Well, in two days Anastasia will be 5 weeks old! It's about time I write up my birth story, I suppose. Whether you are interested or not, that's fine, I just want to have this written down before I forget it! So, here's the story...
My mom flew into town on the 24th of January so she could be here for Ana's birth and to help me out afterwards. I had been having Braxton Hicks for about 17 weeks already so I was super confident that my baby was going to arrive early, or at least on time. Her due date came and nothing had happened. I had an appointment with one of my midwives that day (Mary) and they asked if I would liked them to check my dilation. I said "Of course!" Mostly because I wanted to be able to tell Anastasia in the future. Well, I was a pitiful 50% effaced and a "roomy" one flippin' centimeter. (If you don't speak the language, that means AIN'T NOTHING GOING ON.) I was unfortunately given the pleasure of seeing my least favorite midwife that day and when I asked her to do a standard procedure that has been medically, scientifically proven to help labor begin (sweeping/stripping membranes) she began to whine and said she didn't want to and that it never worked and basically it was a load of hooey. (She's a liar...) Being the stubborn person I am, I insisted anyway. :)
Gary and I went out to dinner that night and I kept feeling these weird feelings in my stomach. I told Gary they weren't contractions (I had no idea to be honest!) but he texted his parents anyway and got the whole world hyped up about labor! When we finished dinner and headed home, I realized that the pain was because the booth we were in didn't have room for my 40 week belly and it was being smashed! Anyway, nothing happened, totally disappointing. (This was Monday)
Jump forward a few days to Friday night. Gary and I had just settled down to sleep around midnight and an hour later I woke up in PAIN. It sucked! (I had been worried for weeks that I wouldn't recognize real labor contractions because I had had so many Braxton hicks, holy cow, let me tell ya, they are globally different! Braxton hicks doesn't prepare you for anything!) Anyway, I tried to ignore it and went back to sleep. They woke me up about once every half hour (so I didn't really sleep) and I finally told Gary around 7 am. I also let mom and Sophie know around then. Gary was supposed to work 12-close that night so we began to consider the idea that he wouldn't be going to work. I was so so nervous that it was false labor and our hospital was 40 miles away so I really didn't want to go out there and get sent back! This made me deny labor was happening for a long time. I distracted myself by making oatmeal chocolate chip cookies (which were really yummy!!), took a nap, and basically pretended it wasn't happening. (I think I was in denial. I kinda realized I was gonna have to push a baby out! Yikes!)
We decided Gary and Sophie should both go to work and mom would stay with me and we would call them if the midwife said anything (I still was putting off calling the midwife). Around 4 pm I gave in and called the midwife. My contractions were about 3-5 minutes apart but weren't a consistent amount of time apart so I kept telling myself I was in false labor. She suggested a bath and if they stayed that frequent to call her back in an hour. Well, an hour later, they were still close, still strong, and still FREAKING ME OUT. She told me to come in so I called Sophie and Gary to come get us. By the time they left work and got home it was about 5:45. I don't remember much about the car ride, but I do remember that right before we left the house, I was pretty sure Gary was taking WAY TOO LONG to walk out the door to the car!!
Once we arrived at the hospital, we started signing in and I was still totally certain that I wouldn't be dilated enough to stay. I was very relieved when the nurse signing us in paged someone and said "This woman is having back-to-back contractions, I need someone out here NOW"! I was also relieved that the midwife I really really loved, Vicki, was the one on call! And when she checked me, I was almost 5 cm dilated! (Enough to staaayyyyy!!) And then Vicki said "my shift ends in about 30 minutes and Mary will be here (booooo!) and then I'll be back at 7am. Hopefully you'll have had a baby by then!" Let me tell ya, I really don't like Mary. I was honestly hoping I would still be in labor at 7 am the next morning cause I didn't want Mary at my birth!! Anyway, that's a side note.
They wheeled me into the delivery room and by this time I was BEGGING for my birth pool. The pain was getting really bad! It felt like it took a half a million years for it to get set up! I finally got in and I was freezing. They kept running hot water into it but my adrenaline was causing my temperature to drop so I just couldn't stay warm. Anyway, the people who call water birth the "aqua-dural" and equate it to similar pain relief as an epidural... They are lying through their teeth. I would say the pool brought my pain level down about half a point which was very disappointing and truthfully very scary for me. I was having back labor and during contractions it hurt so bad my mind was just totally numb. After about 2 hours, I asked for an epidural. The nurses knew I had asked for no epidural in my birth plan, so they suggested an IV drug, Staydol. I had no idea what that was but I was pleased that they wanted to help me stick to my plan and also that there were other pain management options that they could offer!
