Emily’s Birth Story – October 23, 2007

Early Labor

Monday afternoon around 2pm I lost my mucous plug. Delilah was over and I came running out of the bathroom “I lost my plug!” and we both cheered. I knew this could mean that labor was imminent but could also mean that it wasn’t, lol. But it was progress, anyway.

Around 4pm I started having very sporadic contractions – one or two an hour. A few times when I went to the bathroom there was a more mucous. By 8pm the contractions were coming more frequently so I started timing them and they were 9 minutes apart. John put catie to bed and I expected them to start coming faster once I felt “free to labor” but instead they slacked off again. At 9:30 I decided to take a bath and head to bed, and try to get a little rest.

During the bath they were only 20 minutes apart (I was timing them with Contraction Master). I read a little bit in bed, and I was asleep by 11pm.

Active Labor

Midnight

At midnight I woke up having a big contraction. I laid in bed and timed them and they were again 9 minutes apart. I told john I was going to draw another bath and see if they sped up or not. I was in the bath about 30 minutes and they were 5 minutes apart! So I got out and told him to wake up, we needed to call dr. tate and everyone because I was pretty sure this was it for real. I started getting dressed, and he was still in bed… I prodded him – honey, this is IT! get UP!

We called George to come stay with Catie, and John’s parents to head up from Florida. John called Dr. Tate’s answering service, and handed me the phone when we got him on the line. When I told him I’d lost my plug earlier he said “That’s not good, you’d better go find it!” – I groaned and said “don’t joke around with me dr. tate!” He asked how far apart the contractions were (5 minutes) and how long they were lasting. I said “a minute and 8 seconds” and he said “don’t joke around with me christine!”

I then called serena (my doula) who had luckily just gotten back in town. I told her we were waiting for George to arrive and then we’d be heading to the hospital. She planned to meet us there, and I told her I’d call when we were on our way.

2:00am

When George got there, we got in the car and headed to crawford-long. I called Serena to tell her we were on our way. There was no traffic, and though it had been raining earlier, it had stopped so we got there pretty quickly. I stopped at a couch on the way in, to have a contraction. We made our way to the maternity check in, but someone was ahead of us, so I used the restroom and then came back to check in. Serena arrived as they were printing off my wristband, and the nurse said as soon as she got word which triage room to take me to, we’d go in.

We sat in the waiting area, and Dr. Tate came out a few minutes later. He wanted to feel my uterus during a contraction, so of course I wasn’t having any. I joked with him that I couldn’t produce contractions on demand. Eventually I did have one and he judged it “mild to moderate”.

I guess all the triage rooms were full, so we hung out in the waiting room chatting for a bit about Dr. Tate’s office, his computers and billing system (since John writes billing software and I’m just an organizational/computer freak).

3:15am

They finally called with a triage room, so we walked down to it. I put on one of my gowns, the deep purple one with the stars, and the nurse put on the monitoring belts and a blood pressure cuff. Doc T checked me and I was 5cm. He said “you’re staying, kiddo!” and they went to get me a room while the nurse finished up the asinine questions they ask you there.

I got into a room, and a new nurse tried to start the IV (I was Group B Strep positive, so I had to have two doses of antibiotics via IV before the birth). She tried one spot on my wrist, and then tried again in my hand. Doc T tried to help her and the two of them dug around in my hand with a needle for a long time. Fun. They finally got it mostly working, except I had to have my hand in a certain position for it to flow. At some point, someone said something was “super” and that got John and I singing the Caterpillar song from The Wonder Pets (”a pupa? supa dupa!”) The antibiotics were freezing and burning at the same time, which was not a nice sensation, and I was laying on my back/side still getting the original monitoring strip, which was not the most comfortable for contractions.

While they were doing this, Serena and my hubby helped me settle in – got my focus poster and I THINK ICAN t-shirt taped up, got music on (Paul Simon to start out with), and got my laptop set up so I could keep updating people Serena had brought some LED “candles” for the bathroom, since you can’t dim the light in there. That was nice!

5:00am

After the IV was in, the nurse drew some blood and then doc T checked me again – 6cm, fully effaced, with a bulging bag of waters! When the antibiotics were done, they disconnected the IV and just left the heplock in my hand. The monitoring strip was done, and I was free to get up and move around again.

Doc and nurse left and we just hung out. My contractions were still 4 minutes apart and very manageable. During the contractions I wanted to lean forward, either on the birth ball or the couch, and moan in a very low tone. In between them, we chatted and laughed and listened to music. Serena said I was handling it great for how far along I was. The contractions really didn’t hurt that bad, they felt much like the bad menstrual cramps I used to get in high school, and they had a definite beginning, peak, and end.

At one point when I went to use the bathroom I commented on all the bloody show I was having. John called me a “bloody show-off” and we all laughed

The nurse was coming in every 20 minutes to check the baby’s heart rate for 60 seconds. Her heartbeat was over on the right, and it kept getting lower, and lower as she moved down into my pelvis.

