I've had Ava's birth story done for awhile, but I'm finally getting around to sharing it. It's really long, but believe it or not, this is the shortened version.
On Tuesday (March 20, 2007), when I was 38 ½ weeks pregnant,
I got the feeling that the baby had dropped.
I didn’t feel a ton of pressure, like I’d read about, but my inner
thighs were really sore, and my lower back ached. We’d been waiting for her to drop, because
I’d been dilated since 36 weeks (at least).
At my last appointment, I’d been 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced. So we figured as soon as she dropped, things
would begin moving pretty quickly. I was
trying not to get my hopes up, though, and I really didn’t think she would
decide to come as soon after dropping as she did!
That night, around 11:00 PM, I began having contractions
about 10 minutes apart. At first, I
thought they were an hour apart because they weren’t very strong or noticeable,
but when I went to bed, I could feel my stomach getting hard every time I had
one. At this point, they were painless
so this was the only way I could tell I was having them.
Within an hour, the contractions went to 7 minutes apart and
we decided to call the doctor and see when we should come in. The doctor on call said to come in
when they were 5 minutes apart. Chad and I
decided to try to sleep for a few hours, but it was hard for me because I
wanted to keep checking the clock every time I had a contraction.
I finally did get to sleep, but we both woke up around 3:30
AM. The contractions weren’t as regular,
but some were still fairly close together.
I was afraid it was going to stop completely.
Chad
suggested taking a shower, which I did, but it ended up making the contractions
stop for awhile. Chad was on the computer, but I
laid in bed hoping they would start again.
I was so anxious to meet my baby!
They started up again around 6:00 AM, but still weren’t very
regular. They ranged from 5-7 minutes
apart. When I had one that was 3 minutes
apart, Chad
said we should go to the hospital. We
got everything ready and left, but I was sure they’d send us home since the
contractions seemed all-over-the-place.
We got to the hospital around 7:00 AM, but left our bags in
the car, since we weren’t sure we’d be staying.
We went up to admissions, got checked in, and went across the hall to
Triage. We were the only ones there, so
we didn’t have much waiting to do.
First, they took a urine sample and had me change into a hospital
gown. Then they hooked me up to hear the
baby’s heartbeat and monitor contractions.
The nurse checked me and I was at 4 ½ cm already! At that point, I think I got the false notion
that labor would be pretty easy, since I was already almost halfway dilated and
still hadn’t had any painful contractions.
I was still 80% effaced, though (like I had been at my last
appointment), but the baby’s head was at -2 station. The nurse said when she pushed on the baby's head, it
would bounce back up, though.
They left me on the monitor for awhile and we made a few
phone calls to family to let them know what was going on. Then the nurse had us get up and walk for an
hour. That was a very long hour! They didn’t really have a lot of places to
walk…mainly just up and down the same hallway.
While I was walking, it felt like I was having one constant contraction.
When the nurse checked me after walking, I was still at 4 ½
cm, but the baby’s head was lower and didn’t bounce up when she pushed on
it. My contractions were more regular,
too, so they said to stay and walk some more and see what happened after that.
We spent part of the next hour in the room and part of it
walking. While we were in the room, my
emotions were a mess. They had a
cross-stitched poem in the hallway that made me cry every time we walked past
it. Here it is:
It is important to me
that I spend a part of the next few hours here “alone with you” in the
darkness.
You and I will never
be this close again.
By morning you will be
a tiny person all your own.
No longer the kicking,
demanding, bulge in my body that I have grown to love so well.
I hope that you will
safely be guided on your journey, and I ask for the strength to help you all I
can.
Again, you signal your
impatience to be free…time to wake your Daddy.
Anonymous
In the weeks leading up to this, I had been so anxious to
meet her, but I hadn’t realized how much I would miss having her inside. Now we would be meeting her in the next few
hours, but I wouldn’t ever be able to feel her moving inside anymore. I knew I was definitely going to miss that.
