Julia's (belated) birthstory
so this is about a month late...
Julia's original 'guess' date was 12 June (a Friday), but that date came and went without even a hit at any prelabor activity. Mentally, I didnt think I'd be early, but had hoped something would happen that weekend. That day was my last day of work, as I was really uncomfortable with hip pain and the ligments in my leg/hip area tightening up even with a few minutes of sitting. Oho yeah, and none of my pants fit anymore!
Had a midwife appt on the following Monday where I learned I was fingertip dilated but my cervix was still pretty long. Midwife didn't expect to see anything happening soon. I went in for my No Stress Test and everything looked fine, and the monitor caught a handful of mild contractions, none of which I could really feel. Headed home, walked a lot, sat on the birthing ball, and did a lot of hip openers to try to encourage things to get going. My parents came up on that Monday to help watch Ben. Repeat the appointment and minimal self-intervention for the next 5 days with no success. My mom had to work the next week, so my parents drove back to Virginia Beach on Fathers' day to drop her off, and my dad returned to keep watch again the next Monday.
At 11 days past due, had another NST and midwives appt where I got my membranes stripped and we talked further about induction. I wasn't in favor of it, until I was 42 weeks, and the midwife agreed to see if she could hold off but had to talk with her partners in the practice. The membrane stripping hurt a bit and did cause some contractions that afternoon, so I went to bed hoping that I'd wake up in full-blown labor.
I didn't. Instead, I got the call saying that I needed to show up at the hospital on Thursday morning, which would be 41w 6 days (Hospital policy was to have babies out no later than 42 weeks so Thursday it was). They wanted to use Cytotech to induce me, but I talked it over with my doula and did some research of my own and was not comfortable with that and formulated a different game plan with my doula.
I felt like I had about 20 hours to do it on my own, so went for a long walk around the hilly zoo, ate a spicy lunch, listened to a lot of hypnobabies 'get the baby out' scripts, had a prenatal massage that focused on trigger points, had more spicy food, a glass of wine, and yes, the tried and true remedy of sex. I didnt do the caster oil the night before, as I really didnt want to be miserable all night. That night was hard for me emotionally as I really started having those "omg my body has failed me and the 'system' sucks and I should have fought the EDD harder 7 months ago". Cried quite a bit that night mourning the loss of my laboring at home.
Cried a bit in the car on the way in, too. Got in the hospital around 8, and met the nurse who I really grew to love throughout the day. She was awesome - had her kids at the freestanding birth center and was super sympathetic to my situation. I thought so much of her I stopped back in the yesterday to drop off a note and some treats for the nursing staff. Met up w/ the midwife, explained that I did NOT want the Cytotech pill but wanted to talk about Cervadil. She checked me, found that I was 3+cm, so any gels/cervadil/catheter was pretty much useless at that point, so the Pitocin it was. Midwife did do another membrane sweep to try and trigger things on their own. Bummer of the morning was that the L/D was slammed, so we spent at least 4-5 hours in triage which sucked. I didnt spend much time in bed - standing and leaning felt much better, and ended up having an okay morning chatting, laughing, eating with Judd and the doula. They kept the pit super low - only 2 parts per thousand (?) but it was still not natural contrax. I was hooked up to the monitor but it wasnt really that annoying as I could still stand up next to the bed and move when I needed to.
Around 2 the room I wanted was free (tub/shower room) and I got another check and was 6 cm (whoo!) , so midwife agreed to take me off of the IV and montoring to see how I did. Shower felt like heaven, and contrax slowed down a bit in spacing but not intensity. Around this time I started doing counterpressure on my forehead to distract me and did some 'slow dancing' with Judd and/or the doula to get me through the pressure waves. I labored in the room for a while, then walked the halls, and around 4 just about crashed--I was fantasizing about lying down, but knew doing so would slow everything down and just draw the process out. My doula was awesome and said "well, you need to keep your energy up, so yes, you need to rest, so take one" I crawled into the bed for about 45 minutes, having contractions about every 10 minutes or so. About 5:30 midwife came in again and I was about 7cm so was given the option to do nipple stim or do the pit again. Struggled with this but ended up w/ the Pit again (never went higher than 3 parts) , as I knew it worked and I could focus on just getting through the next contrax rather than messing around w/ the pump. At 7 pm, the midwifes/nurses switched and I barely remember the new ones coming in to say hello.