Transition

6:15am

Doc T checked me again, I was 8cm and he broke my water. Immediately the contractions got closer together and longer. I was still doing low moans through them but they were getting harder to take. I was starting to doubt I could do it, and get scared, and I knew this meant I was probably in transition.

I asked if they could do the “clothespin” hip squeeze on me during my next contraction, and they did and I was like “no no no this isn’t helping!” so they let go and I was like “well maybe it was helping, I don’t know, this really hurts!”

Serena suggested the shower at this point, and I thought that sounded like a good idea. She got the water warm and I got in, but it was spraying out over the shower curtain so the whole bathroom was flooding and they were getting soaked too! John wrapped himself in a blanket, and watched over me while I was in there.

Serena had set up the birthing ball with a towel on it for me to sit on, but I felt unsteady on it so I asked for one of the shower chairs. I had seen one in the shower on my tour, I am glad because I wouldn’t have known to ask for one if not. I’m not sure how long I was in the shower, the water felt good on my low back and belly but I was cold above that, and I was annoyed that I couldn’t take the shower head off (just lower and raise it). When I decided I wanted to get out, they wrapped me up in blankets and serena brushed my hair and tied it back for me. It hadn’t occurred to me that getting in the shower would mess up my hair, and I know that it’s very vain but I had meticulously blown my hair dry every day at the end of my pregnancy because I wanted it to look nice in the after-birth pictures. Silly!

I did another few contractions sitting on the ball, leaning over on the bed, but I decided I wanted to crawl up into the bed. I was starting to feel weak and I just wanted to rest. Serena suggested a foot rub with lavender oil which was heavenly.

7:00am

Shift change. A new nurse came in with monitor belts in her hand and told me that i had to do another 20 minute strip. I had done one in triage and had been having intermittent monitoring (hand held, every 20 minutes for 60 seconds) until then. I told the nurse no, and explained what we had been doing up until then. She insisted that I had to have it, because she was starting her shift and they had to have a starting strip. I said that is great, you can use the one I did at 3am, and she said no. I was really not in the mood to be fighting with her, and I told her to go find Doc T and talk to him about it. She left and I never saw her again
A few minutes later the head maternity nurse came in and said Doc T was in an emergency situation, and she was here to tell me why I had to do the strip. We argued for a bit about the difference between medical necessity and “because the shift is changing”. Keep in mind at this point I was in HARD transition and really did not want to be arguing with this nurse, but I was *not* putting those belts back on. I remember telling John that if I had to do it I would split in two, just like the Higgly Town Heroes, and he said it would be easier to get the baby out that way

Finally the nurse says, well you can do the 60 second monitoring you just have to agree to absolve the hospital of the risk. OK, that could have been your first sentence and that would have been the end of it. I said yup, I refuse and accept responsibility, and she left.

I was starting to feel the urge to push during contractions, but since the nurse had said doc t was in an emergency situation I assumed that meant he was in surgery, and told serena that I guess I had to wait a while longer. John’s parents had run into traffic coming into the city and weren’t there yet, and my mother-in-law wanted to be in the room, so it was not bad timing anyway.

8:00am

A few minutes later he came in the room, and I was really relieved to see him! He checked me and I was almost complete, with just a lip of cervix, and the baby wasn’t positioned optimally (seriously, how much more could I have done to get this baby in the right position, people?! All those nights sleeping in my ‘nest’ for nada!) and he was going to help me turn her head.

He had me do some small pushes, and used his hand internally to turn her head. He said that I was completely dilated, and it was time for Emily to be born!

Pushing

8:29am

So now the fun really started. The contractions really hurt, and I wasn’t quite sure how to push. Oh did I mention they had re-hooked-up my IV to do the second dose of antibiotics? When I tried to hold my leg up like he wanted me to, the line was catching on John standing next to me and pulling on my hand.

Doc T wanted me to try pushing in one position and I wanted to try another and I was arguing with him. He took a lot of abuse from me I think (the details become hazy at this point, I know there was a lot of yelling and swearing on my part, and he was great and stayed calm and really championed me through the rest of it). I know I said “I need you trust my body, dr. tate!” and he said “if I didn’t trust your body, we wouldn’t be here right now”.

Her heartbeat fell and wasn’t rebounding (he was monitoring me himself, hand held, after each push), and he had me lay back in a semi-reclining position.  He asked the nurse to get a vacuum ready because he might need to get the baby out ASAP.  He actually said something like “get a kiwi ready” – which I thought I had hallucinated – until I saw the Business of Being Born movie. Kiwi is the brand name of the vacuum extractor.

Her heartbeat did rebound in the new position, and so that was how I kept pushing. They gave me an oxygen mask to breathe with in between contractions.

Pushing was really, really hard. I was in a lot of pain by that point and I remember thinking I am not sure I can do this! John held one of my legs and Serena the other, and doc t coached me through each set of pushes – 3 per contraction – and I yelled at him some more. I really didn’t think the baby was ever coming out of me. After yelling “I need to know I’m doing a good job dr. tate!!”, Katie the labor nurse made sure to tell me what a good job I was doing after each push.

