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January 2012 Moms
Vera's Birth Story (long)
Vera Lynn was born at 7:36 pm on Friday, December 23, 2011 weighing in
at 7 lbs and 11 oz, 19 inches long and as perfect as can be at 38 weeks and 1 day gestation.
I went into labor (or what I recognized as potential labor) at 1:30am that Friday. I woke up with horrible back pains. I had been doing this for about a week so I didn't think too much about it and decided to take a hot shower since that usually works to relax the pains and let me get back to sleep. No dice. It didn't work. So I lay down and just try to relax some more...impossible. So I go out into the living room and get on my hands and knees over my birth ball to try to take the tension off my back, I'm using heating pads, and even different positions.
I think around 2:20 or so I called my doula and asked her for her advice and to give her a heads up just in case this was it. We agreed that I should page the midwife on call and as per the midwife's instructions, I took another hot shower and tried to nap and if I couldn't or if it would make me feel better, I could meet her up at the hospital since she was already there and would be there all night. Around 2:45am or so, I woke DH up and told him to get dressed, we're going to the hospital.
After getting my things together just in case and getting the car warmed up and stumbling out to buckle up for the ride, we get to the hospital just before 3:00am. I walk waddle into the ER doors since the normal entrance to the hospital is closed until 8:00am. I kid you not, I get 3 steps from the check-in desk and what I think is my water breaks. If you want to see people get to moving who were just calm seconds ago, you can always blurt out like I did, "either my water just broke or I peed all over myself."
So they're scrambling to get me in a wheelchair and the girl who was behind the desk is practically jogging me back to the maternity ward. We had to come in through the ER entrance because the regular entrance is only open during regular visiting hours. So we get wheeled into maternity and my contractions are getting a bit more painful but we don't really know if it's the real deal yet because I haven't asked for an amniotic fluid test yet and don't for a few hours. Oops.
So they are hooking me up to monitors but the nurses are freaking out. They can't find baby's heartbeat. I'm not worried cause I am currently getting kicked in the ribs. And during this time, Vera is making one last hurrah with the pregnancy induced heartburn because she can. So anyways, they get out the handheld Doppler to try to find her heartbeat. Still can't find it. They run to get the midwife who is all like well, let's get the ultrasound machine in here. So they get it and I get one last glimpse at her in the womb! And yes, they see her heartbeat but because the way she's laying in the womb, they have to put the fetal monitor dang near on my back to pick up her heartbeat.
And during all of this, I'm still experiencing back labor with the rare uterine contraction.
So now that I'm hooked up, they want to do a vaginal exam. Oh my god! It's torture. Because my cervix was still so high up, it felt like she had to go elbow deep to find it. That on top of the contractions I may have gotten a little upset and yelled for her to stop. Turns out I'm on dilated to a 1 and 75% effaced at this point. My heart sinks but the midwife wants to keep me for observation for a few hours. So I send DH home just in case I get to come home later and he would have to go to work, then he would need all the rest he could get because Friday was their last day of seasonal peak, meaning their busiest time of the year. I finally remember to get an amniotic fluid check at this point and ask for one.
Somewhere in all this (it's still a lot of time warp feeling to me) my lovely doula shows up. We walk the halls a little bit and use other comfort measures but not much really seems to work.
They did determine that my water did not break but I still call BS on that one and figure it showed my water didn't break because there had been such a time lapse that there wasn't any fluid to turn the strip and it wasn't a constant leak because her head could have plugged the tiny hole. Just my theory. But I get another cervical check at 7am. Still no progress but the contractions are freaking horrible! We are taking them one at a time and even use a warm shower to power through some of the rougher ones. They're getting worse but I can still do this!
Around 8am, I get another warm gush and my water is confirmed broken. DH is back at the hospital by now, he's called into work and enacted his paternity leave. I receive my IV line for the antibiotics since I tested Group B Strep Positive.
The rest after this is all a blur but I can give you a rough outline of what I remember
Sometime between 8am and 10am, I go BSC. I mean I'm yelling at people not to f*cking touch me during my contractions. My poor mom, doula, and husband endured what I am sure is some extreme mental and emotional abuse from my mouth and crazy antics. They're all trying to help me get through the contractions but I am not having any of it. It hurts to have a contraction but every comfort measure also hurts. I can't breathe yet I can still run at the mouth. It's horrible. I probably need to buy apology cards for the nursing staff and my family and the doula!