From 7cm - 10 was HELL on pit. Didnt take that long (barely an hour), but if I didnt have the hypnobabies tracks playing on my ipod I would have lost it. Didnt want to give in to the epi as I knew labor would stall again, but there were a few biggies that had me questing this decision. I could see the monitor and the fact that it wasn't reading the full strength of the contractions which kind of pissed me off -- I wanted 'credit' for some of those big ones. Sat on the glider and just rocked through them with Judd doing accupressure on my forehead and me keeping with slow exhales/vocal toning. I got a little pissed off at the hypno track as there were some passages that said "relax and do what you body is doing on its own!" to which I mentally replied "um like HELL it is!!" The IV machine kept beeping, and at one point the midwife came in to stop the beeping and inadvertantly turned off the Pitocin (ha!). After what felt like 3 hours of sitting in the glider, finally felt the urge to push. I crawled off of the glider rocker and wanted to lay on the bed on my side, and when I did one big push, water broke and baby started coming FAST.
Doula runs out to find midwife and nurses (the midwife was just strolling in to check my progress and wasn't expecting to catch a baby!) and tells me to try getting on hands and knees w/ my elbows on the raised part of the bed. I experienced the whole Ring of Fire thing that I somehow didnt have with Ben (well, 4 hours of slooow pushing kind of numbs you) and remember yelling/moaning as an out of body experience. Two pushes on hands and knees and she was out! All I wanted to do was turn over and hold her slippery warm body on my chest and hold her tight. I had one small tear but otherwise felt fine (thanks to hands and knees!) I was up and walking sort of easily within the hour. No cathater, no needle in my back, no weird numbness.
So the punchline comes in her birthweight (7 lb 1.4 oz), and the fact the placenta looked perfect: Due Date was DEFINITELY off. There was no way this was a 42w kid, but its done, I'm happy that the hospital staff worked with me as much as they could (i.e. low pit, took me off, let me get to 42w), but inductions are NOT fun.
Finally, I wore my own gown (really a black tank dress from Target) for laboring and it was SO much better than the horrid hospital gowns. Also donned one of those mamajamas dresses/nightgowns after I cleaned up and again felt a billion times more like ME than a patient. Would advise any of you to do the same - def worth the $17 or so for the dress, and since it was black, didnt worry about it getting really funky.
Julia's original 'guess' date was 12 June (a Friday), but that date came and went without even a hit at any prelabor activity. Mentally, I didnt think I'd be early, but had hoped something would happen that weekend. That day was my last day of work, as I was really uncomfortable with hip pain and the ligments in my leg/hip area tightening up even with a few minutes of sitting. Oho yeah, and none of my pants fit anymore!
Had a midwife appt on the following Monday where I learned I was fingertip dilated but my cervix was still pretty long. Midwife didn't expect to see anything happening soon. I went in for my No Stress Test and everything looked fine, and the monitor caught a handful of mild contractions, none of which I could really feel. Headed home, walked a lot, sat on the birthing ball, and did a lot of hip openers to try to encourage things to get going. My parents came up on that Monday to help watch Ben. Repeat the appointment and minimal self-intervention for the next 5 days with no success. My mom had to work the next week, so my parents drove back to Virginia Beach on Fathers' day to drop her off, and my dad returned to keep watch again the next Monday.
At 11 days past due, had another NST and midwives appt where I got my membranes stripped and we talked further about induction. I wasn't in favor of it, until I was 42 weeks, and the midwife agreed to see if she could hold off but had to talk with her partners in the practice. The membrane stripping hurt a bit and did cause some contractions that afternoon, so I went to bed hoping that I'd wake up in full-blown labor.
I didn't. Instead, I got the call saying that I needed to show up at the hospital on Thursday morning, which would be 41w 6 days (Hospital policy was to have babies out no later than 42 weeks so Thursday it was). They wanted to use Cytotech to induce me, but I talked it over with my doula and did some research of my own and was not comfortable with that and formulated a different game plan with my doula.
I felt like I had about 20 hours to do it on my own, so went for a long walk around the hilly zoo, ate a spicy lunch, listened to a lot of hypnobabies 'get the baby out' scripts, had a prenatal massage that focused on trigger points, had more spicy food, a glass of wine, and yes, the tried and true remedy of sex. I didnt do the caster oil the night before, as I really didnt want to be miserable all night. That night was hard for me emotionally as I really started having those "omg my body has failed me and the 'system' sucks and I should have fought the EDD harder 7 months ago". Cried quite a bit that night mourning the loss of my laboring at home.
