Lucien's birth story (babybarnes187)

babybarnes87 · April 2014

Well I must start off by saying that my labor experience was definitely not what I was expecting. However,
every moment was totally worth it once I met my sweet little boy.

On Friday I lost my mucus plug and on Sunday night at 8:45 my water broke. Luckily my mom was already there (we had spent the afternoon cooking and doing laundry) so she stayed over with me and DH. I was having weak intermittent contractions all night. On Monday morning we headed into the hospital as per my midwife's instructions. A different midwife was on call that day (I did not have a good experience with her at all). She was all ready to induce with pitocin when out of the blue she wanted to check me to make sure that my water actually did break (nurse said she wasn't noticing much fluid). So basically she didn't believe me. After digging around in my cervix and making me cry with discomfort, she finally confirmed that my amniotic fluid had broken (duh lady!!)

After that ordeal, we started pitocin and I labored for 10 hours. That got harder and harder. Tried walking, bouncing on a birth ball, laboring in the tub, in bed, etc. I was dying for an epidural but this midwife who I didn't like checked me and said I was only 3cm dilated so she wouldn't give it to me. I got a different pain reliever instead and it made me feel drunk and weird. It took the edge off for awhile but as it wore off my contractions felt stronger and really sharp (no natural wave to them due to the pain killer). I was in a lot of pain. Finally the midwife ordered me an epidural, which I got at 1:30am Tuesday morning. Thankfully I was able to get some really good rest after that.

Well 6am rolled around and midwife comes and wakes us up to tell us she's concerned about a weird pattern in baby's heart rate (decelerating). She was going to check with the OB on call about it. We freaked out. My amazing L&D nurse told us not to worry about it. It ended up being nothing. Thanks a lot for the scare!

I was relieved when that awful midwife's shift was over and the new one was one I knew and really liked. So she checked me around 9:00 that morning and told me I was complete and at 0 station! We were thrilled. She wanted me to continue laboring a little longer and then try pushing. Pushed for a couple hours without much success. Took a break and pushed for another hour. No progress. After another check it appeared that baby couldn't get under my pelvic bone and she was concerned about his "cone head." After a confirmation from the OB, we made the difficult decision to opt for a C-section.

Lucien was born at 6:05pm staring straight up at the doctors as he was taken out. Yes, apparently he was sunny-side up the whole time and we didn't know it. That could have affected his lack of progress down the birth canal. He let out a few cries and then stared up at everything and everyone with such a serious look on his face. It was the cutest thing! I was so jealous that DH got to take him and snuggle with him while I was getting stitched up.

We are so in love with him now and even though labor was a lot harder than I expected it to be, it taught me a lot about patience and accepting the situation, even if it's not what you planned for.

Thanks for reading!