Birth Story
I may have to come back to this one as parts of the memory pop back into my brain. I shouldn't have waited this long to get on here and type it, but I've mostly accepted that that's just who I am as a person and I have to learn to work around it.
They first started telling us at our second anatomy scan, I think, that Rowan was on track to be a pretty big baby. We had several talks with different doctors along the way, varying in degrees of concern from "You might just make big babies" to "This could be a sign of malfunction/defects that we need to worry about". Our growth scan at 34 weeks showed he was already measuring over 8lbs, so they scheduled us for induction on 12/20 to hopefully prevent a 10lb+ baby. At our scan on 12/9, my blood pressure read something like 165/140 (I'm too lazy to go look up the record to get an exact number). I took issue with this, as the blood pressure cuff kept trying to come off while it was reading and the nurse kept pushing it back down, so I didn't feel this was a terribly accurate representation. After the nurse left, the doctor came in very stressed and said "No sane OB would let you keep carrying, we're headed to labor and delivery right now!" After some very confused conversation, she agreed to have my blood pressure retested at the antepartum testing we had scheduled for right after the scan, with the caveat that "You're going to have to have 3 spot on perfect blood pressures for me to let you go home today." Well, sure enough, my blood pressure was fine (slightly elevated, but no more than it had been the whole pregnancy) while they were checking Rowan's heart rate, so panic doctor agreed we didn't have to induce that day. She did move the induction up to 12/15, though, rather than waiting for the planned date of 12/20. The antepartum testing nurse told us that panic doctor is just very excitable, and tends to run away with an idea once it gets in her head. She just needs talking down off the ledge on occasion. We had one last appointment at Wilford Hall on I think the Monday before induction, there, where the doctor there confirmed that she had also dealt with panic doctor before and yes, she was quick to jump the gun sometimes. Thankfully level heads prevailed, and we didn't end up having an emergency induction or anything.
Ok, 12/15. Birth day. We were scheduled for induction at 7:30, and got to the hospital a little after 7. They took me back in a room where they gave me a sweet hospital gown and asked if I felt safe at home. I had to confirm that I didn't feel I was in any danger before they'd let Chris come back, which was crazy because throughout the entire pregnancy they'd been asking did I feel safe with him sitting not 3 feet away from me, and we always thought it was weird. Like, if I didn't feel safe, do you honestly think I'd say anything when he's right there? I guess they wait until the last minute to do it the "correct" way with him out of the room. I'd only been back there maybe 10 minutes when they guided him back to the labor room. A bunch of people trickled in and out getting things set up and talking us through the process. The first nurse we spoke to told us that for first time moms, induction can take up to 72 hours. I'm pretty sure my eyes popped out of my head the same way you see in cartoons. I'd been told labor could take a little longer for first timers, but no one had mentioned I might be in the daggum hospital for 3 days before I ever even gave birth! I looked directly at my belly and told Rowan we would not be dragging this out into a 3 day ordeal, thank you very much. Once the nurse had me on all the monitors, the anesthesiologist had been in to explain the different scenarios that might happen, and the midwife had explained the difference in mechanical and chemical dilation and why they use both, we were ready to get started.
It was around 8:30 or so when they placed the foley balloons on either side of my cervix. Virginia, the midwife, told me there would be "some discomfort", and then proceeded to cause pain so bad my whole body arched off the bed. I was prepared for discomfort. I was even prepared for pain. I was not prepared for it to feel like this woman had inserted her arm up to her elbow inside my body and begun to root around. She paused for a moment and told me we could stop if I wanted, but it would mean starting all over. I said no way, give me a minute to try to breathe through this and we'll keep going. She started again before I said I was ready, which honestly was probably smart because I don't know that I ever would have been able to verbally tell her keep going. She did say she could feel Rowan's head, though, which was a good sign since he was already so far down. I was shaking and so uncomfortable once she was done. The balloons leave this tail hanging out that they tug on every so often to make sure the balloons are still properly in place, and it was impossible to get comfortable in any position with this long tube thing hanging out of me. They also gave me Cytotech to start the chemical side of the dilation, while the pressure from the balloons was supposed to be the mechanical side. For the next 3 or 4 hours, not a whole lot happened. I walked laps around the room because they'd said walking could help move the process along, which was a silly looking process considering how small the room was. The nurse would come in every so often and ask me if I was feeling contractions yet, and I'd answer no. She'd tell me she could see I was definitely having them on the monitor, and ask again if I was sure I didn't feel anything. Pretty sure, yea.
