Birth story: Long induction, quick delivery (LONG)
mrsgail
member
On Wednesday, February 23rd I had been into the doctor that morning for one of my regular NST?s, BP checks, and to meet with a doctor. I was 37 weeks, 5 days. The NST and fluid levels looked good but my BP was continuing to increase. The doctor decided we would schedule to induce me the following Wednesday. I was to continue with the bed rest to keep my blood pressure down, check it regularly, and if it elevated over 140/90 to go straight to labor & delivery.
That night after napping on the couch I woke up and decided I would check my BP before going to bed and it was 170/100. I kept checking it just to see if it was a fluke but it wasn?t so we went straight to L&D. When we got there, the nurse checked me and it was now 200/110. The doctor decided to admit me right away and get an IV started to take the BP down. She let me know her plan was to get IV?s going to lower my BP, if I respond well to it they would start the process for inducing me. If it didn't go down they will have to consider an emergency C-Section. At first my BP wasn?t responding to the medicine so the nurse kept checking and adjusting the IV. Finally it started going down and they decided to proceed with the induction process.
They let me know the induction could take a few days and the possibility of a C-section was greater with being induced. The plan was to start with a cervadil that night, and then start the pitocin Thursday morning for 8 hours. After that they would take me off of it to give my uterus a break and see if I progressed on my own. If no progression, I would be able to eat that night and get (or try to get) another night of sleep and then start again on Friday morning. If still no progression by Friday night, I would likely be having a C-Section.
They inserted the cervadil. I wasn't told this ahead of time, but once it was put in, I wouldn?t be able to get up for 2-3 hours in order to let it start working effectively. Shortly after it was put in, I had to pee. Since I was hooked up to IV?s, BP monitors, and fetal monitors I had to call the nurse to help get me to the bathroom. She came in with a bed pan and told me I wouldn't be going to the restroom but going right there in this pan in bed. Oh my! That was a challenge and also an experience I hope to never have to do again. She left and I tried to get some sleep. I didn?t sleep at all that night. Between the monitor straps, IV?s, and the BP monitor going off every 30 minutes to an hour, I don?t know how anyone can sleep during that.
Thursday morning, the nurse checked me for progression and found that I was only a fingertip dilated and my cervix was starting to soften. They removed the cervadil and started the pitocin in my IV. Within an hour I started contracting ever so slightly. It felt like tolerable period cramps. My BP was staying stable so they adjusted the monitor to only go off every hour in order to let me sleep some. I was able to sleep for the hour in between checks but as soon as that thing would go off I would wake up. The nurse kept coming in to adjust the fetal monitors all day. They tightened the straps so much that I have marks on my sides from them still. The contractions stayed pretty steady, lasting about 15-30 seconds and were every five to seven minutes. They still weren?t very intense. It was getting late in the day, about 2pm and the nurse checked me and I was dilated to 3cm at this point but because the contractions still weren?t very strong she kept telling me that most likely we will take me off the pitocin around 4pm and see what my body does on its own. She said sometimes people will continue to labor without the pitocin and progress further, and others will just stop laboring. Either way, it looked like we would be going through the whole thing again the next day.
Around 3pm I was laying there dozing in and out of sleep and woke up feeling like I was peeing myself. It was just a small trickle so I paged the nurse to help me to the bathroom and I jokingly told her I must have finally fallen asleep so deeply that I didn?t even know I was peeing. She laughed it off and helped me to the bathroom. When I went to the bathroom and finished I noticed I was still leaking. I called her in there and told her I thought this was my water breaking. When I wiped I noticed what looked like pieces of my mucus plug. It wasn?t a large amount of fluid so she wasn?t convinced it was my water and ordered one of those swab tests they can use to see if indeed it was. Sure enough, it was. This was music to my ears! To me this meant we were going in the right direction and my body is working for me and not against me.
Immediately my contractions went from a pain level 4 to a 7 or 8 and were lasting longer (I got real used to being asked ?On a scale of 0 to 10, what is your pain level??). The nurse checked and I was now 4cm dilated. They turned the pitocin off as planned and thought I now had a greater chance of continuing to labor on my own. Since my water had broke, the time frame was a little different now. They would allow me to labor for 18 hours before having to do anything to prevent infection. An hour later I was still having regular, painful contractions. These now felt like the worst period cramps I could ever imagine. I immediately started asking for pain meds. They refused to give me the epidural as they said it was likely in the next hour things would stall and the contractions would wear off on their own once the pitocin runs through my system. Thanks for the confidence boost, nurse!