The midwife comes in and tells me that they're giving me some nubain to allow me to sleep since I hadn't sleep really the night before and all this time and that there is no way I can do this without rest. I agree and they give it to me intravenously. And it is awesome. Apparently, this stuff makes Lacey go silly. I feel high as a kite. I can still feel the contractions but I don't care anymore. The edge was taken off. I am dozing in and out of sleep. I am talking DH, my mom, and the doula's ears off and not making a lick of sense. I'm butting into their conversations, half conscious, with things totally unrelated then saying things like I don't even know what we are talking about, slurring my words but I know I'm slurring so I'm trying real hard not to slur and you know how that always works...it doesn't! and asking for Meria, Ameria? I don't know. I just am telling y'all what I was told. This all wears off around 11-ish. The pain and realization of the pain comes back. The nurses offer me an epidural but I decline.
By 12-ish, this bird is singing a different tune. I'm asking for some more nubain but they won't give me any. The midwife comes in around 1-ish and tells me my labor isn't progressing enough on its own and they are going to give me pitocin. I mull it over and at 1:30pm I cave. Bring me the anesthesiologist. Labor progressing naturally is bad enough but now they want to speed it up with pitocin, I can't do it much longer. By 2pm the anesthesiologist is in my room and preparing me for the epidural. I count this time the end of my un-medicated labor. 12 and a half hours un-medicated, in my opinion, back labor. I am proud of myself. I have no regrets and no hard feelings towards myself for getting the epidural. I knew what I could withstand and I did the best I could. I do feel that if I had had felt the labor in the front of my body, where most women do, I could have lasted longer. I talked to DH last night and told him with our next child that I want to go un-medicated again for as long as possible again, hopefully all the way through this time...but that's a few years up the road before we start trying for baby number 2
It's pretty uneventful until 5pm. I get checked again and I am dilated to an 8.5 and effaced 90-95%. Baby is now at a 0 station in my pelvis. Now it's the waiting game. I figure within 2 hours max, I'll be pushing her out. at 5:30pm or so, I'm checked again and I am complete...dilated to a 10 and 100% effaced. All during this the room next to me is busy, I can hear her screaming and pushing...I can wait, I don't feel anything other than some pressure. DH tells us to give him 15 minutes or so to get himself together and to calm down. At 6pm, as funny as this sounds, I'm asking DH if he's ready. I am so ready. And I push. My doula is holding my left leg, my mother my right leg, and my wonderful husband is up by my head, helping me support my upper body during pushes, giving me encouragement with the rest of my support group, the nurses, and the midwife. During breaks he gives me kisses, strokes my hair, and rubs on my shoulders. He really does good for me, I'm so glad he's with me and not freaking out!
Around 7pm, her head is crowned. And it stays crowned for 23 minutes. The nurses and even my midwife tell me that was the longest crowing they have ever had but it kept me from tearing really bad I suppose. She was "stuck" by her ears, she still has a slight indention on her forehead!! I'm giving it my all and pushing, at one point the midwife asks everyone if they're getting hemorrhoids like she is from pushing with me! At this point I am so thirsty, I'm offering to donate my feet and other various body parts to the hospital in case a patient needs it for a drink of water. I finally convince my midwife that I would be a lot more effective if I could just have one swallow of ice water. They give me that little cup of ice and water and it is amazing, the best tasting water I have ever had, even though it was local city tap water.
At 7:36pm she is out completely and placed on my tummy and even though she's covered in fluids and not the color you think of when you think "baby," she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I am bawling and just holding onto her body repeating over and over, "I did it. I can't believe I did it." I'm touching her all over, every place I can reach. I am completely smitten at first glance. It's still so amazing to me.
I went into labor (or what I recognized as potential labor) at 1:30am that Friday. I woke up with horrible back pains. I had been doing this for about a week so I didn't think too much about it and decided to take a hot shower since that usually works to relax the pains and let me get back to sleep. No dice. It didn't work. So I lay down and just try to relax some more...impossible. So I go out into the living room and get on my hands and knees over my birth ball to try to take the tension off my back, I'm using heating pads, and even different positions.