It seems like it went 0 to 100 pretty quickly in my memory. I went from not feeling anything at all to feeling some pretty strong contractions, something similar to a period cramp but also not, sort of like my belly was being squeezed but also completely different. It's so hard to explain, as I haven't felt anything else quite like it. When the contractions would let up there was hardly any pain, only the discomfort from the balloons still being in. Around 3 I think, Chris and I were the only ones in the room. I was standing up beside the bed since I seemed to tolerate the pain a lot better while standing than I did laying down, and felt hot liquid trickle down my legs. Not a gush, but a fair amount. I looked at Chris and said "I don't know if I just peed myself or if my water broke, but something happened." He came over and got some paper towels to try to soak it up. He said it was the wrong consistency for pee (thanks to Doodle, he'd know), and pushed the button to call for the nurse. When she came in, he told her we thought my water had broken, and she said they'd have the midwife check. While we waited, every time I would have a contraction, more of this warm fluid would come out of me, so I felt pretty confident my water had in fact broken. The midwife came back and says she has to check the balloons to see, so she had me get back up on the bed and proceeded to once again try to put her whole body inside my body, which hurt so much worse than the contractions did. When she was done, she very confidently said "It must be urine, the balloons are still in there nice and tight. You're barely at a 2." That didn't make sense to me, but I'm not a medical professional, so what do I know right? I go back to standing because laying down made the pain much worse, and for the next few hours stood over what basically amounted to a puppy pad as more and more of this liquid continued to come out. Shift change is at 6, so around 5:30 a new team came on and asked how things were going. Chris told them about us thinking my water had broken but the midwife saying the balloons were still in place, and the doctor says "Well let's just check." She proceeds to grab a swab from the shelves in the corner, squat down, roll it in the fluid, and then put it on a test strip. Not 10 seconds later, she says "Yep! Your water broke alright." WHAT? We could've just swabbed it?!??! WHY didn't we do that in the first place instead of putting me through the midwife trying to climb in and personally retrieve my baby? >_<
Anyway. The doctor asked if I was planning on an epidural and I said yes, but not yet. Chris started fussing (he'd been trying to get me to take the epidural for a while), and I said I had to wait, that the anesthesiologist that morning said I needed to be at a 4 or 5 before the epidural and I wasn't even at a 3 the last time they checked. The doctor very nicely but sternly said "Look, your water broke, ok? You can have the epidural. There's no reason to wait now." I don't know why her logic was any different than what Chris had been saying, but it sank into my stubborn head, and I agreed. She then asked if we wanted to go ahead and take the balloons out. Since my water had broken, I was now at a greater risk of infection having them in there, but if I wanted to leave them until they came out on their own I could. I said let's go ahead and take them out, because they were rather painful and didn't seem to be helping much anyway. Maybe 20 minutes later they took them out and I got some instant relief, at least until the next contraction came along.
