I had a natural birth at Evergreen Hospital this past Thursday. Thought I'd share my girl's story. 
On Thursday, February 2nd, we went in to Evergreen for our 5 am induction appt. DH
and I met our INCREDIBLE nurse, Arla, who helped me get gowned up and
iv'd to start pitocin and antibiotics for GBS. I had already been having
moderate contractions for a few hours - nothing too painful, just
extremely tight.
While the pitocin and antibiotics got into my
system, DH and I watched a few movies. We also met the student nurse,
Karen, who asked to observe my birth since I was planning to go natural
and she had never seen a natural birth before. Arla, Karen, and my DH
became my incredible support team.
Around 10 am, my OB came in and
checked me. I was still 4 cm, 60% effaced (which is what I was at my
last appt, 10 days earlier). So she broke my water. It took her two
tries to make it happen. Apparently my water sac was very stubborn and
we're pretty sure that's why Nora has a few shallow scratches on her
head from the crochet-hook thing.
After they broke my water and
upped the pitocin a little bit, the contractions became stronger. I
walked around and changed positions, eventually ending up on my knees on
the floor, draped over a birthing ball. They wanted me to labor until
noon before getting checked again, and it was during this two hour
period that I had THE most painful contraction of the entire process. It
was the only moment where I thought "If they get any worse than that, I
will have to ask for an epi". My contractions were on top of one
another, and Arla asked if I wanted more time in between them to
breathe. Yes!! So she turned the pitocin all the way off, which helped
immensely. My body pretty much took over from there.
At noon I was
checked, and I was 7 cm, 80% effaced. Hurray! I labored in the jacuzzi
tub for a while, and as I headed towards transition, my ritualistic
coping mechanisms changed. Up to this point, I had been relatively
silent through contractions, moaning a bit at the peaks, but staying
pretty much inside myself. As the contractions became stronger and
closer together, I began vocalizing on Ohs or Ahs, holding out one long,
loud note, and then with the next breath at the peak of the
contraction, jumping a third and then eventually another third so that
at the end of a contraction I had sung the first, third and fifth of a
major chord (If you're a musician, you'll get that). I grew up in a very
musical family, but had NO clue I would labor that way! I didn't even
realize I had vocalized chords until after delivery. It was completely
instinctual. My whole family is tickled by it and my nurses were
floored. Apparently they'd never seen anyone cope that way and they said
it made labor sound beautiful. *blush*
After about 30 min in
the jacuzzi tub, I started feeling Nora moving down as well as the
beginnings of urges to push. So they got me out of the tub and checked
me again - still 7 cm, but now 100% effaced. I labored on the toilet for
about 20 min and here the urge to push was almost more than I could
bear. They kept telling me to resist pushing because my body was not
ready yet, but boy is it hard!
I could still feel Nora moving
down, so they tilted the head of my bed up, stuck a huge beanbag on it
and I labored on my knees with my body draped across the beanbag. My
body began involuntarily pushing at least twice at the peak of each
contraction. I kept apologizing for pushing, but my nurses told me that
if the pushing was involuntary, then that was what my body needed to do.
I just couldn't voluntarily push with it. I needed to let it happen.
These
were probably the hardest moments of the whole process, when I was
draped across the beanbag and the 5ish contractions after that. When my
body would push at the peak of each contraction, I could feel Nora's
body pressing against my tailbone and rectum, and it felt like they
would split apart. I fully believed I would never be able to poo again. I
could do nothing but scream bloody murder with the involuntary pushes.
Around
1:30 pm, they checked me again and I was 9 cm with an anterior lip. In
order to get the lip to melt away, they had me lay on my left side for
two contractions, and on my right side for three. These contractions
were hellish because I couldn't sway or apply any kind of ritualistic
movement to them to make them more bearable. However, they did the trick
and when they checked me again at 2:10, I was ready to push!
HALLELUJAH
for being able to push! Yes, it was a whole different level of
intensity and pain, but I could finally DO something! I pushed on my
hands and knees a few times and squatted while pushing a few times. Nora
was having a little bit of trouble getting under my pubic bone and her
heart rate was decel-ing during pushing. I ended up needed to push on my
back while holding my knees up to get her out. Not what I had
originally intended, but it worked out the best in the end. They tilted
the right side of my pelvis with a few pillows to correct Nora's heart
rate and it worked like a charm.