When the nurse checked me the next time, there was still no
change, so we decided to go home and see what happened. She called the doctor on call, though, and he
said he’d rather have us stay and he would break my water when he got to the
hospital (he was at the other hospital doing c-sections). They put my IV in and asked me all the
admissions questions. A little while
later, my labor nurse came and took us to my room. She said we could continue
walking the halls, but when we got to my room, the monitor said the baby’s heart rate was a little
“flat”, so she wanted me to stay hooked up to the monitor.
Chad
and I watched Firefly movies on his laptop until the doctor came in at about
1:00 PM to break my water. I was a
little nervous about it, because I was afraid it would hurt, but it was
completely painless. I was also a little
hesitant because it meant there was no going back. I knew the contractions could end up
stopping, but once they broke my water, we were committed to having her today.
After they broke my water, the contractions started getting
a lot stronger. We turned on one of the
CD’s that I’d burned for during labor, but I stopped even paying attention to
it about halfway through. Chad was really
great…he did the breathing with me, he rubbed my back when I was on the
birthing ball (which really did help for awhile), he got me ice chips, and he
dug the suckers out of my suitcase (I will never be able to have an orange
sucker again without remembering being in labor).
After awhile, I decided I wanted Stadol. It really didn’t help that much…it just made
me feel kind of loopy and more relaxed in between contractions. By the time they gave me a second dose,
though, it was doing absolutely nothing for me.
I couldn’t even tell I had it anymore.
By that time, the contractions were really strong. I felt like I was drifting in and out of
consciousness. The only thing I remember
is having a “dream” or something about climbing stairs and then opening my eyes
for a second and not knowing where I was.
Chad
wasn’t able to do much at that point because I didn’t even feel like I was
there anymore. So I ended up asking for
an epidural. The 15 minutes it took for
the anesthesiologist to get there were the longest 15 minutes of my life. I remember asking the nurse to call him again
after about 5 minutes. When he finally
got there, he started asking me all these questions about my health history and
Chad
had to take over answering the questions because another contraction
started. And I still remember how messy
my signature was on the consent form they made me sign. They rolled me on my side and he got ready to
do the injection. I was having a
contraction again and I felt like I was rolling around, but I remember him
saying, “You’re going to have to hold really still now. I guess that’s not a problem, though, because
you’re not moving anyway.” I don’t even
remember feeling the needles at all.
Chad
says after I got the epidural and before it kicked in, I didn’t seem to be in
as much pain during the contractions. I
think it was just that I wasn’t panicking as much because I knew relief was on
the way and it wasn’t like I was waiting around for slow people anymore.
The epidural worked on the left side first, but I was still
feeling the contractions on the right side.
They had me roll onto my right side and they let me push the button for
more of the drugs to be released. The
nurse said it had been a perfect epidural, so it should work OK. I’m not sure exactly when it kicked in on my
right side because I was still feeling so much pressure with every contraction
(though it didn’t hurt nearly as bad as they did before). I remember before I went into labor, people
would tell me that you can still feel pressure even with an epidural and I was
like, “So what? How bad can pressure
hurt?” Now I know just how bad pressure
can hurt. It still hurt enough that I
had to breathe through contractions (or else groan through them), but I can’t
even imagine how much it would have hurt without the epidural.
After that, I drifted in and out of sleeping for
awhile. My contractions were about 2-3
minutes apart, so I would drift out in between contractions and then it would
wake me up (I still felt really fuzzy, though, even when I was awake). I was still on the Stadol at that point, so
that might be why. Chad was
sleeping, too, since both of us had only gotten a couple of hours of
sleep. I know he was a little
disappointed at this point that I had gotten the epidural, but he told me later
that the only reason he was disappointed was because he thought I was a lot
closer to being done than I was. He
didn’t realize that I still had 4 hours to go, so in the end, he was glad I got
it.
A little while later, the nurse started giving me Pitocin
through my IV. She had wanted to give it
to me before I decided to get the epidural, but I just couldn’t imagine having
even stronger, more frequent contractions than I already was having. They really wanted to give it to me, though,
because it seemed like I was getting stuck at 9 cm. She said the back of my cervix was completely
gone (at 10 cm), but the front was still at 9 cm. The Pitocin didn’t really do anything to get
me to 10 cm, so they decided to have me start pushing. They ended up putting a catheter in first,
though. I really didn’t want one and
convinced her to let me try going on my own, but in end she had to put it in.