Next was the epidural. It only took 10 or 15 minutes from the time they asked for it for the anesthesiologist to get to my room and ready to go. He had me lean forward around a pillow while Chris held my arms. He said I'd feel something akin to a bee sting while he put the numbing agent in, which was a slight understatement but wasn't terrible. Then he says he's ready to insert the actual epidural. I tried to relax, but then this STRONG shocking sensation hit my left leg, so I jumped and yelled. Chris looked pretty panicked as I told him it felt like someone had put a taser against my leg. The anesthesiologist laughed and said "Oh, that's just (some medical term he rattled off that I've tried looking up since but can't find). It basically means I tickled the nerve." Chris said later it took everything in him not to punch the guy right then and there, and not to shout "No, it means you FUCKING MISSED!" He withdrew the needle and I got some relief, but of course a contraction started right then. He asked if I was ready to continue and I said no, I need a minute. He waited 15 or 20 seconds before asking if I was ready now, to which I again said no, you need to wait. Once that contraction let up, I leaned forward again and told him I was ready to go. This time he managed to get it placed without further incident, thankfully. The relief wasn't instant, but it was pretty darn close. I could finally relax. He explained that it would give me a dose of medicine every I think 15 minutes, and I had a button I could push for a booster dose every 30 minutes if needed. They got me laid down in the bed and started checking all the various monitors to make sure we were still good. They were having trouble capturing my contractions and Rowan's heart rate, so they ended up using internal monitors for both. I'm glad they'd already done the epidural before then, since I was still pretty traumatized from the placement of the balloons and was glad to not have to feel that whole process. A doctor came in after a while and explained that Rowan was having decels every time I'd have a contraction, and they were pretty sure it was because of how his cord was laying. She said they were going to need to do an amnioreinfusion, where they added fluid back around him so that his cord would float and move to a new location where it wouldn't be restricted. I told her I was fine with that, to do whatever she had to do for the baby. While they were getting set up for that, his decels were getting worse, and she said that we were going to try the reinfusion and hope that it helped, but if not, we were most likely headed for a c-section and she wanted me to be aware. I again told her to do what she had to do to make sure Rowan was ok. Thankfully the reinfusion did its job, and he started tolerating the contractions much better.
Things get a little fuzzy for a while after that. At one point the nurse expressed some concern over Rowan's heartrate. Hoping maybe the monitors were just not getting a good read, they ended up placing internal monitors both for my contractions and for his heartrate. Since the one he needed had to be placed under the skin of his little head, he had a bump/mark for a few weeks after he was born where they'd screwed it in there (that sounds so much worse than it was, they explained the placement by asking if I remembered in school when people would put staples through the top layer of skin on their fingers so they'd stick. Same concept, it's just in the uppermost bit of skin so nothing super scary), which I worried might leave a scar or something but eventually cleared up. Even with the internal monitors, the readings weren't ideal. Every time I'd have a contraction, Rowan's heartrate would plummet. They tried having me lay in different positions in the bed (I couldn't get up at this point because the epidural had my legs mostly out of commission) to see if that would help, but it didn't seem to be making a difference. One of the doctors came in (I feel so bad that I can't remember anyone's actual names) and calmly explained that Rowan's umbilical cord was in a bad spot, so it was being compressed each time I had a contraction which was causing the drop in heartrate. She said they were going to try an amnio reinfusion, where they put fluid back in around him to try to float his cord to a new position where it wouldn't be compressed. She said she was fairly confident it would work, but if not, we'd have to talk about a c section as the next step. I told her do whatever she needed to do to make sure he was ok, that I was on board with what she felt was best. Thankfully the reinfusion did the trick, and we settled back in to our waiting game.
