Warning: The following contains a few graphic details of my experience. If you don't like hearing about the gory details of childbirth, then don't read it:) Also, please be aware that what I've written is either how I remember things happening or what I was told afterwards by Eric and our doula. The order of events, especially during transition and pushing, is a little hazy to me.
Felix Todd
April 3, 2013
3:37 am
8 pounds, 9 ounces; 21 inches
Born at 41 weeks according to ovulation charting (41 weeks and 1 day according to dating ultrasound)
After
realizing that my water had not broken, we went home and had dinner. I didn’t
eat much because I wasn’t very hungry and I was kind of afraid to get too much
in my stomach. Our daughter was still with my in laws and we told them to go
ahead and keep her because we thought tonight would be the night. After dinner,
I was chatting online and sitting on an exercise ball when I noticed that the
contractions seemed to be getting stronger and were now coming more like 2 to 3
minutes apart. I could still talk through them but they were definitely getting
more intense. I decided to go ahead and take a shower so that we could head to
the hospital at some point. Also, I knew it would help to relax me through the
contractions. While I was in the shower, Megan (our doula) texted me to see how
things were going and my husband texted back that our contractions were now 2
to 3 minutes apart. She suggested that we go ahead and head to the hospital
once we got out of the shower. I was glad that she had suggested that because I
was feeling a little lightheaded and slightly nauseous, probably more from
being anxious than from anything else, but it did worry me a little and I felt
like there had been some changes. I also did not want to have to sit through
all the stuff they do in triage while I was in a lot of pain, and I knew the
hard stuff was coming soon.
When we got
to triage, we were sent back so that I could be checked again. The same ER
doctor from our first visit was there and she asked if I was going to let them
keep me this time. At this point I was 6 cm, so I was admitted. We gave the
nursing staff our birth plan and from there on out, they followed everything completely.
I wasn’t sure how it all would work, but I was pleasantly surprised. We never
had to ask for them to do anything specific because they followed it perfectly.
They then inserted a heplock (instead of an IV) and then took us to our room.
The heplock made it so there was a place to give me fluids or medication if
needed, but I didn’t have to be hooked up to the IV pole the entire time. At this point, I was still feeling the
contractions but I could easily breathe through them.
When we got
to the room, I decided I wanted to rest just a little while the contractions
weren’t so bad. I got into the bed so they could monitor the baby. (We had
requested intermittent monitoring which translated to about 20 minutes of
monitoring every hour.) My husband was using heat packs on my back while Megan
rubbed my feet to keep me relaxed. I also turned on our “Early Labor” playlist.
Even though I may have technically been in active labor, I felt like calming
music would be more effective at that point. I kept thinking about how
different this labor already was from the first time. I couldn’t believe that I
was able to tolerate these contractions so easily. Even the nurse commented
about how relaxed I was when she came to check in on us.
A little
later, I decided to get up and try to get things moving. During that time, I
got in the shower several times, used the birthing ball, and tried to do some
squats, though squatting during contractions got more and more painful as the
contractions got more intense. I also used my “Active Labor” playlist I had put
together beforehand. It finally got to the point where I couldn’t talk through
the contractions very easily. The nurse came in to check for progress and I was
in between a 6 and a 7. I remember feeling very discouraged and saying that I
didn’t think I could do this anymore, but Megan and Eric kept reassuring me
that I could. Things continued to get more intense and more painful, and at the
next cervical check, I was finally at 7 cm and my cervix had completely moved
forward. I felt like it took forever to get from 6 to 7 but Megan continued to
assure me that things would probably (hopefully) move more quickly at this
point.
Throughout
the night, our doctor had been dropping in just to see how things were going. I
found out later he had at least 2 other VBAC’s going on and other doctors kept
asking him to scrub in on their c sections because he was there, so he had a
really busy night! Around 12:30 or 1:00 in the morning, he stopped in and was
trying to decide if he should go home or just crash there at the hospital. When
he was told my water was still intact, he opted to go home. He told the nurse
to call if anything changed and if not, he would see me in the morning. As he
was leaving, I remember saying “I am NOT doing this until morning!” Megan had
to remind me that things could change very quickly and that I may not be doing
this until morning.
By this
time, we were trying to get my water to break so that things would pick up. I
kept wanting to get in the shower but even that wasn’t working as well as it
had been to cope with the contractions. I was really worn out and tired and all
I really wanted to do was lay down and rest, but that was no longer an option
because the contractions were too intense and it took a lot of focus and
concentration to get through them. I also remember feeling really hot from the
hot showers and the heat packs. Megan and Eric kept turning the air up for me
even though they were both freezing. I laughed when they finally told me they
were cold, because I am typically cold and Eric is almost always hot, so for
him to be cold meant that it must have really been cold.
