*** WARNING: Long, uncensored, and very detailed! ***
So at my last check-up, which was March 26, my OB had described to me what a leak in my bag of waters would feel like. A slow trickle, which is sometimes confused with the increased vaginal discharge that is associated with the later weeks of pregnancy. Around Tuesday or Wednesday, I began to wonder if I was experiencing a leak in my bag of waters, but I did not want to call my doctor and seem paranoid or find myself at the hospital unnecessarily. So I ignored it and was just careful.
But Saturday night rolled around. 11pm: I had just peed (so I knew my bladder was empty and I knew I was externally dry because I had just cleaned myself) and I was brushing my teeth when I felt that familiar feeling of something leaking out of me, similar to when I am menstruating. I knew what it was, but I did not want to admit it to myself because I knew what it meant! It was not a huge gush, so I told myself that if it happened again, THEN I would call. David was supposed to get off work at 11:30 that night, so I figured I would wait until he got home and discuss with him what to do. I laid down to sleep until he got home. I woke up at 12:30, and no David! So I texted him, and called him a couple of times. Where is David? Is he OK? Why isn't he home yet? He ended up walking through the door at 12:45. Work had run late, and he had left his phone at home! I told him what had happened and what I thought it meant. I decided to take it easy and take a shower and see how I felt before calling the doctor. During my shower, I kept feeling these spurts of wetness, even while in the shower it was distinguishable. DANGIT, I guess I really should call the doctor. So I called my doctor's office and talked to the on-call doctor, Dr. Chan. I told her what had happened and she told me to go ahead and come to the hospital to be tested to see if my membranes had ruptured or not. So we packed our bags half-heartedly, hoping that my water hadn't broken. I did not want this to be the case because I knew that they would want to pump me full of pitocin to hurry up and get the baby out because they like to deliver babies within 24 hours of rupture of membranes due to risk of infection. Pitocin was definitely on my list of "last things I want to happen during my birthing time."
So at 2am, we went to the hospital. I walked in, feeling only mild, painless contractions. I had mailed in my pre-registration paperwork more than a month prior, but my information never got put into the system! It defeated the whole purpose! It's okay though, because all they asked for was basic information anyways.
I walked myself up to labor and delivery, even though they offered me a wheelchair. They got all sorts of information from me, and hooked me up to monitors to check on the baby and contractions. They drew blood and took a urine sample, and put tons of bracelets on me. I had been there for a good 30 minutes before they ever even addressed the question of whether or not my membranes had ruptured or not! They did a vaginal exam to find that my cervix was right in the front, as well as the baby's head! I was 2.5cm and 80% effaced, which was the same as it had been 5 days earlier at my last appointment. They pushed up on baby's head, and fluid gushed out, confirming that my membranes had in fact ruptured. My unchanged cervix was apparently sufficient evidence that my body could not produce sufficient contractions on its own and that I needed pitocin. I was INFORMED that I would be put on pitocin because I was now on a timeline. I refused it because I wanted to give my body a chance to kick-start labor on its own before allowing my labor to be augmented artificially.
They let me labor naturally until about 5am and checked me. I had progressed to 4cm! I was so happy at the thought that my body could do it on its own and really hoped that I would continue to progress so that I could avoid pitocin. I used self-hypnosis for the increasing contractions They checked me a couple more times throughout the morning, and I was stuck at 4cm. They let me try different things to try and pick up the stalled labor, but by 12:30pm, they said that they had let me try long enough and that I had to have pitocin now. I reluctantly consented.
They started me out nice and slow, but even with the pitocin my contractions were irregular. They were clumping together in sets of 5 with a couple of minutes between them. Contractions are not as effective if they are not at regular intervals. They did not trust the external monitors that were monitoring contractions because they can only tell you IF you are contracting and how long they are and how far apart. External monitors don't tell how STRONG the contractions are. They wanted to put an internal monitor in me, which was possible because my water had already broken. Or so they thought! I was examined by two nurses who both agreed that I must have a SECOND bag of water, because there was still a bag intact! They say I had a "forebag," whatever that is. So, in order to place the internal monitor and speed up the birthing process, it was decided that this second bag of waters needed to be ruptured. Dr. Chan, the on-call doctor showed up around 3pm to do the deed. Rupturing the membranes tends to speed up labor because it increases the pressure from the baby's head on the cervix. This tends to do the trick on its own, but because I was on a "timetable," that apparently wasn't good enough. The upped my pitocin from an 8 to a 12! (The started it at 6.) Up until this point, the birthing waves were completely manageable with the help of self-hypnosis. I was staying calm and collected, and I was managing myself quite well, if I do say so myself. The crazy amounts of pitocin, in combination with whatever hormones my body was creating naturally due to the breaking of my second bag of water made the pressure waves simply unbearable. They were suddenly very sharp in my back and abdomen, with hardly any breaks at all. The pain was continuous!
