My uber long birth story

32 hours of labor & here is my birth story.    Sorry it's crazy long & I didn't bother to proof-read it so there may be plenty of typos. 

 MH (Josh) & I were at a meeting when I startedfeeling incredible discomfort in my stomach & back.  At first I just thought I had to usethe bathroom, but 3 trips later, I wasn?t sure what was going on.  All I knew was that sitting stillduring the meeting was impossible & I probably looked pretty sillysquirming around!  After themeeting, we went to McDonalds. Before I got out of the car I looked at Josh and was like, ?I think Imight be possibly having contractions.? I started timing them and sure enough? they were regular.  I?d have the discomfort (which wasturning to pain), and then it would just be instantly gone.  About 6 minutes later, it would comeback, then soon be gone again.  Itwas exactly as my doula had described it!

I still wasn?t ready to tell anyone yet so we ran a fewerrands, and after another hour or so we called our parents to tell them theymay want to go ahead and start packing. Contractions had been steady at 5 minutes apart & were increasinglygetting more painful to the point where I didn?t even want to go into Starbucksor get a drink!  I also texted mydoula to give her a heads up.

That was around 5pm. We went back home & I tried to busy myself.  There was a surprise party that nightfor a dear friend, celebrating 5 years of her being cancer free.  I debated on whether to go or not,since contractions were starting to take my breath away.  I decided to go on to the party, figuringit would take my mind off of the contractions for a little bit.  Well? not quite.  Turns out, you can?t just forget aboutcontractions.  They continuallyremind you!  Let?s just say I snuckoff to the restroom a lot during this party!  But I managed to pull it off without anyone suspecting thatI was in labor.

I got home around 10pm and it was on.  I had Josh start packing the hospitalbag immediately (since I?d procrastinated on that).  I tried to help him, but the contractions were so strongthat I couldn?t do anything but fully focus on breathing to get through eachone.  If someone had told me rightthen that I still had 24 hours to go, I would have broken down &cried.  Thankfully, we couldn?t seethe future.  I felt strong?I wasmaking it through these contractions like a pro!  I was doing the breathing techniques, and I was dealing withit.  I was proud of my responses.

I decided that I needed something different so I got in thebathtub & tried to watch some Hulu, thinking it would get my mind off ofthe severity of the contractions. Wrong again!  I turned Huluoff, and began to focus on getting through every contraction.  The pain was only getting more intenseand I realized the contractions were about 2.5 minutes apart at this point, soI had Josh call Peggy (our doula) to let her know that we?d like her to come toour apartment now.  She asked ifthere?s anything we needed from the store & at first I said, ?Cookies forthe nurses?I ate the ones I?d bought for them!?  But after another minute, I told Josh, ?Just tell her tocome straight here?forget the cookies, I need her more!?  That was around 11:30pm.

I got out of the bathtub because it just wasn?t big enoughfor me to move around like I?d like to. I moved to the living room where we had the exercise/birthing ball andused that to help me through the next few contractions.  That?s when I realized that I hadn?tpaid our bills this month yet. We?d just gotten the mail key that day & all our bills for the monthwere waiting in our mailbox.  Ididn?t want to be late on any of them, and I knew if we had the baby thatnight, I?d probably forget about them for a few days, so suddenly, I felt itwas super important to pay them right then!  So between contractions, I went online to pay ourbills.  J  What should have taken all of 3 minutes took me about anhour.  It was like one of thosedreams where you have something really important to do and when you wake upyou?re like, ?That was so silly!? Yep, that was me.  I just had to pay those bills right then.

Peggy had Josh fill up a tube sock with rice & heat itin the microwave.  They put it onmy lower back during contractions & it was heavenly!

The rest was pretty much a blur to me, but thankfully mydoula (Peggy) wrote up my birth story from her perspective, so I?m basicallygoing to steal hers & change some stuff from here on out.

Jigsaw (my dog) was really territorial and didn?t reallywant Peggy to be near me.  Westayed at my apartment for about an hour and a half until Peggy said it wasprobably time to go to the hospital. After a few more contractions, I managed to be ready & go down the 2flights of stairs to get to the car. Josh wanted to get to the hospital quick, but I have no idea how fast hewas driving.  So I kept telling himto slow down, just in case he was speeding.  J

We got to the hospital at 2am & the nurse checked me?Iwas at 1.5 cm & 90% effaced.  Iwanted to cry.  The doctor talkedto me about my options: I could get some IV fluids that might stop the labor& let me rest, or I could walk the floor, or I could go home.  There was no way I was going back home& back up those stairs, so I chose to start walking around the L&Dfloor.  Contractions were gettingso close together, and so painful I wasn?t really getting any breaks.  I constantly felt like I wouldvomit.  Josh kept trying to jokearound to keep spirits up, but that just made me want to kill him.  I didn?t mind when him & Peggytalked, though?it meant I didn?t have to talk!  I walked, squatted, breathed? everything we could do to makelabor progress & handle the contractions.