At one point during pushing doc t says that he feels something in my vagina – some leftover tissue from my hymen! I thought this was hilarious (as hilarious as anything could be at that point) and I retold the story that my mother told hundreds of times to hundreds of people – when I was five and in the community holiday pageant, I was the Virgin Mary and my best friend Ben was Joseph. During a rehearsal, I was off goofing around and ben yelled across the theater “Chris, if you want to be a virgin get over here!!”

My mother loved to tell that story, and it seems somehow fitting that I ended up telling it in labor. Also quite funny that I still had something virginal about me until my 2nd child was born. ha. ha. ha.

The contractions hurt so much by this point that pushing against them felt good. We’d worked out a system – when I felt the contraction starting I would say (or yell) “another one’s coming!” and john and serena would help me hold up my legs. Doc t would start doing perineal massage with mineral oil and count me through the pushes.

Serena kept handing me cold wet washcloths, one after another. Every time I needed one, one was there. I was sweating like crazy and this felt sooooo good. I looked over and I realized that when I was holding my breath and pushing, John was holding his breath, too. For some reason this really irked me. I kept snapping at him to stop doing that! and he kept doing it. Doc t said it was impossible to stop, and that after his first baby was born his abs hurt for days from “pushing” with his wife.

After pushing for a while, I was getting really discouraged. Doc t kept telling me how not to push or how not to breathe or how not to let go of the push, and I remember saying “am I even doing it? is she even coming?!” – doc t took my hand and put my fingers inside and OMG – there was her head! I could feel it!!

John’s mom got there at some point, and the mirror was gotten out, and when doc t got off the bed and went and got the instrument cart, I guess I knew that we must be close to the end. I could see her head in the mirror, but I didn’t think it was ever coming out. I started pushing like crazy and I was just screaming primal screams by this point (I hope those rooms are soundproof or I was probably scaring the crap out of some other laboring women!) and all of a sudden I saw her whole head, and felt the ring of fire and I was like “GET HER OUT OF ME!!” doc t was stretching the skin out to try and help the head through and then suddenly it was out, and I could see her eyes open!

Birth

9:21am

I was like it’s out it’s out, get the rest of her out, and I pushed and the rest of her body came out and it was just – amazing – the relief of the pain, and seeing her there, and feeling like “I DID IT!!” (I think I actually said that, too). The monitoring machine started to play a cheesy computer version of the “happy birthday” song, and I said to turn it off. I didn’t say it that nicely. LOL

The cord was around her neck and he unwrapped it, wiped her off, and I was like “give her to me give her to me”, and he asked if I was ready to clamp the cord and I was like “yeah yeah just give her to me!!” So he clamped and daddy cut, and they handed me my sweet baby girl

Doc t and the resident were discussing placenta delivery, and after only a few minutes mine popped right out. I had a 2nd degree tear, and needed stitches. Since I hadn’t had any anesthesia for the birth, he gave me some lidocaine so I wouldn’t feel the stitching. The needle with the lidocaine really hurt, and I started bitching at him again to leave me alone down there! Although I really didn’t want to be stitched up with nothing, lol. I asked how many stitches, and he said “technically it’s all just one long stitch” and wouldn’t tell me.

I held Emily and nursed her, they took her only very briefly to weigh her and give her the vitamin K injection (we refused the eye ointment and hepatitis B vaccination) and I took the opportunity to post our wonderful news to all of my boards and groups. John was on the phone telling people, and after a short conversation with doc t about when I could be discharged, he left, and Serena went home, and the nurses left, and another nurse came to get me ready to go to the postpartum room. They wanted me to pee before I left the L&D room, so I gingerly made my way to the bathroom and just sat there. The nurse said my bladder was full and she could feel it, but my pee was very shy after what my bits had just gone through!

Eventually I peed, so they got me in the wheelchair and off we went to the postpartum room. Doc T popped in at one point to ask if we’d found a watch while cleaning up, and I joked with him that if he’d left it inside of me he couldn’t have it back, and he said “well, it wasn’t an expensive watch anyway”

Since I am not a fan of hospitals, we wanted to go home as soon as possible. The pediatrician checked out Emily in the afternoon, and in the early evening Doc T called and we had a chat over the phone and he agreed to discharge me. I was hoping he was coming back in person to get a picture with Emily, but he was still at the office at 7pm! We left the hospital around 8:45, and pulled into the driveway at 9:22pm – 12 hours and one minute after I gave birth.

I am SO thankful to serena for having the wherewithal to take pictures during all of this. I treasure them, I look at them every day. Even the crowning pics (ESPECIALLY the crowning pics. I am completely in awe of what my body was able to do!)

—-

p.s. When we brought her home from the hospital I was amazed at how it felt she had always been with us. It was nothing like I’d imagined at all. My fears were unfounded, and I’m glad I was able to give them voice and let them go, so that I could have a birth free from fear. It was amazing, truly. I can’t wait to do it again!