I would slowly go into labor naturally. There would be the
excited "This is it!" moment where twinges of pain are realized as
labor pains. We live a mile from the hospital so I'd tough it out in the
comfort of my home, using my breathing techniques and labor ball and husband
for support. We'd go on a walk, I'd take a bath, I'd listen to relaxing
music, I'd time carefully. When contractions were 4 to 5 minutes apart
for an hour, we'd head to the hospital. If I decided I needed meds, I'd
get them. Then I'd deliver my baby naturally. I'd see him enter the world
and in a moment of euphoria I'd remember forever, he'd be placed on my chest,
all gooey and fresh, for skin-to-skin bonding time. We'd weep with joy
and be overwhelmed with love. And all would be right with the world.
None of that happened.
Here is what did.
***
I woke up around 6:00AM on Friday, Feb. 22,
which is pretty standard. My husband works for an east coast company and
so that's when his day starts. Since his office is in our bedroom again
(because the nursery took over his office) I always get up when he does and
move into the nursery so I can get a little more sleep. But on this
morning I had some slight cramping. Nothing severe but enough to breathe
consciously through it. Since I was two days past my due date I got a
little excited. Maybe this was it! I tried to fall back asleep and
about a half hour later, the cramps were back. This could be it!
Again, I tried to fall back asleep. About a half hour later, the
cramps came back again. I went back into our bedroom and told Dan,
"I'm not sure what's happening but I'm having some cramps and they are
happening at half hour intervals." He packed his bag. We
waited for the next one. A half hour passed. Then another thirty
minutes. Then another. And nothing happened. The cramps were
gone. We felt a little deflated but encouraged that something seemed to be happening. My cousin and his wife had their
c-section scheduled for the 22nd and it was exciting to think that our children
might share a birthday. But that didn't seem to be in the cards.
***
I went about my day and noticed that I was
leaking some fluid. I put on a panty liner and it didn't get soaked so I
assumed that the fluid was urine. The baby was definitely laying low and
I thought maybe he was pushing on my bladder, causing some incontinence.
I also noticed that there seemed to be some sloughing off of something
every time I urinated. But since my doctor had swept my membranes on
Wednesday, I assumed that the residue I saw was a result of that. It was
light brown, not bloody. Again, the cramps I had in the morning were gone
and whatever was leaking was so slow that I didn't need to change my panty
liner until a few hours had gone by.
A friend stopped by in the afternoon to visit
and I mentioned to her jokingly that, "Who knows? I might be in labor
right now and not realize it." She laughed and said, "I'm
pretty sure you'll know when you're in labor." This was around 2:00PM.
There were a few more cramps during the day but nothing consistent and
nothing that lasted longer than a few seconds. I figured it was Braxton
Hicks.
Dan and I made a steak dinner around 6:30.
Big steak, baked potato and a salad. My cousin's baby had just been
born. There hadn't been anymore signs of labor. As we started
eating, I toasted with my water and said, "Hope to see you again later,
Steak." I've read that most women vomit from the pain of labor.
It was a joke. I didn't expect it to be foreshadowing.
As we finished dinner, I felt a rush of fluid.
More than I had felt throughout the day. I went to the bathroom to
check things out and noticed that the fluid now had a pinkish tinge.
Hmm...maybe I should call the doctor. This might not be pee after
all. (Duh Meagan!)
I called my doctor's office and the doctor on
call listened impatiently to me. "I'm 40 weeks, 2 days and I've been
leaking some sort of fluid..." "You have to go to labor and
delivery." "But could it be...?" "You have to go get
checked out now."
There was an urgency to her voice that annoyed
me. She didn't even let me explain the color or that it had been
happening in small amounts or that I wasn't having any contractions or explain
anything really. She heard the "f-word" and cut me off. I
rolled my eyes and told Dan we had to go to the hospital. "They're
going to send us home but I guess 'better safe than sorry.' They probably have to tell you to go in when
they hear the word fluid. Some sort of liability thing, I bet."
So we shrugged our shoulders, finished cleaning up dinner and gathered
our things. I already had my bag packed, so we grabbed the car seat just
in case and made our way down the road.
***
We checked in at the hospital at 8:00pm.
The woman checking us in said, "Are you ready to have your baby
today?" I said, "Ha, well, I doubt that I will but sure, why
not?" I was still in complete denial. There were two things that I
did not want with this birth:
- To be induced
- To have a C-section
I think you know where this is headed.