I toughed it out through the contractions for another hour and when they got stronger rather than tapering off I called the nurse back in and again requested to do something for the pain now. It was getting so bad I would scream in agony with each one. They were now lasting about a minute long and were only two to three minutes apart, leaving me no time for relief in between. Finally the nurse called the doctor and they agreed that it looked like I was going to continue to labor and they could give me something for the pain, just not the epidural yet. This was around 6pm and they put something in my IV. They said I would feel it immediately and be able to sleep but would also feel very loopy. Sure enough, as she was pumping this miracle potion into my IV, I felt some relief and started talking gibberish.
I woke up a few hours later and asked for more of this medicine and if they thought I could get the epidural soon. My dilation had stalled at 4 cm so they still wanted to hold off on the epidural. This was about 12 midnight. As long as they could keep giving me this miracle drug I was happy. I was able to sleep a bit until it would wear off. I woke up again around 3 am Friday morning and asked for more of my happy medicine and they finally decided to start the epidural. I was so nervous to get the epidural but it actually wasn?t anything like I had imagined. My husband held me so tightly that I wouldn?t have been able to move if I wanted to. I was having contractions so close together that they couldn?t get a break in between and I had two contractions while they were administering it. I remember the nurse telling me that this contraction would be the last one I felt. Four contractions later I was still waiting for this relief everyone talks about. I was feeling everything and it was getting worse because that other pain medicine had worn off. Finally I couldn?t feel anything in my right side but still felt everything in my left. They kept pumping more into me in hopes that it would take but it didn?t.
The anesthesiologist came back and was talking about options we had to get this working on both sides of me. These details are a little fuzzy as I was in so much pain. The main option she was pushing for us to choose was to basically re-do the epidural up a few vertebrae and hope that that does the trick. This scared the living daylights out of me. The other option was to pull the epidural out a little bit and see if the medicine would get to where it needed to. I choose the second option as it seemed safer to me. I could feel this baby getting lower with every contraction and they kept telling me not to push but it seemed like I was without even wanting to. They pulled the epidural out a hair and within a few minutes I could feel the effects. I was getting agitated by everyone asking about my pain level and testing for feeling on both my left and right side. I asked if I could lie down for just 30 minutes and get some rest in order to start pushing. I?m not sure why a nap at this point sounded like a good idea but the nurses, doctor and anesthesiologist actually decided this was a good idea. I guess we all imagined I could be pushing for a few hours and I needed a little bit of rest. They didn?t think the epidural was doing its job so if I were able to sleep through contractions that would be a good indicator for them. 30 minutes later I woke up to what seemed like ten people in the room all staring at me and asking if I felt the contractions. I wasn't feeling a thing now. They checked me and to everyone?s surprise I had progressed from 4cm to 10cm in just a few hours and it was time to push.
The nurse had me do two practice pushes and then quickly told me to stop as her head was crowning and they could see a full head of hair. They called the doctor to come back in as this baby was going to be here very soon. The wait for the doctor seemed like forever even though it was only about two minutes. The doctor got in, they got him suited up and then he told me to push. Because of all the medicine they pumped into my epidural to get it working, I could feel absolutely nothing so I really didn?t even know if I was pushing or not. Apparently I was and was doing a great job. I pushed two more times and Anna was out. Five pushes total and she made her appearance screaming. She was instantly placed on my chest and looked up at me as if recognizing my voice. It was the most amazing moment of my life. My husband cut the cord and stayed with her every moment after that. My L&D room had the table in it for them to do all the tests, cleaning, etc. While they stitched up my second degree tear the nurse kept telling me that was one of the quickest deliveries she had seen and I almost had my baby without the doctor there. I was amazed at how well that went and just like they tell you, I instantly forgot about all that pain I had endured for several hours before.
Anna Payton was born at 5:58am on Friday, February 25th, weighed 5lb 12oz, was 19 ?? long and scored 9 on both APGAR tests. She is just perfect and I was instantly in love! After she got cleaned up they gave her back to me to try to breastfeed. She latched immediately as if she had done it before.
I have never been so happy with my body and how it seemed like it knew what to do even after being induced. Although I labored for nearly 24 hours, the quick delivery made it all seem like a distant memory.
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Re: Birth story: Long induction, quick delivery (LONG)