After they finally got me the Staydol, things get really hazy. I remember asking several times when the medicine would kick in and cut the pain and I couldn't really get an answer. My mom finally told me that it was working and it wasn't going to help the pain. Turns out that Staydol just lets you relax between contractions! I think I got mad about that because I had asked for pain relief, not something that would relax me between contractions and I could still feel every little bit of pain. I know I screamed/yelled a lot during the 5 hours between beginning Staydol and Ana's delivery. I would be "asleep" and wake up to myself yelling to ease the pain of the contraction (totally works!!). I have a very foggy memory of this part of delivery, thanks to the medicine, I really only have a few snapshot moments in my head.
One snapshot was just after a contraction, I was wondering where the heck my midwife was and as I looked around the room I discovered her leaning against a counter, totally disinterested, not even looking at me.
The next snapshot was the midwife asking if she could break my water. All I could remember was Lamaze class and the cascade if interventions and I kept thinking that if they broke my water I would have to have a cesarean and Anastasia would die. (The medicine was really messing me up!) I said no and went back to bring miserable. Sometime later she asked again, I have no idea how long, and my mom said I really needed to let her do it. I was so grateful for that because I just could NOT think for myself on that medicine!
A third snapshot was me holding and squeezing Gary's hand and thinking I was pretty sure I was going to hurt him!!
At midnight, I finally began to feel that "need to push" pressure, so we started the pushing process. And pushed and pushed and pushed. This was hands down the most horrible, terrible, painful, awful thing I have ever experienced. The midwife had me flat on my back, legs in stirrups, pushing. That was exactly WHY I had chosen a midwife, to AVOID that position! I pushed laying back, I pushed kneeling, I pushed squatting, I pushed on my side, for 2 and a half hours, I pushed. This was the only time I was aware of the clock because I knew they would only let me push so long before I had to have a cesarean. Finally at about 2:30, I think my midwife got sick of me. She told me that I had to push Anastasia out on the next push and that if I stopped pushing with just her head out that she would die.
Let me just stop here and say, even in my drug-induced haze, I knew that was a lie. It is pretty normal for women to push out the head and with the next contraction push out the shoulders and body. So, whatever.
I was totally exhausted and really wanted it to be over. With the next contraction, I pushed until I thought my face was gonna burst from the pressure. I had been wanting to yell while pushing and they kept telling me that I couldn't, that I had to focus that energy into pushing. Well, on that contraction, I screamed for all I was worth (I'm sure all of Greensboro heard me..) and there she was! :) At 2:43 am on February 3rd, they put her on my belly and i heard my baby's first cry. Her cord was so short that she couldn't reach to my chest and I was gripping her so tight so she wouldn't fall but my limbs were barely under my control! (The nurse had ahold too, thankfully!) I realized that the midwife was calling Gary to cut the cord and I stopped her and reminded her that we were delaying the clamping and cutting until pulsing stopped. (This was in my birth plan which she had asked for and read prior to delivery!) She laughed as she told me that she had already clamped it. This was MAYBE 30 seconds after birth, so I wasn't laughing at all. So, whatever, no take backs. Gary cut the cord, it was pretty cool :)
They realized quickly that Anastasia was having some problems, her blood oxygen level was low (no duh, you clamped off her blood supply when 1/3 of her blood was outside of her body!!) This was a really sad moment for me because as they were trying to get her oxygen level regulated they had her across the room on the baby warmer and there was a timer above her head counting the seconds of her life. I wanted to breastfeed her immediately after birth and she was so far away from me and I kept watching that clock thinking "My baby is 5 minutes old and I'm not holding her. My baby is 10 minute old and I haven't hugged her. My baby is 15 minutes old and she's not in my arms." Finally at 17 and a half minutes, they brought her to me. I was so angry because my eyes wouldn't focus on her (Again, thanks, Staydol). With some help i was finally able to put her to my breast and nurse her. Totally magical. I vaguely remember commanding Sophie to take a picture lol.
Now, all the pain did not go away instantly. I was not blissfully unaware of the rest of the world as my baby and I cuddles for the first time. I was not overjoyed, because, lets face it, she was a total stranger and by the time the nurses left me alone in my recovery room it was 6 am and I had been awake for 29 hours and I was completely exhausted. Birth wasn't delightful. It wasn't empowering. It was scary and painful and made me realize what a ridiculous optimist I am. (I was really expecting mind-over-matter to work!)
All in all, birth sucked, but the baby is awesome. :D
Another side note, yelling really did help the pain, but I think I have permanently damaged my voice, so if you're gonna do that, just be aware...