Nora's head kept going in and
out at the cervix as she tried to make it past my pubic bone. Arla told
me that once her head remained visible without going back in, they would
call my OB. A few contractions later, they put the call in. My OB
arrived at 2:50. I was doing sets of 4 pushes with each contraction, and
after a few contractions, I vividly remember my OB saying "Either this
set or the next set of pushes, and she'll be out!" and I remember
thinking "Like HELL the next set! It will be THIS set!!".
I have
never pushed so hard or felt anything so intense in my whole life.
Nora's head came out on the 4th push and I felt the ring of fire for
about two horrendously painful seconds. With a 5th push, the rest of her
came out at 2:58 pm and they immediately placed her on my chest. She
came out crying and pooping lol.
My placenta was being grumpy
about detaching, so the nurses manhandled my uterus to get it to detach
(OUCH!), then my OB swept me to get the last straggling membranes
(DOUBLE OUCH!), and then I was numbed and stitched up for a 2nd degree
tear (OUCH again!).
After about an hour of skin-to-skin cuddling
and BFing, Nora was weighed and measured. She was 7 lbs, 13 oz, 20 1/4
inches long, and her head circumference was 14.5 inches. She scored 9's
on her Apgars.
Within 15 min of birth, Nora was rooting
around and she latched on like a pro. BFing has been going relatively
well so far and my tear is healing nicely. Thank HEAVEN for ice packs
and witch hazel!
I just need to brag on my DH for a moment -
he was the most incredible and steadfast rock of encouragement and
support throughout the entire process, even when I was shrieking in his
face. The nurses said over and over that they had rarely seen a better
team during labor than me and DH. I truly could not have done it without
him.
That's the story! Kudos to you if you read the whole
thing - I'm a pretty detail-oriented person, and my amazing student
nurse Karen wrote up the entire labor process blow-by-blow for me as a
gift, which made my day and represents most of the details in this
story, because my brain is a bit fuzzy on a lot of it.
Here is our first family picture:
Re: Nora Alice Gayle's Birth Story (very long!)
Me = 39 DH = 50 TTC (since 01/2009 after a short break, I stopped counting *cycles* in 2010)
DX 2010 : Unknown Infertility , AMA
HSG 2005 = Normal / HSG 2010 = Normal
SA 2005 = Normal / SA 2010 /2012 = Slightly low count : motility, morphology GREAT!
Chromosomal analysis, MTHFR, ANA's, Lupus, Protein C, Protein S, APCR = Normal 2011
M/C : 2005 (7wk), 2010 (6wk), 2011 (7wk)
8 IUI's 2010-2011 all BFN
IVF/ICSI antagonist 01/2012 #1 = BFN
IVF/ICSI antagonist long 06/2012 #2 = BFN
IVF/ICSI/CGH MDLF New Clinic/New RE 11/2012 #3 = One beautiful boy blasty frozen PGS normal
IVF/ICSI/CGH MDLF 02/2013 #4 = One more beautiful boy blasty frozen PGS normal
FET 6/20 : One 5AA PGS normal transferred Beta 1 6/28 = 53.9 / Beta 2 7/1 = 220 / Beta 3 7/3 = 550!
1 U/S 6w3d - Heartbeat 119 / 2 U/S - 7w5d- Heartbeat 169 / 3 U/S (OB) 8w5d - Heartbeat still great!
Baby G welcomed into the world 3/7/2014
SAIF / PAIF always welcome ****
What an amazing gift! Loved the story! Congrats!
Congrats!!!
You look pretty gorgeous for someone who just had a baby!
Congratulations!! What an amazing story; thank you for sharing it!
And I have to say, you look fantastic in that photo, especially for just having given birth!
♥ Married since June 2009 ♥
TW: Living children & Losses:
Pregnant after 4 losses via IVF/FET with daughter "Gamma" (EDD Oct 2, 2019)
What an amazing birth story- it sounds like perfection. I hope mine will be close to your experience!
Congrats on your new family!
This was both an amazing story and really daunting. I think the line where my brain broke was something about a rectum and never pooping again. (I might be a little scared now of giving birth, we're going to have to discover telekinetically transporting the kid out of me.)
But! that part about the chords? Man, that must've been beautiful and your background in music must be really deep.
Thanks for sharing it!
Welcome to the world baby Nora!! Congrats on an Epi free birth. What an accomplishment!