At one
point, I ended up back in the shower and begging both Megan and Eric for “funny
stories” to try to distract myself from the pain. Megan kept asking me to do
the squats during the contractions to get my water to break, but it was so
painful that I either “couldn’t” do it or “couldn’t” do it for very long.
Luckily, after just a few of them, my water broke part of the way. I remember
standing in the shower and all of a sudden seeing a big rush of blood going
down the drain. Immediately afterwards, I started to feel a lot of pressure and
felt almost like I had to push. Megan insisted that I get out of the shower as
soon as the contraction was over. She told me to make my way to the bed and she
would call the nurse so that I could be checked again. We thought we were
getting close and if so, we needed to call the doctor as soon as possible so
that he could get back to the hospital in time to deliver the baby. While I
know another doctor could have done it, we had developed a really positive
relationship with our doctor and we knew he was ok with everything we had
planned. When the nurse came in and checked me again, she said I was 9 cm, and
my water finished breaking while I was lying in the bed. I knew we had to be
getting close, because I felt really strong urges to push and I wasn’t really
able to keep from pushing. My doctor was called and I was told that he would be
there shortly and that he was only 10 minutes away. At that point, the whole
“team” started to show up for the birth. I remember trying to make jokes to
distract myself from the pain. I’m pretty sure I said this was our last child
because I “wasn’t going to do this again.” Then, I said something like “I guess
it’s too late for the epidural.”
I remember
being on the bed on my hands and knees and trying to breath in such a way to
keep myself from pushing until I was in a position I could easily deliver in. I
ended up in this position only because it allowed me to rock back and forth to
cope with the contractions. I was in this position for quite awhile but the
nurse couldn’t get a good heart rate on the baby. I also did not plan to
deliver in this position but felt like I was stuck and couldn’t get turned
around very easily. The ER doctor (the same one from before!) was called to my
room in case my doctor didn’t make it. Apparently (though I didn’t hear it),
she made a comment that that position was a hard one to deliver in and that she
would need me to be on my back if she was going to deliver the baby. It’s
probably a good thing I didn’t hear that comment, because even though I wasn’t
sure of the position I wanted to be in when I delivered, I knew for sure that I
did not want to be on my back. (I delivered Anya while on my back and it felt
really unnatural to do it that way.) While I was waiting for my doctor to
arrive, I couldn’t not push. I will never understand how some women are told to
wait to push for whatever reason because it really was not an option. At that
point, it was involuntary and the contractions pushed the baby down further
even if I didn’t consciously try to bear down. I remember saying that I had to
push, though Megan was trying to get me to just “nudge” a little. She knew it
was important to me that our doctor be the one to deliver the baby so she was
trying to help me buy a little more time until he could get there.
It’s really
funny what I remember and the thoughts that ran through my head while I was in
transition and pushing. I was trying so hard to focus but I heard bits and
pieces of conversations going on around me. I remember walking out of the
bathroom completely naked even though a bunch of nurses were showing up for the
birth. I remember not caring until they told me my doctor was in the building,
and then all of a sudden, I was worried about making sure I had some kind of
clothing on. Apparently, that was all in my head, though, because no one else
remembers me saying anything about it. I also remember hearing some of the
nurses comment that I was “so controlled.” I remember thinking it was funny,
because I didn’t always feel “controlled!” Afterwards, one of them said I did
better than some of their epidural patients, so at least I didn’t get mean or
anything at the end.
When my
doctor finally arrived, he made some joke about being confused and almost
driving to the wrong hospital. I was told later that he also commented about
having never delivered a baby in the position I was pushing in. However, Megan
thought he would have been up for it but wasn’t sure how he was going to do it
at that point. As I was pushing, I remember Megan saying that I could make
noise but to make low sounds. I remember reading about that in an Ina May
Gaskin book…something about how low sounds help to open things up down below,
so I tried my best to do that.
I remember
bits and pieces of the music that was playing at certain times. Bob Marley was
on at some point after our doctor arrived, because I remember him commenting on
it. It’s Time by Imagine Dragons came
on right as we were getting ready to push the baby out and I remember Eric and
Megan commenting that it was fitting. At some point, we switched to my
“Pushing” playlist and I think a Bon Jovi song was playing when Felix was born,
just because I remember our doctor saying something about really liking that song.
Unfortunately, we totally forgot to switch the music to the “After” playlist
once Felix was here, but we have been listening to that in the mornings at our
house instead.