The nurse that helped us in triage was a doll.
I wish that she could have stayed with us throughout the labor and birth.
She also asked me if I was ready to have this baby and again, like I was
in some sort of denial fog, I said, "Sure, but I doubt that's
happening." I mean, I wasn't in labor. I wasn't in pain.
It wasn't like the movies or like the books said or stories I'd heard
from friends. So how could I possibly be about to have a baby?
A medical student came in and introduced
herself. She asked if I would be ok with her helping out the doctor while
they ran some tests to figure out if my water had broken. Sure. Why not?
So the doctor on call came in and she was also lovely and nice. She
explained that there were several tests they had to conduct to see if my water
had actually broken. She would check visually, do an ultrasound and insert a
speculum to see if there was any pooling and if there was, they would check the
liquid to determine if it was amniotic fluid.
When she just checked visually, she didn't
notice anything to be concerned about. Which, in the end, made me feel
much more justified and less stupid about not going to the hospital sooner!
I mean, I could only check visually...everything seemed normal. Then
she did the speculum and sure enough, there was pooling. Which didn't
necessarily mean my water had broken. They still had to test the liquid.
So she explained that and then checked my water levels via ultrasound
while the liquid was tested. Hmm...my water levels were at a 5. Two
days before at my check-up the levels were at a 12. In fact, it was
difficult for her to find water at all in my ultrasound. She finally
found a little pocket on the upper left. And then the results were in on
the liquid: amniotic fluid.
My water had broken.
And I had no idea.
Was I ready to have this baby? I guess I
had better get ready.
The doctor then explained the next hammer to my
heart: It would be in mine and the baby's best interest to be induced.
Since I wasn't in active labor but my water had broken, we were at risk
for infection the longer that we waited for my body to catch up. I could
choose to wait but the likelihood for complications would increase. I was not interested in being induced. She said she'd give me some time to
think about it and come back.
Here was my problem with induction: from
what I had heard, it was nearly impossible to avoid an epidural with Pitocin in
play. The contractions would be too strong, too fast and too unbearable.
My fear was that once I got the epidural, things would slow down and the
likelihood for a c-section would increase. I did NOT want a c-section.
I flat out had avoided thinking of it as even a possibility. You
read my fantasy of how I wanted my birth story to go. I wanted to see him
enter into the world. I wanted to be able to hold him right away. I
wanted to avoid drugs. My world was spinning and I was still only in the
triage section of the maternity ward.
Our sweet nurse was very understanding about my
hesitation. And she very calmly convinced me that being induced would be
best. I could try to go without drugs for as long as I wanted. No
one would try to force me to do anything I didn't want to do, including a
c-section. So Dan and I talked and decided, ok. Bring it on.
Let's have our baby. Maybe even tonight! (insert laughter here)
***
The doctor and the med student came back and
brought with them the nurse that would be taking care of me through the night.
I don't remember her name. I do remember that she looked like a
rounder-faced Anna Kendrick with too much eyeliner. She even kind of
talked like her. I didn't find any of this comforting.
Turns out, our nurse for the night was only at
our hospital once a week. Upside of this was that she had a favorite room she
liked and since it was available, she snagged it. And it was a nice room. The whole wall was windows looking out at the
Hollywood Hills, which we got to see the sunrise from. We'd also get to see the
sunset...which was unexpected. But we'll get to that part of the story soon
enough.
The downfall of her being there only once a week
was that she couldn't seem to remember where anything was or how to work the
computer system. Which when you're in the middle of full-blown labor,
those extra few seconds fumbling around looking for the birthing ball or where
to input information in your chart are excruciating.
This would all become more annoying as the night wore on.
When they started me on Pitocin around 10PM, I
was only a centimeter dilated. One. Fun fact: since you and your
baby are at greater risk for infection if your water breaks, the medical staff
attending to you limits the amount of internal exams they perform. If
you're curious about how dilated you are, doesn't matter. Say you want to
wait until you're about 4 or 5 centimeters dilated to receive an epidural
because you've been told that if you wait until then, the chances that you'll
need a c-section will decrease. Too bad.
Another fun fact: when they start you on the
Pitocin drip, the contractions are immediate. And intense. And
unbearable. However I wanted to wait as long as I could to get my epidural
because I was hell bent on avoiding a c-section. But I had no idea how
much my dilation had progressed because they couldn't check me!