Silently enduring the continuous, insane contractions...
I didn't last ten minutes with those kinds of contractions before I was asking for an epidural, which was ALSO on my list of procedures I wanted to avoid. I never wanted pitocin to begin with because I knew that it had the potential to make labor WAY harder than it needed to be. I knew at the outset that if I had to get pitocin that I would consider an epidural. My body would have never jumped to contractions that strong and that close together without building up to it first. Later I found out that the contractions were actually doubling up on each other and that's why they were so intense. After I had already asked for an epidural, they discovered that the pitocin was too much and halfed it back down to a 6, which is where I started! The epidural was already on its way though, so I just went ahead with it. In the end, I was glad for it!
After all those hard contractions that got me thinking of an epidural, I had only progressed to 5cm. When I found out that those insane waves of pain only increased me by 1cm, I was glad that I didn't have to endure that all the way to 10cm. Especially since I lasted 13 hours of labor on my own without any pain killers aside from Hypnobabies. I remain convinced that Hypnobabies would have done the trick for me had my birthing situation not "required" the pitocin. I use quotation marks because I remain unconvinced that there wasn't other ways to have handled it as to avoid these interventions. If they had put me on preventative antibiotics, like they do if you are Group B Strep positive, I could have labored longer without having to augment things so quickly.
Anyhow. Once I had the epidural, it only took 2 hours for me to dilate and efface completely. By 5pm, all I had left was a small lip on one side of my cervix. At this point, I thought all we were waiting for was for the doctor to show up so I could push my baby out. My mom was telling everyone that it was almost time. An hour later, a nurse comes in and tells us that they'd been letting me "labor down" and that they weren't going to call the doctor in for ANOTHER hour. So Dr. Chan showed up around 7:30, and we started pushing. Luckily, I could still push even though my lower half was quite numb. By the time little Jackson was crowning, his heart rate was dipping too low, so I heard another dreaded word on my list of "things to avoid."Episiotomy. She was concerned about getting him out quickly, so the deed was done. I'm of the opinion that a natural tear is better than an incision, but I really did want a healthy baby, so I consented. I am so glad that I couldn't feel any of it. Even though the pain aspect of delivering a baby had been eliminated, I still felt extremely weak afterwards. Having a baby is no small feat!
They set him on my chest as soon as he came out, and David cut the cord. And then they took him from me! For 20 minutes! This was another thing on my list of things to not let happen. I was very disappointed. David and my mom got to watch them clean the baby while I got sewn up. I just wanted to see and hold my baby! I worked hard for this moment! Eventually, after a seemingly endless 20 minutes, I got to hold my precious baby boy. I breastfed him, and got to love on him while I recovered. Then they moved my weak little self to the postpartum wing where I laid down to let the epidural wear off. I didn't get much sleep that night, but the baby was not to blame. Adrenaline from the excitement of the day was to blame! I was simply too wound up to sleep at all. I'm a mother! I have a baby! The concept is still sinking in. This person came from me and David and into this world completely thanks to God and His amazing plan for womens' bodies. Anyone who calls it less than a miracle has never experienced it.
Needless to say, the ins and outs of my first birthing experience were not what I had hoped. Giving birth is not something that can be planned out or controlled to the extent that we all hope and wish and dream about. So although things did not go AT ALL like I wanted, we both made it out alive and healthy. There will (hopefully) be more opportunities in the future for another birthing experience closer to my ideal. I think the only way to avoid a lot of those things that I wanted to avoid would be to get away from the hospital, or to at the very least, use a midwife at the hospital. There are so many other ways to handle birthing rather than the medical interventions that I experienced.
