I knew that I wanted to write a birth story for Baby B after reading so many other fabulous birth stories as I prepared for her arrival. I was hoping to include step-by-step pictures to help illustrate everything that happened but things were far too intense for picture taking so my written descriptions will have to be good enough. Here is my recollection of how things happened, written down before the memories have a chance to fade too drastically. Here we go!
Baby B's grand entrance to the world began at 3:30am on Tuesday, October 2nd. I woke up with the feeling of wet underwear. Initially, I didn't feel like my waters broke because it just seemed like heavy discharge. But it was heavy enough that I decided to put on a new pair of underwear and a pad. Five minutes later liquid started flowing out of me like Niagara Falls. My plan when labor began was to stay at home and try to get as much sleep as possible until things became stage critical. I did not anticipate how much water would be coming out of me (and it didn't stop coming out of me!). There was no way in the world that I could have gone back to sleep because it felt like I was peeing buckets and buckets and that is not a feeling one is used to unless they are normally wearing diapers. I started to get excited and made phone calls to the midwives and some family members. I also started to plan what I wanted to do since I knew sleep was out of the question. I took a shower, did my hair, make-up (ha--little did I know that looking good for Baby's arrival would be the furtherest thing on my mind). I also went a little nest crazy and decided to pack and repack Baby's diaper bag. I freaked out about unfolded laundry and dirty dishes. I also thought to eat a bowl of cereal. All the while Ryan was like, "aren't we supposed to be sleeping to store up energy for the labor?!?!" Poor boy.
At this point my contractions were pretty manageable. It felt no worse than bad period cramps. Around 7:00am I decided we should head to my mom's house in order to beat the morning rush hour traffic headed into Portland. The contractions were picking up and I sang loudly to bad songs on the radio in order to distract myself from the increasing pain. Ryan laughed at me and told me these are the reasons he loves me.
We arrived at my mom's house around 7:30am. The contractions initially decreased when I first got to my mom's. I realized I was hungry again and my sister made me an amazing berry smoothie. She heated some left-over chicken pot pie for Ryan but I was so hungry that I ate most of his breakfast too. We both agreed that it was the best chicken pot pie we have ever tasted (made by my amazing chef of a mom!). This would be the last real meal Baby B would get in utero. Ryan downloaded a contraction app and was having fun passing the time by recording my contractions. My nerd of husband was geeking out over the app's ability to graph the contractions and put them into excel. As he was doing this we realized that my contractions were getting very close together. They were coming about 2 minutes apart and lasting about 40 seconds in length. At 8:30am we decided we should have our doula, Carrie, come to my mom's house. But with the increased contractions we second guessed ourselves and decided that we should head straight to the hospital (my mom was growing concerned we would deliver Baby B on the living room sofa). At 9:00am we left for the hospital with Carrie driving right behind us.
The walk from the car to the birth triage unit was ridiculously long. My contractions were intense and I felt like I was going to have the baby very soon. Everything was going pretty much to plan. In triage they started to monitor the contractions and baby. They then wanted to do a vaginal exam to make sure my waters had broken and to see how dilated I was. This was incredibly painful because as soon as they attempted to look inside me I would have a contraction and they would have to start over. According to my birth plan I didn't want to know how dilated I was because I thought that could make me feel frustrated if I wasn't making progress. The midwives said that they wanted to admit me because my waters had broken but they would not allow me to get into the birthing tub because they wanted to see more progress first. I was incredibly disappointed because I felt like I had been working so hard and I could not understand why I hadn't progressed enough to get in the birthing tub.
Our doula suggested that we walk the hallways in order to keep things moving along. It was at this time that my pain increased tenfold. I started to experience some back labor. Carrie let us know this was a good sign because it just meant that baby was moving in position to be born. I wanted to get the show on the road so I decided to be an overachiever and attempt to walk up stairs. I did not manage to get up very many before the pain grew to be too much. I had a to stop walking every few minutes so that Ryan could apply counter pressure to my back. He was my knight in shining armor. This was the only thing that helped the pain. By the time we made it back to our birthing room I was really feeling like the pain was too much. Carrie suggested we get in the shower or jetted bath. This helped with pain management for a little while. Ryan trickled warm water down my back and I would rest between contractions. During contractions he would squeeze hard on my hips to apply the counter pressure. At about 3pm they checked my cervix again. That is when I got the worst news imaginable (actually, in retrospect there is far worst news....but at the time.....). The midwife went against my birth plan to tell me that I was only 1 centimeter dilated. She also said that I had come into the hospital 100% effaced and she could feel baby's head (both of which was good news). But all I could hear was the fact that I wasn't making any progress despite all of the pain I was experiencing. We went back to walking the hallways but my ability to walk had decreased significantly. At 3:45pm I demanded to be checked again. The midwife let me know I made a little bit of progress. She could see how much pain I was in so she allowed me to get in the birth tub.