I must have gone to sleep at some point, because the next thing I knew I was waking up to the nurse coming in and saying she was going to check me real quick. Thanks to the epidural I was pretty beyond caring, so I just said ok and waited while she took a look. She says "Oh, there's a baby right here." I said "Hasn't there been a baby right there all day?", thinking back to the midwife saying she could feel his head when she placed the balloons. She smiled and said "No, I mean you're at a 10 and it's time to push." Oh! Wow, ok. Show time just like that, huh? She then told me that earlier, when they took the balloons out after confirming my water broke, the doctor actually prescribed Pitocin to get things going. The nurse, using her 30+ years of experience, decided to wait on giving it to me. She said she just knew that if they left me alone, I'd do it myself. Sure enough, she was right. This was right at 23:00. She went and got the whole team of folks who have to be present for this sort of thing. The doctor asked when she started the Pitocin, and she proudly said "I didn't! I had a feeling she'd do it all on her own, and I was right." I honestly expected some fussing from the doctor, but she just said good call and kept getting ready. 10 minutes later, I started pushing. This was a little tricky, as they wanted me to push with each contraction, but because of the epidural, I wasn't actually feeling any. The same nurse who nixed the Pitocin put her hand on my belly, and would tell me each time a contraction was starting so I'd know when to push. She held my right leg while Chris held my left. At some point in the process, they gave me an oxygen mask to wear. Rowan wasn't tolerating the pushing well, and his heart rate was spiking each time, so they wanted me to take nice deep breaths of oxygen to make sure he was getting what he needed. Each time I'd actually push they'd take the mask off, then put it right back on in between each contraction and tell me to breathe as deeply as I could. They called for a special team just for Rowan since he was having these heart rate spikes to make sure everything was ok once he was out. I remember Chris telling me he would see his head, and thinking "Oh my god, don't look down there right now!" Silly, I know, but it's what happened. It only took about 30 minutes of pushing, and at 23:40 our perfect little boy was born. They gave him a very brief scrub and then laid him on my chest. He was making these little grunting noises that I thought were cute, but one of the nurses said they could be indicative of breathing issues which definitely ruined the moment. They took him over to that special team that was brought in just for him, where they gave him a good once over and tested all his various stats. They offered Chris the chance to do some skin to skin, so of course he whipped his shirt off right there and scooped Rowan up. I was so busy watching them and thinking how sweet it was that it took me quite a while to realize I still had people working on me. In fact, I seemed to have gained people. After maybe 20 minutes the same doctor who'd spoken to me about the reinfusion and the possible c-section came to talk to me again, explaining that they were having trouble getting my bleeding to stop so they would need to do some extra work/sewing. It took 4 people a total of 2 hours and a big blood soaked pile of gauze before all was said and done, but they got it under control. I didn't have the tear that everyone stresses over and that I'd been told to worry about, oh no. It couldn't be that simple. I had a sacral tear, a laceration inside the birth canal that required retractors to be able to properly get to so they could sew it up. I'm still not sure how that happened, considering my perineum didn't tear at all, and the internet seems to think that sacral tears generally occur during instrument assisted deliveries (think forceps), which we didn't have. I swear it was at least a month before I could sit properly, longer than that before I could do so without pain. All from an injury that never even came up in all the various discussions with doctors, nurses, and people who'd been through labor before. Crazy.
Ok, I'm sure I'm missing things that I'll need to come back and add later. Just in typing this out, I had to go back up 3 or 4 times and add in things I forgot. But for now this will work. Rowan is fussing and I have to go figure out why. I'm 98% sure it's because he's fighting sleep. I sure wish someone would let me nap whenever I feel like it, but my child thinks napping is the devil. Go figure.
Love, mostly.
~Me
ETA: The shivers! How could I POSSIBLY have forgotten the shivers? I'm too lazy to go back up there and try to weave it in to the story, so we're getting this fun little footnote instead.
Shortly after the epidural was placed and I was laying in the hospital bed, I started shivering. Initially it was almost like I had a chill, but it quickly progressed into full body shakes. I bundled up in a few more blankets, thinking maybe my body was cold even though I didn't feel that way at all, but nothing was helping. I couldn't even get my hands to lie still on the bed because they were just shaking uncontrollably. Chris and I both found this very strange, but as medical professionals came and went, not one of them said anything about it, so we figured it must not be a huge deal. Somewhere along the way (I honestly don't remember where), I finally asked one of the nurses if I should be concerned. She said not at all, that it was actually a good thing. The hormones your body produces during labor cause some people to shake like I was, and she said it meant I was probably making some real progress. For all the "here are the things no one is going to tell you about being in labor" stories I heard/read before we got to that point, nowhere did it come up that I might shiver violently as I dilated because hormones. That would have been a nice tidbit to know, since I was worried I was having some weird reaction to the meds or something. I think the shivers stopped while I was taking that brief nap just before it was actually time to push, as I don't remember having any once it was actually time. I've made a mental note to tell anyone I know that gets pregnant that this is a thing that could happen, since it was left off the list of heads ups that I received and was a total surprise.