My Anna Kendrick-esque nurse also reminded me of
the six-fingered man from The Princess Bride. Remember when Wesley is taken to
be tortured in the Pit of Despair and the six-fingered man slowly increases the
voltage to shock him? And he keeps going higher because Wesley can
tolerate more than he expects? That's what my nurse did. She'd say,
"Hmm. You're handling this level of Pitocin pretty well. I
think I'll increase it to a four." And she'd say it with no emotion
but a slight glimmer in her eyes like she was enjoying this experiment.
And then the next contraction would hit like a freight train.
***
I'm one of those people that actually prefers
running on a treadmill because of the clock. I can see how long I've been running
and I can see how much further until my goal. That's how I felt about
labor. I felt that if I knew, "Ok, I'm at 3 centimeters, I can tough
this out until 4" then maybe I could have held on longer. I don't
know. All I know is that around 3:30AM, I was puking from the pain. Yes,
I saw my steak again. And that's when I said, "GET ME THE EPIDURAL!
NOW! I DON'T CARE WHAT I SAID BEFORE! I NEED IT NOW!" Ha. Just
kidding. I wasn't that coherent. I think I nodded with tears
streaming down my face between retching and that translated to, "Yes,
please. I will take the drugs now."
The anesthesiologist came and prepped me.
The tricky thing with the epidural is that you have to be absolutely
still when they inject you. Which is difficult to do when you're in
unbearable pain. But we waited until a contraction passed and then he
slipped the sweet relief into my back. A bonus: The doc
administering happened to be the head anesthesiologist so I couldn't have been
in better hands, which helped ease my anxiety. The epidural kicked in and
it was the best decision I made my entire labor. I laugh at myself now
when I think about how I wanted to go without it. After the epidural took
effect, I tried to rest but that was difficult to do. Around 6AM the nurse finally
decided it would be ok to do an internal exam to see how far I was dilated.
I was at a 6. I said, "Is that good?" She said yes.
That it meant I was probably was at a 4 or 5 when I got my epidural, just
like I had hoped to be. This made me feel better.
And now, with the drugs keeping me calm and
knowing that my dilation was progressing nicely, I started to get a little
excited. The sun was rising over the Hollywood Hills and it finally sunk
in: I was going to meet my son today. Within a matter of hours, he'd be
here. This was his birthday. I even posed for a picture:
Six centimeters! A few hours later:
Nine centimeters!
By this time, Nurse
Six-Fingered-Goth-Anna-Kendrick was gone and we had a jolly new nurse.
She wore a bit too much perfume for my nauseous self but she was warmer
and kinder and I wish I could remember her name. They should really give
you a print out at the hospital of all the people who cared for you.
Anyway, the especially good news of this nine centimeters happening on
Saturday was that my doctor was the one on-call for the weekend. She
works as part of a group so it wasn't guaranteed that she'd be my delivering
doctor, so I felt very reassured that she was there. She knew how
fervently I wanted to avoid a c-section and I knew she would be supportive of
that. She came in to check on me now and then and as we got closer to full
dilation, my nurse told me that my doctor likes to wait until the baby is low
enough that I would likely only be pushing for an hour. Sounded good to
me!
Side note: notice the balled up tissue in
the above picture? That is because the woman in the room next to me must
not have gotten an epidural. Or if she did, it had worn off (which I
didn't realize could happen...until it did to me. More on that soon).
She was screaming the most animalistic sounds I had ever heard. I
was in pain listening to her and I was starting to get really stressed.
So we turned on the Counting Crows's album "August and Everything
After" to help drown out her screams. It worked only slightly. It did
provide comic relief though: Everyone that came into our room - nurses,
custodians, doctors - would start singing along immediately to whatever song
happened to be on (everyone has a soft spot for The Counting Crows, whether
they like to admit it or not). And then, after one of the biggest yells, the
frantic, beautiful cries of her newborn child. It was the most moving thing I
had ever heard. And I couldn't stop crying. And I was so excited to hear my baby's first cries. We were getting closer...I
thought.
And then it was noon. And my doctor
checked on my progress. And then she asked, "Are you ready to start
pushing?"
The time had come.
And I was finally ready.
* * *
But I wasn't, really. I thought I'd be pushing for an hour or less and then I'd meet Owen. I was so excited to push! But this post is broken into to parts because the rest of the labor did not go as expected.
We still had a long road ahead...
Tomorrow....Labor and Delivery: Part Two
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