Then they had me start pushing. I never really felt the urge to push like I
hear people talking about. They just
told me to start pushing on the next contraction and it made the pressure so
much easier to handle that I couldn’t imagine not pushing after that. I don’t remember exactly what happened with
the front of my cervix not being completely dilated, but I think they said that
the baby just pushed her head past it.
I definitely wasn’t prepared for how long I would have to
push for. When you watch shows on TV
like Baby Story, they only show them pushing for like 3 minutes. I knew it would take longer than 3 minutes,
but I didn’t think it would take an hour and a half. It was really discouraging when the nurse
called the doctor in to deliver the baby (after about an hour of pushing) and
he ended up leaving again because he said I wasn’t close enough. At that point, I was feeling so much pressure
and I couldn’t believe she wasn’t about ready to just drop out.
I pushed for awhile longer and then they called the doctor
again and this time he got his scrubs on.
There were so many people in the room.
It was time for the nurses’ shift change, so we had the labor nurses
from both shifts in the room, Chad and a student nurse were holding my legs, plus
there was the pediatric nurse, the doctor, the charge nurse, and a couple other
people. We definitely had an audience,
but I had lost all sense of modesty hours ago.
It took quite a few more pushes while the doctor was
there. I felt like she was right there
and I kept asking Chad
why the doctor didn’t just grab the baby’s head and pull her out. I also remember telling him he was counting
way too slow. People kept telling me she
was right there and everything, but then I kept pushing and having her head
drift back in after the contraction was over.
Finally, the doctor told me to push one more time and if her
head didn’t come out, he’d do an episiotomy.
I really didn’t want one, but it still didn’t come out on the next push,
so he turned around for his scissors (or whatever they use). I told him, “No, wait! Let me push one more time!” I can’t remember whether it was one more time
or a couple of times, but her head finally did come out without an episiotomy
and I only tore a little bit (two or three stitches).
Chad
said when her head came out, her cord was wrapped around her neck. He was really worried because she wasn’t
moving at all and I remember asking why she wasn’t moving or crying or
anything. Right after that, one of her
little arms shot up and she stretched her fingers out. I think it just took one more push and she
was out! I was really disappointed
because they took her over to the warmer right away instead of putting her on
my chest. I thought that was something
they automatically did…I didn’t know I needed to tell them that that’s what I
wanted. While she was under the warmer,
the doctor delivered the placenta (Chad made him show it to me),
stitched me up, and pressed on my belly (I can’t believe how much that hurt!).
I asked them when I was going to get to hold her because
they were taking so long under the warmer.
They asked if I wanted her right away or if I wanted her weighed
first. I told them they could weigh her
first and she was 7 lbs, 11 oz. Then
they told me I could hold her for a few minutes, but they needed to take her
down to the nursery right away after that because her breathing wasn’t
“stable”. By the time they were done
weighing her, though, her breathing was fine and they told me they didn’t need
to take her down there.
The first time I held her, her eyes were wide open and she
just laid there looking at me. Her lower
lip went out a couple of times like she was going to cry, but she didn’t. In fact, she barely cried when she was under
the warmer, either. I just heard her
doing a lot of grunting (which she still does…she doesn’t cry much at all).
Everything after that is kind of a blur. Chad held her for awhile and I
breastfed her for the first time. Then
they took her for her bath (I was a little disappointed because they didn’t do
it in the room…Chad was sleeping at that point and I tried to get him to go and
video it, but he barely even woke up when I talked to him) and made me get up
to go to the bathroom (not much fun, especially since my right leg was still
numb from the epidural). After that, we
ate supper (I hadn’t eaten since the night before and Chad had only
snacked during the day) and they took her to the nursery so I could sleep for
awhile.
Posted: April 5th, 2007 under Random Thoughts.
Comments: 10
) to check her thyroid levels. They were elevated on her neonatal screening, so they checked them again at her doctor appointment and they were still slightly elevated, but going down. Hopefully, this will be the last time she has to have them checked. I'm absolutely dreading it…I hate watching her have blood drawn.