Monday, July 2, 2012 was my due date. That morning, I went off to work. I spent my day at work tired and uncomfortable. Twice that afternoon at my desk, I noticed a
sudden warm, wet sensation in my underwear.
I hadn’t peed my pants at all during the pregnancy, well except for when
I had that infection, but I knew it was a common occurrence for pregnant
women. So I went to the bathroom each
time, and it still wasn’t clear to me if it was pee. After the second time, I decided I’d call my
doctor’s office. I wanted to make sure I
took proper precautions in case it was my fluid leaking.
I left work about an hour early that afternoon because I was
all caught up on my work and had been tired all day. On my way home, I called doctor's office, and
after the nurse checked in with the doctor on call, they advised me to head labor
and delivery. I called Keith when I got
off the phone with the doctor’s office around 4:00, asked him to come home, and
explained what happened.
We met at our house, gathered our hospital bags, took a final photo and were on
our way to labor and delivery. I was
fairly certain we weren’t going to be staying at the hospital. I thought I was probably being over cautious
and would be returning home later, while keeping in mind that may not be the
case! I was disappointed we didn’t have
time to stop and see Caden and Caleb on the way, but at the same time I didn’t
want to get them too excited if we would be home later that night too. Big brothers were anxiously awaiting getting
to stay at Grandma’s house for a few days anyway!
We arrived at the hospital around 5:30; they were expecting
us and took me right to a room. They
started monitoring baby and took a quick test to see if my water had broken or
not. As we awaited those results, the
monitor showed a sudden dip in the baby's heart rate, which alarmed the
doctor. The nurse said they don't know
what caused it, and it could have been a brief disconnect of the monitor or
movement of the baby, but without knowing for sure. The doctor came in shortly after to discuss being
induced.
I had really wanted to avoid being induced. I was afraid it was the first step in moving
away from our hope for natural birth in addition to stories I’ve heard of it
not working or making contractions worse.
Keith spoke up about our concerns and the doctor spent some more time
explaining why she wasn’t comfortable sending us home, all the while knowing
that if the test came back indicating my water had broken, it would be a
non-issue. Keith jumped right on board,
and the doctor spent some time explaining things to get me on board too.
She explained that the chance of anything bad happening was
small if we decided to go home, but still possible and she wasn't comfortable
sending us home with that possibility. I
certainly wanted to do the right thing for the health of our baby, but I
struggled for a while with the necessity of induction with the possibility the
baby's heart rate was fine all along.
She also knew we wanted a natural birth and explained that my chances at
having a vaginal birth were not at all diminished by being induced because I
had a favorable cervix and had been progressing over the last few weeks on my
own. I was dilated to 3 cm when we
arrived at the hospital, as we'd known from my appointment the week
before.
Since I hadn't ate any supper yet, the doctor let me order a
grilled chicken sandwich and a cup of fruit, which I was thankful for. Keith headed out to grab some Taco Bell,
returned and we talked and tried to relax for a while before the came by to
start my IV and Pitocin.
I was very anxious, and I wanted so badly to return
home. All along, I thought that was a
very real possibility, and I was counting on it. I held back tears for multiple reasons. I was upset I didn't get to see the
boys. I was upset I was going to be
induced. I was tired and nervous about
what was to come. Was I really ready for
this?
Early in the evening, the anesthesiologist stopped in to
talk to us. She was going home for the
evening since I was the only one on the floor about to deliver, and I was
planning for a natural childbirth. She
walked us through everything, so if I changed my mind, we were prepared. She said once I changed my mind, it would
take about an hour for her to be there and ready to go, and another 45 minutes
or so to give me the epidural. While I
wanted a natural birth, I also had committed to keeping an open mind should I
change my mind during labor.
Around 7:20 the nurse came in and started the IV of Pitocin. The nurse explained to us that since I had
progressed to 3 cm on my own, and they were breaking my water, that they were
going to keep a low dose of the Pitocin going as they thought I may do well
progressing on my own still. Knowing
these things helped me be mentally ready and feel better about being induced.
Around 7:40, the doctor came in and broke my water.
I hung out in the bed for some time, then after getting up
to pee, decided to move to the rocking chair by Keith. We had the tv on in the background; we found
that even if were weren't really watching it, we liked the background noise, and
every once in a while it was a nice distraction for me to pay attention to.
While sitting in the rocking chair my back really started
aching. It started hurting, and it got
to a point where I couldn't tell if it was just my back hurting or it was the
need to poop. Ultimately, it was the
need to poop, which the nurse confirmed was a good sign that baby was moving in
the right direction!
Things really starting getting uncomfortable after that, and
the nurse got a birthing ball for me, which was a nice change of pace position
for me. She gave us some guidance on
what to do and how to use it. She also
showed Keith where and how to apply pressure to my lower back as that was the
only place I was feeling the contractions.
I moved around on the birthing ball, which helped, but nothing
helped more though, than Keith putting pressure on my lower back. He said he was eventually just grinding his
knuckles into my spine as I told him not to stop and to push harder! My back was sore for a few days after from
all his pushing.
Around 9:30 or 9:45ish, the nurse said she'd check me again
for progress at 10:30. So between
contractions, I was watching that clock; I wanted to know how far I’d
progressed! It was incredibly painful at
this point, but having 10:30 to look forward to on the clock got me through
each of the contractions.
But when 10:30 exactly arrived and the nurse wasn’t in the room,
I was just irritated! Just after 10:30,
the nurse arrived to check, which meant I had to get back in the bed. Getting back in the bed was nothing something
I wanted to do, BUT, I did really want to know how I’d progressed, so I climbed
back in the bed. She checked me, and I
was at 6 cm.
