Jackson's birth story

My Birth Story

On May 21st I went into my midwife?s office for a non-stress test. I was having them 2 times per week due to high blood pressure.  When I arrived they took my blood pressure and it was 168/102. My midwife tried to do what she could to get it down. We turned out the lights, she said I should try to nap, she even rubbed my head for a bit, but after an hour of trying, my bp was still quite high.  She called her partner, my gyno, and they both agreed that I should go to the hospital. At that point they wanted to monitor me for 24 hours. I hadn?t at this point shown any other symptoms of pre-eclampsia, but they wanted to be sure.  I checked in at 36 weeks and 5 days. 

The next day, Tuesday, at around 5pm I was in the bathroom in my hospital room and a nurse says through the door, ?Did the doctor call you?? I answered no and she replied, ?You?re going to be induced tonight. I?ll be back in a little while.?

WHAT?!?! I couldn?t believe that the nurse decided to give me this surprising news; I was still thinking I was going home that night, while I was peeing. I buzzed for the nurse and she came back in and I started asking her a ton of questions. She seemed annoyed with me. I was in total shock and wasn?t ready for my little guy to get here.

My husband was at work so I sent him text, ?I?m being induced. Leave work.? He called me a couple minutes later also in shock and panic. Then we joked about how I decided to send a text. I wasn?t thinking straight, however, I did know that we weren?t going to tell anyone. We knew that we just wanted the 2 of us in the room and I also decided that I didn?t want anyone at the hospital either. Once DH showed up we decided we would text everyone once I started pushing. That however, wouldn?t be for a very long time?

They started my induction at 7pm. They gave me cervidil and then started pitocin after they allowed me to eat. I was so nervous. I couldn?t believe this was happening. My midwife said that the baby probably wouldn?t come that night, but should be here by the end of the next day. Right away I started having really strong contractions. They didn?t have to use very much of the pitocin to get me there. My blood pressure, was staying in normal range so I was able to move around a little bit. I couldn?t walk the halls or get into the tub as I had planned, but they did let me sit in a rocking chair and pace in my room. This wasn?t at all the birth experience that I had planned, but somehow in the moment none of that mattered. I just wanted me and my little guy to be healthy.

Fast forward 24 hours(Wednesday)?I?m dilated 1cm!!!! WHAT!!! I couldn?t believe it. I was going at this forever; I was totally exhausted, and even with ?major contractions? was making no progress. They decided to shut off the pitocin and let me eat dinner, since it had been so long. At first I wasn?t sure if that?s what I wanted, but I realized there was no way I was going to be able to continue and deliver him vaginally if I had no energy. After dinner and some sleep, they restarted the pitocin.  This time it got me nowhere. No contractions, no dilation, no anything. I spent the entire day at the max amount of pitocin they could give me (Thursday) and only gained 1 more cm. I was devastated. I was angry at my body, I was angry at my doctor, I was angry at my situation, and I hated the world.  At this point the OB associated with my midwife came in to talk to me. Due to complications she would be delivering. She once again suggested that we cut off the pitocin. I told her no. I told her I wanted her to break my water. She agreed that this would be the next step and then explained to me that I only had one more day. She said that if by Friday at 5pm, I had made little to no progress, I would be having a c-section. She then convinced me to shut off the pitocin. She wanted me to start fresh in the morning. She wanted me to have another cervidil and a bunch of other stuff (I was so mad I didn?t really pay attention). The pitocin wasn?t working, so I finally agreed after tons of crying to sleep for 5 hours and start all over again.   I was so disappointed. At this point was when I started having a pity party for myself. I wanted a natural birth so badly and having a c-section just seemed evident. At one point I said to the OB, ?just cut me open now. I?m over this.? She gave me possibly the best pep talk I had ever gotten. I got myself together; ate some dinner, made my Mother bring me a blizzard, and slept. At this point we had told everyone what was going on, since I had been in the hospital for 5 days, however, we explained we wanted them to respect our space, and both of our families honored our requests.

The next morning at 5:00am (Friday) a nurse woke me up and said she had smuggled me some breakfast in before the pitocin. I had amazing nurses the entire time I was there (besides bathroom nurse), but there was one in particular, Jessica, who I really connected with. At that point the only positive thing for me about the delay, was that she was working on this day and when I asked the charge nurse if I could have her for the day, she agreed. 

Jess came in at 7am and looked me in the eye and said, ?Today I am going to do everything I can, even break your docs rules, to get this baby out the way that you want it.?  I felt energized and ready for the first time in this whole process. DH, Jess, and I went into the process as a team. At 7:30am my OB came in to check to see how far I was. I was still at 2cm.  DH looked right at me and said ?who cares, we knew that pitocin isn?t working for you. Let?s see what breaking the water does. Stay in a positive place.? I did just that. The doc broke my water (which wasn?t painful or anything) and Jess turned up the pitocin.  She had me get out of bed she had me moving around with a blood pressure cuff on, making sure it stayed in a safe range, around 150/80.  My contractions started going off of the charts and this was the first time I had really felt any pain.  My blood pressure started to go up so they put me back in bed.  My ob then came in and told me that I would have to have an epidural, to keep the blood pressure down. I was so upset, but again there was nothing I could do. They came in and gave me the epi. It was scary more than anything. There was very little pain associated with the procedure itself. After awhile they were surprised that I could still move my legs, feet, and ankles. I was still feeling contractions and could very easily move around. They decided to have the anesthesiologist come back in and give me another dose. After that did nothing, they realized that my body was rejecting the epidural.  They pulled it, they decided that if I needed a c-section they would try to put it in another place or maybe have to put me under.   At this point my ob left to see what else they could do to keep my bp down.