We went back to the room around 3:45am & things were alot more intense.  The nursechecked me again at 4:30am & I?d made it to 3cm.  They decided to go ahead & admit me, and within anotherhour I was at 6 cm.  Things keptgetting more & more intense & I was exhausted by this point.  At 6:30am I was 6.5 cm dilated &finally decided to have some pain meds to take the edge off.  It had been hours since I?d had anyrelief between contractions, and the meds allowed me that break, so I was ableto nap a bit in between. 

7am & nurse Donna?s shift started.  Donna is the nurse from hell.  At this point we were calling ourparents & telling them to go ahead and leave for the hospital.  It was an 8 hour drive, so Peggy toldthem they wouldn?t make it for the birth?every person on the medical staff wasconfident we?d have a baby by 1pm at the latest.  Except remember Donna? She single-handedly slowed my labor down to a crawl.  She took one glance at my birth plan& loudly announced, ?Oh, I don?t look at those things, it?s always badluck!  Honey, if I have a question,I?ll just ask you.?  That?s when I(in a totally loopy & pissed off state) informed her that that?s exactlywhy I had a birth plan?because I didn?t want to be asked anything.  And if she absolutely refused to lookat the birth plan, then she should ask Josh or Peggy her questions, becausethey knew what was on it.  The restof the day continued on about the same with Donna.

Throughout the day my contractions spaced out?they had beenabout 2 minutes apart, but went to 8 minutes apart.  It was really discouraging.  I wasn?t dilating any further at all, and each time I movedpositions, the next contraction was ridiculously painful.  Donna would flip all the lights onevery time she walked into the room, talk loudly, and ask me a zillionquestions that were totally unnecessary. I didn?t want to get in the shower because my hair actually looked goodthat day, but finally decided that I?d get in the shower.  If it meant a tad bit of relief, thenI?d try anything.  I did squats& everything else, but made absolutely no cervical change.  L  I was beyond frustrated at this point& Donna was continuing her antics. Everything was an argument with her.  My doctor had agreed to let me eat during labor, but she putup a huge fight & brought a piece of paper to me claiming that my doctorhad signed off on it that I wasn?t allowed to eat anything.  After glancing at the page, I asked whythere wasn?t a signature on it, and she said it was an electronic signature?that it?s implied because it?s the rules. So I snacked a little bit when she wasn?t looking.  I vomited most of it back up, but itwas kind of nice to actually have something to vomit up rather than justgagging.  I probably vomited 6times throughout the day.  Also,every time Donna decided to do an exam, she wouldn?t wait until a contractionhad finished.  As I was coming downfrom the contraction, she?d go for it, even though I would be screaming &begging her not to because I was still feeling major pains from thecontraction.  It was absolutelyridiculous.  At one point she evenlaughed & said, ?Sorry, I have short, fat fingers.?  If I had been more lucid I probablywould have killed her.

Sometime that afternoon I decided to get the epidural.  The pain meds were no longer giving meany relief between contractions and I really needed some rest, since I?dalready been up for over 30 hours. I was at a point where if someone had told me that I would have the babyin one hour, I still would have wanted the epidural.  I didn?t feel like I could make it much longer at all.  The anesthesiologist was amazing &also hated Donna, which was pretty awesome.  He kept giving her crap about different things she?d donewrong & she kept making up lame excuses.  Part of me hated it because hearing discord was definitelykeeping my labor slowed down, but part of me enjoyed hearing someone berateDonna like I wanted to.

After the epidural Donna became much nicer.  She started offering me popsicles &not turning the lights on every chance she got.  It was really annoying but at least she started to leave mealone a little bit.  Peggy said herone rule for an epidural is that we rest afterwards.  So we took the next few hours to sleep!  Josh had to go back to our apartmentfor a little bit to take care of a work matter, but when he got back he sleptas well.

After a little bit longer of zero cervical change, we allstarted counting down the hours until Donna went home.  Even the photographer that was therewas like, ?She gets off at 7pm, right??