Cried a bit in the car on the way in, too. Got in the hospital around 8, and met the nurse who I really grew to love throughout the day. She was awesome - had her kids at the freestanding birth center and was super sympathetic to my situation. I thought so much of her I stopped back in the yesterday to drop off a note and some treats for the nursing staff. Met up w/ the midwife, explained that I did NOT want the Cytotech pill but wanted to talk about Cervadil. She checked me, found that I was 3+cm, so any gels/cervadil/catheter was pretty much useless at that point, so the Pitocin it was. Midwife did do another membrane sweep to try and trigger things on their own. Bummer of the morning was that the L/D was slammed, so we spent at least 4-5 hours in triage which sucked. I didnt spend much time in bed - standing and leaning felt much better, and ended up having an okay morning chatting, laughing, eating with Judd and the doula. They kept the pit super low - only 2 parts per thousand (?) but it was still not natural contrax. I was hooked up to the monitor but it wasnt really that annoying as I could still stand up next to the bed and move when I needed to.
Around 2 the room I wanted was free (tub/shower room) and I got another check and was 6 cm (whoo!) , so midwife agreed to take me off of the IV and montoring to see how I did. Shower felt like heaven, and contrax slowed down a bit in spacing but not intensity. Around this time I started doing counterpressure on my forehead to distract me and did some 'slow dancing' with Judd and/or the doula to get me through the pressure waves. I labored in the room for a while, then walked the halls, and around 4 just about crashed--I was fantasizing about lying down, but knew doing so would slow everything down and just draw the process out. My doula was awesome and said "well, you need to keep your energy up, so yes, you need to rest, so take one" I crawled into the bed for about 45 minutes, having contractions about every 10 minutes or so. About 5:30 midwife came in again and I was about 7cm so was given the option to do nipple stim or do the pit again. Struggled with this but ended up w/ the Pit again (never went higher than 3 parts) , as I knew it worked and I could focus on just getting through the next contrax rather than messing around w/ the pump. At 7 pm, the midwifes/nurses switched and I barely remember the new ones coming in to say hello.
From 7cm - 10 was HELL on pit. Didnt take that long (barely an hour), but if I didnt have the hypnobabies tracks playing on my ipod I would have lost it. Didnt want to give in to the epi as I knew labor would stall again, but there were a few biggies that had me questing this decision. I could see the monitor and the fact that it wasn't reading the full strength of the contractions which kind of pissed me off -- I wanted 'credit' for some of those big ones. Sat on the glider and just rocked through them with Judd doing accupressure on my forehead and me keeping with slow exhales/vocal toning. I got a little pissed off at the hypno track as there were some passages that said "relax and do what you body is doing on its own!" to which I mentally replied "um like HELL it is!!" The IV machine kept beeping, and at one point the midwife came in to stop the beeping and inadvertantly turned off the Pitocin (ha!). After what felt like 3 hours of sitting in the glider, finally felt the urge to push. I crawled off of the glider rocker and wanted to lay on the bed on my side, and when I did one big push, water broke and baby started coming FAST.
Doula runs out to find midwife and nurses (the midwife was just strolling in to check my progress and wasn't expecting to catch a baby!) and tells me to try getting on hands and knees w/ my elbows on the raised part of the bed. I experienced the whole Ring of Fire thing that I somehow didnt have with Ben (well, 4 hours of slooow pushing kind of numbs you) and remember yelling/moaning as an out of body experience. Two pushes on hands and knees and she was out! All I wanted to do was turn over and hold her slippery warm body on my chest and hold her tight. I had one small tear but otherwise felt fine (thanks to hands and knees!) I was up and walking sort of easily within the hour. No cathater, no needle in my back, no weird numbness.
So the punchline comes in her birthweight (7 lb 1.4 oz), and the fact the placenta looked perfect: Due Date was DEFINITELY off. There was no way this was a 42w kid, but its done, I'm happy that the hospital staff worked with me as much as they could (i.e. low pit, took me off, let me get to 42w), but inductions are NOT fun.
Finally, I wore my own gown (really a black tank dress from Target) for laboring and it was SO much better than the horrid hospital gowns. Also donned one of those mamajamas dresses/nightgowns after I cleaned up and again felt a billion times more like ME than a patient. Would advise any of you to do the same - def worth the $17 or so for the dress, and since it was black, didnt worry about it getting really funky.