The very long story of my very long labor--PIP!

kaymaroo · December 2011

On Tuesday morning I was brushing my teeth when I felt a trickle of fluid. Not a "gush" by any means, but enough to make me wonder whether my water had broken. I had been having very minor contractions all night, but nothing intense or regular. I went and told DH that I thought it had but he was convinced I had just peed my pants because it wasn't a big dramatic flow like in the movies. I called my mom to get her opinion, and she told me that was how it happened when she was in labor with me and to call my doctor. I did and he was on vacation, but his nurse told me to go to L&D and get it checked out.

While I was getting ready I felt two more rushes of fluid bigger than the first and I felt pretty sure that it was my water breaking. We got to the hospital at 1pm. They did a swab and ran a test on the fluid and determined it was amniotic fluid and I was in labor. The on-call doctor checked and I was only 1cm dilated and only about 50% effaced so she started me on cervadil to be followed by pitocin. I was GBS positive so they started me on antibiotics right away. I wasn't allowed to get up and move around because of the IV and the risk of infection since my water was broken. By the time they actually started me on the cervadil it was 6:30pm and after they decided I would be laboring until at least the next day they allowed me to eat a sandwich and have some juice. Contractions started in earnest about an hour later, nothing unbearable but definitely painful and coming every 2-5 minutes. This lasted all night so that I only got about a half hour of sleep.

The next morning they removed the cervadil and checked me; I was 2-3cm dilated and about 70% effaced. The doctor was happy with the progress and ordered a low dose of pitocin. While I waited for the nurses to fill the order the contractions got really intense and right on top of one another. I had planned to go med-free but with how painful the contractions were and with all the awful things I had heard about pitocin I finally decided to get an epidural. I got that at 9:30am Wednesday and they started pitocin right after. Unfortunately, despite them increasing the dosage every half hour, my contractions were actually slowing down and I wasn't progressing at all. Worst of all the epidural was so strong that I couldn't feel my legs at ALL and started to get claustrophobic. It took three nurses and DH to turn me over in bed because I couldn't feel anything below my chest. The most frustrating thing was that everyone kept telling me I was lucky to be so numb and not to ask for pain, not taking me seriously at all. I begged them to turn down the dosage, and told the doctor I wouldn't be able to push if I were that numb, so he finally made the anesthesiologist reduce the dosage (even though the anesthesiologist had been refusing until then).

Once the epidural was adjusted and I calmed down a little they checked me again. At 6:30pm I was still only 3cm dilated and the doctor determined that my water hadn't ruptured after all, but was only "leaking". He broke my water for me. By 9pm I was still only 4-5cm dilated and the baby was not totally engaged. They inserted an internal fetal monitor to make sure the baby wasn't in distress, but luckily he was handling everything just fine and the antibiotics I had been on for GBS were protecting us from infections as well.

At 10pm the nurse checked me and I was still at about 5cm, but the contractions were coming on strong every 2 minutes. She told me I could hope to start pushing around 3am, so we sent our families home to rest since they had been waiting all day. I was feeling really nauseous at this point from all the meds and from the pain (since my epidural was turned down so low) so they gave me zofran which knocked me out asleep for about an hour.

At 11:45pm I woke up feeling a strong need to use the bathroom so I paged the nurse. She assured me the baby was still too high and delivery was a ways off. 15 minutes later, though, I felt a sharp, really strong pain just above my pelvic bone and paged her again. She checked me and was absolutely shocked to discover I was at 10cm, fully effaced, and the baby was ready to come out! We woke DH, who had also fallen asleep, called our families, and waited through about 15 more minutes of contractions for the doctor to arrive. He got there at 12:20am, I started pushing, and 25 minutes later Jack was born! He arrived at 12:44am on Thursday Dec. 1st, weighing 7lbs 4oz and was 18 inches long.

The pushing wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be, and to be honest with the epidural I hardly felt a thing except for when he slid out. I had a first-degree tear which I didn't learn about until later. They put Jack on my chest and DH and I got to hold him and coo over him for 45 minutes before our families came in to meet him.

Jack is doing wonderfully. We got home from the hospital Friday afternoon and while I'm still sore from the tear, I otherwise feel perfectly fine. Breastfeeding isn't easy but it's not as hard as I was afraid of, and Jack is really enthusiastic about it.

And if you've made it this far, here are some photos of my handsome little man!