I think around 2:20 or so I called my doula and asked her for her advice and to give her a heads up just in case this was it. We agreed that I should page the midwife on call and as per the midwife's instructions, I took another hot shower and tried to nap and if I couldn't or if it would make me feel better, I could meet her up at the hospital since she was already there and would be there all night. Around 2:45am or so, I woke DH up and told him to get dressed, we're going to the hospital.
After getting my things together just in case and getting the car warmed up and stumbling out to buckle up for the ride, we get to the hospital just before 3:00am. I walk waddle into the ER doors since the normal entrance to the hospital is closed until 8:00am. I kid you not, I get 3 steps from the check-in desk and what I think is my water breaks. If you want to see people get to moving who were just calm seconds ago, you can always blurt out like I did, "either my water just broke or I peed all over myself."
So they're scrambling to get me in a wheelchair and the girl who was behind the desk is practically jogging me back to the maternity ward. We had to come in through the ER entrance because the regular entrance is only open during regular visiting hours. So we get wheeled into maternity and my contractions are getting a bit more painful but we don't really know if it's the real deal yet because I haven't asked for an amniotic fluid test yet and don't for a few hours. Oops.
So they are hooking me up to monitors but the nurses are freaking out. They can't find baby's heartbeat. I'm not worried cause I am currently getting kicked in the ribs. And during this time, Vera is making one last hurrah with the pregnancy induced heartburn because she can. So anyways, they get out the handheld Doppler to try to find her heartbeat. Still can't find it. They run to get the midwife who is all like well, let's get the ultrasound machine in here. So they get it and I get one last glimpse at her in the womb! And yes, they see her heartbeat but because the way she's laying in the womb, they have to put the fetal monitor dang near on my back to pick up her heartbeat.
And during all of this, I'm still experiencing back labor with the rare uterine contraction.
So now that I'm hooked up, they want to do a vaginal exam. Oh my god! It's torture. Because my cervix was still so high up, it felt like she had to go elbow deep to find it. That on top of the contractions I may have gotten a little upset and yelled for her to stop. Turns out I'm on dilated to a 1 and 75% effaced at this point. My heart sinks but the midwife wants to keep me for observation for a few hours. So I send DH home just in case I get to come home later and he would have to go to work, then he would need all the rest he could get because Friday was their last day of seasonal peak, meaning their busiest time of the year. I finally remember to get an amniotic fluid check at this point and ask for one.
Somewhere in all this (it's still a lot of time warp feeling to me) my lovely doula shows up. We walk the halls a little bit and use other comfort measures but not much really seems to work.
They did determine that my water did not break but I still call BS on that one and figure it showed my water didn't break because there had been such a time lapse that there wasn't any fluid to turn the strip and it wasn't a constant leak because her head could have plugged the tiny hole. Just my theory. But I get another cervical check at 7am. Still no progress but the contractions are freaking horrible! We are taking them one at a time and even use a warm shower to power through some of the rougher ones. They're getting worse but I can still do this!
Around 8am, I get another warm gush and my water is confirmed broken. DH is back at the hospital by now, he's called into work and enacted his paternity leave. I receive my IV line for the antibiotics since I tested Group B Strep Positive.
The rest after this is all a blur but I can give you a rough outline of what I remember
Sometime between 8am and 10am, I go BSC. I mean I'm yelling at people not to f*cking touch me during my contractions. My poor mom, doula, and husband endured what I am sure is some extreme mental and emotional abuse from my mouth and crazy antics. They're all trying to help me get through the contractions but I am not having any of it. It hurts to have a contraction but every comfort measure also hurts. I can't breathe yet I can still run at the mouth. It's horrible. I probably need to buy apology cards for the nursing staff and my family and the doula!
The midwife comes in and tells me that they're giving me some nubain to allow me to sleep since I hadn't sleep really the night before and all this time and that there is no way I can do this without rest. I agree and they give it to me intravenously. And it is awesome. Apparently, this stuff makes Lacey go silly. I feel high as a kite. I can still feel the contractions but I don't care anymore. The edge was taken off. I am dozing in and out of sleep. I am talking DH, my mom, and the doula's ears off and not making a lick of sense. I'm butting into their conversations, half conscious, with things totally unrelated then saying things like I don't even know what we are talking about, slurring my words but I know I'm slurring so I'm trying real hard not to slur and you know how that always works...it doesn't! and asking for Meria, Ameria? I don't know. I just am telling y'all what I was told. This all wears off around 11-ish. The pain and realization of the pain comes back. The nurses offer me an epidural but I decline.
