Betsy's fast natural birth (long)

erb82 · May 2012

Hi everyone! I'm only an occasional poster on this board, but I always love reading positive birth stories, so I thought I'd share mine!

Betsy wasn't due until today, but DD#1 was 15 days early and all the women in my family have a history of going early (no one ever makes it past 39 weeks), so when I hadn't had her by Mother's Day- 39 weeks 3 days- I felt overdue.

I woke up at 2:45 on Monday morning with a strong contraction. I thought it might be labor, but I'd been having contractions on and off for weeks, and didn't want to wake up DH until I was sure. I had another one 15 minutes later and a third ten minutes later. Around 4, I was pretty sure it was the real thing so I woke up DH. We started timing them together and realized that they had already jumped to 5 minutes apart. I was group B strep positive, and my labor with DD#1 had been pretty fast (9 hours from the first contraction until birth) so my OB had suggested I get to the hospital as soon as I was sure I was in labor so that I could make sure I had time to get both rounds of antibiotics.

We called the doctor to tell her we were coming in and woke up my Mom, who was visiting, to tell her we were heading to the hospital. While I was calling my in-laws to let them know, and my sisters, who were going to meet us at the hospital, contractions dropped to 2-3 minutes apart. We left the house at 4:45 and got to the hospital around 5:15.

When we got up to labor and delivery, the nurses told me I could skip triage since this was my second baby and I knew that I was in labor. I was assigned a room and got into the bed to be hooked up for my first round of anti-biotics. The nurse did a cervical exam, and I asked how far along I was. She told me about 5 cms. As she was saying, other nurses were coming into the room and setting up the bassinet and things for the actual delivery. I was confused because with DD#1 they didn't do that until I was ready to push.

About a minute later, I told the nurse I really felt like I needed to push. My OB walked in the room, checked me, told me I was complete, and could push on the next contraction. And my water broke everywhere. This was literally a minute after the nurse had told me I was 5 cm. Clearly she lied to me, because the doctor wasn't in the room- I was so angry with her. Then the evil nurse grabbed a leg and pushed it up to my chest roughly. When I protested her reply was, "Oh yeah, you didn't get an epidural. People don't mind that if they've had an epidural." I think DH was contemplating murder.

Anyway, 3 contractions, 3 pushes, and Betsy was out. She was born at 5:46 am- 3 hours after I felt my first contraction, 30 minutes after getting to the hospital, with about 4 minutes of pushing. She was 8lbs 15oz. I'm only 5 ft tall and usually weigh just over 100 pounds- we have no idea how I was able to fit a baby that size inside me! I did have a second degree tear, probably due to a combination of the speed and her size.

Everything has been amazing since then. Betsy's a beautiful, healthy girl- she wasn't affected by Strep B, even though I didn't have time for the second round of antibiotics. In retrospect, I'm glad I was diagnosed with it, because there's no way we would have left for the hospital in time otherwise! I've told DH that next pregnancy he has to read up and know how to deliver a baby himself!

xnbride · May 2012

Oh my goodness that sounds EXACTLY like my labor with dS2. Congratulations. I am glad everything went well.

KateLouise · May 2012

Congratulations on your new LO. What a great birth story (except for evil nurse, what is with some health professionals???)

LaurelBee · May 2012

Congrats on your newest little sweetie! That nurse sounds like she needs to hear from her superior about how inappropriate she was! So sorry you had to deal with her. But at least you didn't have to hang around her for long.

Congrats again!!