I want to first start by saying that it was absolutely the most amazing experience of my entire life and I guarantee nothing will ever trump it. It was exactly as I imagined and yet nothing like I could ever even begin to dream up. Our Bradley classes paid for themselves about 3 minutes into the experience for me. I knew what to expect and that alone gave me so much comfort and kept me much calmer than I would have been without them. So let’s start at the beginning…
Monday, September 13th at 3:50pm I was just sitting down on the couch for a nice snack and some down time. I had been up all but about 2 hours the night before with some contractions and just overall pregnancy insomnia. I was quite tired and actually quite cranky from it. I was supposed to meet my grandma earlier in the day as she was in town with a group of friends but I ended up calling and cancelling. Looking back, it was the best decision I made. I felt a little bit of fluid leak out and to be honest, I thought maybe I had peed myself. So I went to the bathroom to inspect but had my doubts that’s what actually happened. So I cleaned myself up and changed and headed back to my favorite spot on the couch. Just as I sat down the exact same thing happened. So I texted the one person I knew wouldn’t think I was nuts: Meghan. We talked it out a bit and agreed that it was certainly a very strong possibility. So I got up to look for a paper bag to sit on (a trick we learned in Bradley) and as I was looking, the little gremlin moved and I had a serious gush. No questioning it now! So I called my mom to tell her that it was go-time.
I put in a call to the midwifery (felt kinda exciting to be able to push 1 for an emergency) to see what they thought I should do. While I waited for their call back I sprung into action. I was told not to get too excited but let’s be honest, how is that possible?! I immediately went to the bathroom to do my makeup and straighten my hair only to remember I didn’t have a bag packed. So I got hopping on that. In the middle of it, my midwife called me back. She said they needed to see me within six hours of my water breaking so I should get a good dinner and then head in to be checked. I texted Rick and told him what all was going on but told him to take his time coming home cause there was no rush at that point. I wasn’t having any contractions at all so I was kind of thinking this could be the longest labor ever like I had imagined. Which was good, because that meant we’d be able to come back home after we were checked. Boy, was I about to be wrong.
Rick got home about 4:45, finished packing some stuff for him and helped me. It felt so good when I knew he was home with me. He is always such a comfort for me so when I was excited and scared, it felt that much better to have him with me. We got the car loaded and threw the car seat in there just in case then headed to Subway. Even though it sounded really good, I was too excited and nervous to actually eat much. We eventually made it to the hospital about 6:30 and went up to the Womancare area to be checked in. We ended up sitting there for about an hour just waiting. Good thing I wasn’t in pain. In fact, I still wasn’t having any contractions. My midwife then saw us sitting there waiting so she snuck us downstairs to their office to be checked. She hooked me up to the monitor and we started talking through all of our options regarding inducing labor if necessary, going home to labor, etc. We let her know we wanted to keep this as drug free as possible and that I’d love to labor at home as long as possible. My ideal at the time was to walk into the place about 9.5cm dilated and almost ready to push. So after monitoring the baby for about 25 minutes we found out her heart rate was totally fine and I still wasn’t having any contractions. She checked my leakage to make sure that it really was my bag of waters that had broken and took my temperature. About that time my parents arrived. I was quite relieved to know they were there. Emily (the midwife) then took me over to another room to get my blood pressure. It was extremely high all three times she tried. Rick and I talked it out and decided that by me going home, I would only stress more about if the baby was ok so we decided to stay. My midwife got me an LDR room right away and we got checked in. By this time it was roughly 10:00. The nurses came in and got my info, hooked me up to the monitors to get their reading and we were all set. I was able to have a completely normal diet so my parents were going to go out to get us all food but first we all took a little walk around the hospital. There were some stairs in the lobby and since it wasn’t normal business hours I knew I could walk around in my robe without silly looks. So I went over to the stairs and rocked back and forth with my feet on two different steps. I could feel her every movement by this time since the bag of waters was no longer cushioning her head against my pelvis but I was having a hard time distinguishing contractions vs. normal movement.
We went back to the room and my parents headed out. Rick and I sat there talking and laughing a bit while we watched some football and just enjoyed some quiet time alone. Very quickly though it was obvious these were real contractions. And they started coming rather quickly. He started timing them for me and they were about 2 minutes apart and about 45 seconds long. The nurse hooked me back up to the monitor for my hourly check and she confirmed we were timing them correctly. They started to get a little more intense so Rick went and ran a hot bath for me. While I was in the tub they started to hurt in my back quite a bit. I knew the smell of any food would not sit well as I was still feeling a bit nauseous so he texted my parents to let them know they should eat in the lobby.