The birth tub was heaven. I don't know what people do without them (actually I do, they get epidurals). But because I was going al natural the birth tub was my epidural. I relaxed in the tub (and by relaxed I mean that I screamed through contractions and then rested in between) and then had to take breaks walking around to ensure that I continued to progress. It was at this time that I got the overwhelming sensation to push. This was not even a sensation I could control. I am talking about when you get the flu and your body starts to convulse into vomiting/diarrhea fits. Completely involuntary. My body was convulsing in weird ways to push out a baby and I couldn't even control it. I felt so much pressure with each contraction that it was unreal. The midwives saw what was happening and checked my cervix again. It was at this time that I completely lost it. They shared that I was only 3 centimeters dilated. 3 FREAKING CENTIMETERS! Most women don't even go to the hospital when they are this little dilated. It was around 4:45pm and I had been in pain for almost 12 hours. I didn't think I could go on any longer. I started asking everyone to help me. I started begging for help. It was at this time that they sent in an anesthesiologist.
The anesthesiologist told me that my platelet levels were at 82. He stated that the odds of complications for a women with normal platelet levels getting an epidural are like 1 in a million. He then said, "But for you, we don't even know. I do not feel comfortable giving you an epidural. Maybe another doctor would but I do not. If there were complications it would be catastrophic and very unfortunate things could happen." Despite being in unbelievable pain his words were enough to convince me that I did not want to go the epidural route. I reached inside myself for whatever strength I had left and started fighting. My midwife, Carrie, and Ryan also had words of encouragement. Everyone reminded me that I have already made a little bit of progress with my cervix and everything else was ready to go. My midwife told me to visualize my cervix opening. It was at this time that my animal instincts kicked in entirely. I completely lost control. I began screaming the words "OPEN" over and over, I forced my body to relax even when it wanted to convulse. I punched the wall so hard that my hand is still sore today. I attempted to bite Carrie (animal instincts I guess?). She was so sweet about it and said, "That's alright, I have a two-year-old at home and I am used to being bit." I also peed on the floor. I am pretty sure I looked like a crazed lunatic at this point. But I had stopped caring about everything not related to my cervix opening. At 4:45pm I demanded to be checked again. When the midwife said 5 centimeters I started to cry. I was so happy that my efforts were allowing me to progress. But I was also sad at the slow pace. Ryan reminded me to stay positive and keep fighting.
I attempted to continue. But things felt different. I no longer could fight off the urge to push. I was pushing her out. My midwife continued to remind me to force my body to relax but that was not possible. She also said that if I didn't fight off the urge to push I could cause pretty severe tearing to my cervix. But it didn't matter. My body had a complete mind of it's own. Throughout labor I felt like I was in a weird time warp but especially at this point things become a little hazy. When Ryan was re-telling our birth story he said that at this point he knew something had changed because the contractions were almost constant and I was responding very differently to them--like thrashing around in spastic fits in the birth tub and leaping up and down like I was having a seizure. I finally screamed at 5:30pm: THIS BABY IS COMING OUT OF ME RIGHT NOW! I couldn't control it either. I felt the baby start to come out. The nurse attempted to check my cervix while I was splashing around in the tub and she exclaimed, "Yes, you are right. We are going to have a baby in a minute. Everyone suit up! You can start pushing!" To everyone's astonishment I proclaimed, "NO, I am not allowed to have a baby in the birth tub (which was funny because the midwives were totally going to let me do so, but somehow, even in my altered state of mind I remembered that due to my low platelets I wasn't supposed to). I also remembered that I wanted my mom and sister in the room to see the birth. So, as I scrambled out of the tub Ryan attempted to call my mom and sister in and luckily they were right outside with dinner they had purchased for Ryan.
I first attempted to give birth laying on my side, but when they said that I would need to bring my knee to my ear I realized I wasn't that flexible. I got on my back and my awesome team of midwives coached me to slowly push our little girl out. And when I say slowly.....I mean S...L...O...W....L..Y! They stopped at several very uncomfortable times. I got to touch her head as it was crowning (Ryan did too) and we were shocked to hear "We see lots of curly black hair." My first thought was: Black Hair? How is this my child? A few pushes and minutes later baby girl was in my arms and I was in love. I was surprised how good I felt after labor. I wanted to go home and introduce her to the world.
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| Minutes after she was born. |
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| Aunt Lily visiting us in the hospital |
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| Adara Rose <3 |
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| Big yawn |
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| Her pretty skin and hair color came from her daddy |
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| Going home outfit |
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| Little babe in a big carseat |
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| Time to go home from the hospital! |
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Home from the hospital!
Adara Rose
Born 10/2/12 6:10pm
8.2 ounces, 21 inches long |