Jess decided to check me. She gave out a big hoot and then started dancing at the end of my bed. ?You?re 4cm?s lady!? She was so excited for me that it made me laugh. It was 2:30 though and I felt defeated, but she didn?t and that helped me feel better about it. She reassured me that this was enough progress to stop the plan for the c-section in her eyes. She walked out to tell my doc and she came back and confirmed that the doc agreed to let me continue to progress. I was excited even though we were now 67 hours into the induction process.

About an hour later, I told her that I felt like I had to push. Jess? shift was almost over, she checked me on last time and said, ?I?m so sad that I have to leave now, because you?re a full 10cm?s! I am sending in the best nurse for the next step.? I couldn?t believe it. In an hour and a half I went the rest of the way to a full 10cm?s. They held me off on pushing while my ob ran to change clothes.

I looked at DH as they were breaking down the bed and we both were still surprised that this was happening. I don?t know if after the last 3 days, we both just thought we would never get a baby or what, but it once again was a little shocking that we were about to see our little boy.

My OB came in and the new nurse, Becca, and she began to explain to me how I was going to push. Good thing she did, because everything I had learned in our birthing classes had totally left my mind.  Since I was able to feel everything I dictated pushing. However, I used no words. I would just take my first deep breath and Becca and DH would use that as the cue to grab my legs. After the first push Becca took a peak down and said, ?I can already see his head! You can braid his hair!? I pushed for an hour and a half, the entire time staying silent. DH was amazing he counted down every contraction, cheered me on, told me he loved me, and actually was given a lot of responsibility. The labor and delivery ward was packed and they actually had spilled over into other sections of the hospital. This meant only one nurse, so DH was also in charge of oxygen in between contractions, finding the baby on the monitor in between pushes, and holding my leg.  I couldn?t have asked for better support. 

The only thing I said the entire time was the F bomb. I dropped it once, during what everyone refers to as the ring of fire. It was so strange but I just stayed really focused, kept all my energy down at my lady bits, and I wanted my baby out. DH made jokes afterwards about me being a scientologist, since they believe in silent labor.  I didn?t think labor was all that bad. I have chronic kidney stone issues and the pain was very similar. Although it?s really unpleasant, I would much rather get a baby out of the pain than a rock J

He was so beautiful as they set him on my chest. He was born at 5:26pm. I started crying and looked over at DH who was all welled up telling me how amazing I was. I could have cared less about what he was covered in, he was awesome. I couldn?t stop kissing him, but then I heard the doctor tell Becca to push the emergency button, and then the room was filled with nurses. I was bleeding out. DH went with the baby and all of a sudden the room became very quiet. I kept hearing my doctor say, ?I can?t stop the bleeding?. I looked over to the left of the room at my husband taking pictures of our son in the warmer and for a brief moment wondered if they would be by themselves. It was a very surreal moment. My doctor is normally very cool and calm and I could see the panic in her eyes.  She told a nurse to prep the O.R. and it was at that point that DH realized something was wrong with me. One of the nurses told him to bring the baby over to me, but for him to keep holding him. I stayed calm. Focused on my son and tried to ignore what was happening around me. I just remember hearing blood spill on the floor a couple of times, but I did what I could to stay focused in the moment.

DH started asking questions and the doctors and nurses were ignoring him. At that point a nurse called DH and the baby back over where they finally weighed him and measured him. He was 8lbs 15oz and 21 3.4 inches long. He was a big healthy screaming baby. They were very surprised by his size since I was 3 weeks early, but I wasn?t. I had guessed earlier in the day he was around 8 and a half pounds. Then all of a sudden I heard my doc say ?Oh thank god?.  She found where I was bleeding from and began to repair it.  She looked up at me and jokingly said ?Why is everything so dramatic and lacking normalcy with you?? My husband replied ?She?s a real pain in the ass right?? I looked over at him and he had tears streaming down his face. He later told me he thought he was going to lose me. I couldn?t imagine being him in that moment.

My family had arrived at the hospital earlier and kept texting DH over and over to find out what was going on.  It took about 3 hours to get everything all fixed and they had figured out at this point something had gone wrong. However, we didn?t really talk about with anyone until the next day. I was just so happy to have my little man here. No one stayed for very long and then DH and I got to have alone time with just the 3 of us. It was fantastic.  At that point they let me feed him and he latched right on with no problem (since we found out he was tongue tied and breast feeding has been a very stressful challenge). 

Later in the night I finally put the baby in the bassinet and started to sleep. I woke up soaking wet. I buzzed for a nurse. I hadn?t yet gone pee and my bladder was so full that it wasn?t allowing my uterus to contract. My uterus had filled with blood and I once again had the emergency button pushed. I was bleeding everywhere. The picked me up on to my feet and a dinner plate size clot hit the floor.  There was pure panic for about 15 minutes until one of the nurses figured out what was going on. It was another scary moment all because they were delaying putting a catheter in me, because they didn?t want to make me uncomfortable. Not very smart.

I?m sure I missed some details, due to my current lack of sleep, but this is all of the important stuff I think.