That wasn't close enough for me, and I couldn't remember anything
I'd read about how long it would take to go from 6 to 10 cm. Keith and I had talked briefly about the
epidural before this point, but at this point, I was much more serious and
Keith called the nurse back in to call in the anesthesiologist.
I don't really remember anything about the time it took for
the lady to get there to give me the epidural except that once the nurse
finished checking me, I wanted back out of that bed. As soon as I stood up though, witch Keith
standing directly behind me, I bent over the bed and peed ALL over the
floor. I don't mean just a little pee, I
really let it go and peed. The nurse
came back in and got a few towels to dry the floor and my feet as I was
wondering if I’d just peed on my husband.
Keith said repeatedly I didn't actually pee on him, but I'm not sure if
he was being honest or just trying to make me feel better about it!
By the time they started the epidural and sent Keith out of
the room, I was really struggling to focus on getting through the contractions
and both of my labor nurses really had to push me to focus on breathing. It was either really short rapid breaths or
holding my breath, neither of which were ideal, but this is where my labor
nurse became even more awesome than she already was. She held me hand, and let me squeeze the heck
out of it and coached me through breathing.
After several minutes of ignoring their breathing directions, I finally
got into a rhythm that worked for me.
Deep breaths in a long moans as I exhaled. I think it may have taken them longer with
the epidural because I was really struggling to follow directions and hold
still.
Once they got the epidural in, it was only working on my
left side. I moved to laying on my right
side, and went from squeezing the nurses hand to the side of the bed. Anything to hold on to worked for me, as long
as I could hold on tight. Afterwards,
Keith said he came back into the room at this point, but he’d been in the
waiting room for about 45 minutes.
It slowly improved the contractions on both sides, and as
soon as that happened, the nurse checked me again. This time, I was past a 9 and nearly at 10. I made it nearly to a 10 before the epidural
was really working everywhere! Knowing
that, I thought I would regret the epidural since I made it so far; couldn't I
have hung on a littler longer? But, I
don't regret the choices made one bit. I
think my husband and my labor nurses had a huge impact on my acceptance of deviating
from my hopes for a natural childbirth.
We relaxed for a while; I was really to a 10 by then, but my
nurse thought resting a bit before I
started pushing would be good. I started
pushing about 2:00 in the morning, and pushing was tough. Keith, who was holding my leg on one side,
suddenly says: I need to go sit down. He
crossed the room, sat on the couch and was very pale. One of my nurses got him cookies and juice,
while the other stayed with me. Pushing
resumed once Keith was looking a bit better.
I was feeling very weak; I couldn't get enough air to breathe well, and
then I started throwing up. The nurse
grabbed a container to catch my puke.
After that my nurse decided I needed a break and some rest
to build my strength to push again and hopefully stop some of the nausea. They lowered the dose of my epidural, and we
went to sleep around 3:00.
About two hours later the nurse came back asking some
questions about how I was feeling and if I was ready to push again. I was ready to meet baby, but I could have
easily slept more too! This time, I was
feeling MUCH better. I felt stronger
again, breathing was easy, and pushing didn't seem as hard as it did
before.
The nurses and Keith seemed to notice a difference this time
around too. I had some feeling in my
lower body from the lowered epidural dosage, and I could move some too. It certainly wasn't overly controlled, but it
was a pleasant surprise I wasn't expecting.
I could feel enough of the contractions to know when to push and with
the nurses coaching things seemed to move pretty quickly. Soon after we started pushing again, we were
pausing to call the doctor in for delivery!
I stopped pushing and waited for maybe 15 or 20 minutes for
the doctor to arrive. Once she arrived,
the contractions seemed to slow and we had to wait a bit between them, but at
6:10 Baby Haynes arrived into our world.
The doctor held baby up for me to see and prompted us to look and see if
we had a baby girl or baby boy.
I was crying as I saw we had a girl; and Keith, in shock,
says "it's a girl!" Daddy was
so sure you were going to be a little boy!
She was placed on me and Keith cut the cord. I lay there crying in the happiest way
imaginable. A few moments later they
took her for a few moments. Her APGAR
scores were 8 and 9. She came right back
to me and for at least an hour just laid there with each other while the doctor
finished up and with 4 stiches, stitched my 3 first degree tears.
As our baby lay on my chest, Keith got out short list of
names for the baby for us to name our baby girl. It was a list of four and I picked Elinore
from the list with the intent to call you Ellie too. Daddy agreed and Elinore you became!
After the doctor had finished, I became uncontrollably
cold. The coldness was probably the
scariest part of the whole experience. I
was shivering, my teeth were chattering, and I was afraid. I had my new baby on my chest, and I couldn't
stop shivering. They brought me extra
blankets and the nurse held my hand under the blankets as I lay there so
scared. Keith brought me some warm water
to drink at my request. I was so
thirsty, but couldn't bear the thought of cold water. In all my teeth chattering, I bit my tongue
and made it bleed a bit. All the while,
the nurse was slowly urging me to start removing the blankets as I had a fever
and they wanted to bring that down to avoid having to start antibiotics. Slowly I warmed up and one by one was able to
remove the blankets.
I can’t remember if it was before or after the shivering
cold, but by 7:10 Elinore started nursing for a good 45 minute stretch! I had been anxious about breastfeeding being
successful for us, and the ease at which we picked it up that first hour gave
me some added confidence.
Our pediatrician came in, who we know from Caden and Caleb,
checked you out and diapered you before coming back to me.
Shortly after that a new nurse came in to give you your
bath. She warned us most babies cry at their
first bath, but not our baby. She was
content the whole time.
Afterwards, they started preparing us to move to another
room where we would stay the rest our time in the hospital and bond as a
family.
No comments:
Post a Comment