The time came where we had to decide whether we?d startpitocin or break my water.  We?dalready done the waiting game to see if things changed, and tried all thenatural methods that we could. After talking about our options with Peggy, we decided to dopitocin.  My main concern withpitocin was the extra pain, but my epidural was working really well, so itwasn?t a concern to me at that point. Also, I knew that breaking my water would put me on a time clock &even though I didn?t want to be in labor for much longer, I definitely didn?twant to be pushed along the process.

So I finally agreed to the smallest dose of pitocin.  Once that had gone through I woke up tosee Donna fiddling with my IV again. I asked her what she was doing & she said, ?Oh just upping your pitocina bit.?  I promptly informed herthat I hadn?t agreed to that & I wanted to talk about stuff like thatbefore it happened? something that was in my birth plan.  She?d already upped it.  That?s when she decided to do anothercervical check, at which point my water broke.  I saw it as a coincidence that my water broke not long afterwe?d discussed whether to break it or not.  When I mentioned that to Donna, she gave me a funny look& said, ?Oh? yes? QUITE the coincidence, huh??  She continued on like that and I realized?she had broken mywater intentionally.  What ajerk!  She never directly said thatshe did, but she insinuated it over & over again, smiling & laughingabout it a little bit.  I waslivid, but it was about 7pm and Donna was on her way out the door.  I was 9.5 cm finally.

Forgot to mention that in the midst of all of this, Donnawas causing issues with my doctor. He had chosen to be on call for my delivery no matter if it was his dayto be on call or not.  And Donnahad contacted him to update him about every tiny detail, which was annoying himto no end.  Also?  Donna didn?t like our doctor, so shesuggested we just use the doctor that was already at the hospital.  I didn?t care, & didn?t want tobother my doctor on his free Saturday night, so I said that was fine.  At which point our doctor calledbecause he was concerned as to why we didn?t want him after all that we?dworked through together to make it a good experience.  Can we say disaster? Finally Josh talked directly to the doctor on the phone & told himthat he couldn?t explain things right now because of who all was in the room(read: Donna), but that we definitely wanted him to come.

But back to my labor?

Hazel was still pretty high up in my pelvis, so I chose tolabor down for a while.  Afterabout 30 minutes, the nurses came in to coach me on pushing.  They told me how I would do a fewpractice pushes & then if all was going well, they?d have me stop so theycould call the doctor to come to the hospital.  I believe my exact words were, ?So if it?s going well, youwant me to stop?  Can I just keepgoing instead??  The nurses lookedshocked & asked if I was comfortable with a nurse assisted delivery atwhich point I think I laughed & said I didn?t care who was there, I justwanted to have this baby.  Luckily,my doctor was on his way anyway.  Itried a few practice pushes, but Hazel was still pretty high up in there, so Iused the squatting bar to lean on for a bit.  I think this is probably where I ruined my knees?because ofthe epidural, I couldn?t feel if I was putting harmful pressure on my kneeswhile squatting.  So now my kneesare still numb, presumably from nerve damage while squatting with an epidural.  Beware.

After about 30 more minutes we resumed pushing?tried severaldifferent positions, but surprisingly, I found that laying on my back was themost comfortable for me, and where I felt like I had the most control.  That kind of surprised me, but I wentwith it!  I started pushing around8:30pm & Hazel was born at 9:41pm. 7 pounds, 3 ounces; 20 inches long, and started crying shortly afterbirth.  She was so wide awake!  It was totally wild to have her on mychest after 9 long months of being holed up inside of me.  I hadn?t really made a connection toher while she was in the womb, but it started once she was born.  By the next day, I felt truly bonded toher, which was wonderful!

It was a long road to get to the end, especially with allthe issues I ran into with my OB. But I?m glad I pushed through for what I wanted because it was totallyworth it.  I actually like my OBnow & am strongly considering going to him for our next kid.  I know that sounds completely crazyconsidering all that went on, but I feel that in the end, he became much betterat doctor-patient relationships, and that we have a mutual respect for eachother.  At my 6 week appointment, I?mhonestly just going to ask him straight up if he wants me as a patientagain.  Kind of a ?no hard feelings?justwant to know if we should leave it on a good note, or if we can continue thison? sort of thing.  Either way, I?msatisfied with my birth experience.

I do hope the memories of the pain go away, because I?dreally like to have more kids, but shew? that was rough!  Also, I will absolutely have Peggy asmy doula at the next birth.  Shewas the best investment we made during the entire pregnancy & I am sothankful that she was there!