By 12-ish, this bird is singing a different tune. I'm asking for some more nubain but they won't give me any. The midwife comes in around 1-ish and tells me my labor isn't progressing enough on its own and they are going to give me pitocin. I mull it over and at 1:30pm I cave. Bring me the anesthesiologist. Labor progressing naturally is bad enough but now they want to speed it up with pitocin, I can't do it much longer. By 2pm the anesthesiologist is in my room and preparing me for the epidural. I count this time the end of my un-medicated labor. 12 and a half hours un-medicated, in my opinion, back labor. I am proud of myself. I have no regrets and no hard feelings towards myself for getting the epidural. I knew what I could withstand and I did the best I could. I do feel that if I had had felt the labor in the front of my body, where most women do, I could have lasted longer. I talked to DH last night and told him with our next child that I want to go un-medicated again for as long as possible again, hopefully all the way through this time...but that's a few years up the road before we start trying for baby number 2
It's pretty uneventful until 5pm. I get checked again and I am dilated to an 8.5 and effaced 90-95%. Baby is now at a 0 station in my pelvis. Now it's the waiting game. I figure within 2 hours max, I'll be pushing her out. at 5:30pm or so, I'm checked again and I am complete...dilated to a 10 and 100% effaced. All during this the room next to me is busy, I can hear her screaming and pushing...I can wait, I don't feel anything other than some pressure. DH tells us to give him 15 minutes or so to get himself together and to calm down. At 6pm, as funny as this sounds, I'm asking DH if he's ready. I am so ready. And I push. My doula is holding my left leg, my mother my right leg, and my wonderful husband is up by my head, helping me support my upper body during pushes, giving me encouragement with the rest of my support group, the nurses, and the midwife. During breaks he gives me kisses, strokes my hair, and rubs on my shoulders. He really does good for me, I'm so glad he's with me and not freaking out!
Around 7pm, her head is crowned. And it stays crowned for 23 minutes. The nurses and even my midwife tell me that was the longest crowing they have ever had but it kept me from tearing really bad I suppose. She was "stuck" by her ears, she still has a slight indention on her forehead!! I'm giving it my all and pushing, at one point the midwife asks everyone if they're getting hemorrhoids like she is from pushing with me! At this point I am so thirsty, I'm offering to donate my feet and other various body parts to the hospital in case a patient needs it for a drink of water. I finally convince my midwife that I would be a lot more effective if I could just have one swallow of ice water. They give me that little cup of ice and water and it is amazing, the best tasting water I have ever had, even though it was local city tap water.
At 7:36pm she is out completely and placed on my tummy and even though she's covered in fluids and not the color you think of when you think "baby," she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I am bawling and just holding onto her body repeating over and over, "I did it. I can't believe I did it." I'm touching her all over, every place I can reach. I am completely smitten at first glance. It's still so amazing to me.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Vera's Birth Story (long)
Jess and Michael Married 10/2006
DD 1/3/2012
BFP 5/21/2013 MC 5/24/2013
BFP 7/16/2013 EDD 3/27/2014
Layla 01.08.12
Chloe and Vivian 07.23.13
My Gang. Halloween 2013
What a beautiful story. I love your view on the medication. You did your best, and that's all anyone can ever ask for.
I do have to say, my favorite line in that entire story is: "I probably need to buy apology cards for the nursing staff and my family and the doula!"
Haha I didn't mention how DH at one point was feeling queasy when he looked down to see what was going on shortly after the placenta was delivered so he had to walk away, he was to the point his eyes were watering...and he nearly slipped in some of my bodily fluid mess on the floor. He says that was the worst part of the entire experience
My Blog || BFP Chart
11/27/10-BFP, EDD 8/9/11 || 1/4-7/10- missed m/c 9wks
4/25/11- BFP , EDD 1/5/12
...and that's why the women have the babies
Congratulations to you! Enjoy your precious little girl!
LOVED your story! That was entertaining!
Congrats on Baby Vera!
CONGRATULATIONS!
So great to hear your honest story and how you tried to make it unmedicated for as long as you could. Still - you did a great job! Enjoy your little gift!