Eventually I
was able to turn on my side so that they could get a heart rate to be sure the
baby was tolerating this stage of labor, and thankfully, he was. He crowned
while I was in a side-lying position but I eventually ended up sitting up at
the edge of the bed with my feet in the pedals. Just being able to sit up made
it so much easier than being flat on my back. Our son was delivered in this
position. It felt like it took forever to push him out, but my husband swears
it was only 10 or 20 minutes. I remember the doctor saying "hold on" and then saying that he had to move Felix's hand out of the way. Apparently, our little guy tried to come out with his hand up by his face. The doctor moved his hand out of the way so he wouldn't twist his arm when he came out and then Felix reached out and grabbed the doctor's hand. I remember hearing the doctor say something like "he's strong!"
They handed
me our son immediately afterwards while he was still attached. I remember
wondering why he wasn’t crying as someone suctioned him, but it took only a few
seconds after that for him to open his mouth and cry a little. I kept trying to
pull him closer to me because I forgot that we had asked them to pulse the cord
for at least 3 minutes. After about 3 minutes, my husband cut the cord and I
was able to pull him closer to me so we could nurse. Looking back, it’s a good
thing I wasn’t on my back or the cord probably wouldn’t have stretched far
enough for me to hold him immediately after he was born. I either wouldn’t have
gotten him right away or they wouldn’t have been able to pulse the cord.
One thing I
hadn’t given much thought to when planning a natural birth is that I would be
able to feel everything afterwards so much more. For example, this time I could
actually feel the placenta being delivered and they even asked me to push a
little to help get it out. I had some second degree tears that needed to be
repaired and because I didn’t have an epidural, I was able to feel the needle
go in that would numb things while my doctor did the repairs. It wasn’t nearly
as bad as what I had just gone through and it wouldn’t have changed my mind
about how we wanted to do things, but I had totally forgotten about this part.
Luckily, I was holding my son, so I was very easily distracted. The staff delayed all of the newborn procedures until after we had had a chance to bond, as was stated in our birth plan. It was so cool to know that I was one of the first things Felix saw when he entered the world as his own little person.
When people ask me how long our labor was, I don't really know what to say. I feel like we had bouts of early labor for weeks beforehand, but none of it was too intense or difficult. I think we arrived at the hospital around 9:30 in the evening and Felix was born at 3:37 am, which comes out to be about 6 hours of labor at the hospital. However, the hard stuff didn't start until I was halfway between 6 and 7 cm. My guess is that the difficult part of my labor was probably something like 4 hours. Ultimately, our doctor was totally right about things going quickly once my water was broken. I don't know the exact times, but I would guess that Felix was probably born within an hour after my water broke in the shower.
I do have to admit that immediately after Felix’s birth, I remember thinking that I didn’t know if I ever wanted to do that again. That being said, once I had the time to process the whole experience over the next week, the more I realized how glad I was to have had the experience we had. Even now, a little over 3 weeks later, I still can’t believe we were able to do everything completely naturally and without medical intervention. It was really cool to allow things to happen the way they are supposed to and to not be made to feel that we needed any kind of medical intervention. And while it was frustrating to wait to have our baby until 41 weeks, it was well worth the wait to be able to have the experience we had. While we were waiting for Felix, almost everyone we knew who was pregnant had all had their babies, either due to elective inductions or inductions related to medical reasons. Though we didn’t feel so lucky, I suppose we really should be thankful that I was healthy enough throughout our pregnancies to carry both our children past 40 weeks and that I was able to work right up until we had them. We should also be grateful that both our children were healthy enough that we could wait it out.
Having had two completely different birth experiences, I noticed a lot of differences between the two. Stay tuned for another post discussing my comparison between the two births and reflections on my postpartum recovery with Felix.
I do have to admit that immediately after Felix’s birth, I remember thinking that I didn’t know if I ever wanted to do that again. That being said, once I had the time to process the whole experience over the next week, the more I realized how glad I was to have had the experience we had. Even now, a little over 3 weeks later, I still can’t believe we were able to do everything completely naturally and without medical intervention. It was really cool to allow things to happen the way they are supposed to and to not be made to feel that we needed any kind of medical intervention. And while it was frustrating to wait to have our baby until 41 weeks, it was well worth the wait to be able to have the experience we had. While we were waiting for Felix, almost everyone we knew who was pregnant had all had their babies, either due to elective inductions or inductions related to medical reasons. Though we didn’t feel so lucky, I suppose we really should be thankful that I was healthy enough throughout our pregnancies to carry both our children past 40 weeks and that I was able to work right up until we had them. We should also be grateful that both our children were healthy enough that we could wait it out.
Having had two completely different birth experiences, I noticed a lot of differences between the two. Stay tuned for another post discussing my comparison between the two births and reflections on my postpartum recovery with Felix.
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