At this point, the entire concept of time completely left me. I would ask every once in awhile what time it was trying to get it to all make sense but even then, it seemed like everything was a complete blur. In some ways it felt as though it had only been minutes since the whole process started. And in other ways it felt like I had been there for days. My back labor was excruciating. And I kind of expected it to be going into this with my herniated disc, but I had no idea it would be quite that bad. Unfortunately, not too long into the harder labor, I started vomiting quite heavily. Generally I’d have a pretty intense contraction followed by some horrible vomiting and then followed by another contractions. It wasn’t the pain of labor that ever made me want to give up my hopes of a “natural” labor. It was the combination of the pain with the vomiting.
About this time I was ready to give up. I told Rick that I couldn’t do it any more. He gave me some very personal but very motivating words of advice. I did want to go on and I wanted to do this how I had planned, but I needed to know where I was to know if I could go on. If at this point I was only about 3cm dilated, I knew I couldn’t do it the whole time. So Emily checked me and I was 5cm dilated, 100% effaced and a 0 station. I knew that was some serious progress and that I was doing well, but I also knew that meant I was only half way there. Well, kinda. My amazing husband got me through that point and I’m so grateful for that. Had it not been for him, I know without a doubt I wouldn’t have made it even that far.
My midwife knew I was getting pretty dehydrated and decided to get me hooked up to an IV for some fluids. In my mind I knew that an IV was always the beginning to losing control of the medicine that would be entering my body but I was so weak and so tired that I didn’t really care that much. She also prescribed me to get some Zofran in my IV as well. So we started with 4mg of Zofran. I don’t think it helped one single bit. I was still very sick and my back labor from straining when I threw up was only getting worse. Emily told me she could give me some sort of sterile water shots in my back. She told me they would hurt very badly but I was in so much pain I figured they couldn’t hurt that bad. She also told me that once she started the series, she had to finish them and there were four total. I agreed, anything to help with the pain in my back. So she got it prepped and started. Holy hell. I have never in my entire life felt a pain this extreme. They hurt so bad and I screamed so loud that three nurses came into my room to make sure I was ok. (Slightly embarrassing to think about now but at the time I couldn’t help it.) In fact, I tried to bite my mom. She was standing in front of me holding both my hands and I reached her hand up and tried to chomp down. She quickly pulled it away and handed me the washcloth that as on my forehead. Good thing because I know that I bit down pretty hard. Once Emily was done it took about 90 seconds (so I’m told) before I felt any relief from them. But once they kicked in I got about half an hour of relief from it. It didn’t help completely but I really believe it helped enough for me to let my body relax and progress.
Not too long after I had the shots I knew I needed to move around for anything to happen. So I got up on my hands and knees in my bed and my contractions got harder still. In the mean time my mom had drawn another bath for me and it was ready about that time. I made my way into the bathtub and this was truly the part they warned me about losing all modesty. I think I had a tank top on and nothing else but I really don’t know. My contractions were almost one on top of another and very intense. Suddenly, I needed to poop. I knew deep down that I actually needed to push but I wasn’t ready. I was extremely tired and kept telling everyone I just needed five minutes to rest. I certainly wasn’t going to get that though. It is actually illegal in the state of Pennsylvania to have a water birth. I knew this. I had been told several times. And yet, all I wanted to do was to push in the water. My mom went out to the nurses’ station and told them I was ready. Apparently they went into hyper drive at that point. My nurse was in my bathroom in a split second ready to pull me out of that tub. After another contraction I got out and made a beeline to the bed. When I got there I laid down on my side facing Rick. I knew that if I was going to get through this, I’d need his strength as well. This was the most rewarding and perfect time of the whole experience. My nurse, LuAnn, was ready for a little intervention and was starting to tell me when to push and when not to push and such. To be honest, I didn’t know any of that. I was so tuned in to my own body and my husband’s voice that I didn’t hear her at all. Emily kind of hushed her up a bit and told her I’d be fine. She didn’t touch me once until the very, very end to catch the little bug.
I was in the bed and pushing at 5:15 am. By 5:30 am I was holding my daughter. The little person I had waited so long to meet. The gremlin that made me so sick for so long. I surprised even myself and I wasn’t emotional at all. I was completely overwhelmed wanting to look at every inch of her and soak her all in that I didn’t even think of crying. Here I was, with my daughter and my husband. The exact thing I had wanted for so very, very long. Unfortunately I was bleeding quite a bit and they couldn’t quite get me to stop. They gave me some pitocin trying to get the bleeding under control. And even at that point, Rick was a rockstar and made sure I was ok with that. I knew that I had already protected my daughter from any drugs entering her and that it was important I was able to be healthy so we went forward with it.
I can’t begin to explain how I feel about the whole experience. I have a perfect, healthy little bug that I love more than life itself. I have a husband that loves us and provides for us and protects us. It has been a much longer road than just nine months that got us here. I’ve never been more in love with Rick than I am now. I completely understand now when people say how the birth is a very sensual experience between them and their spouse. I also understand what it means when my mom would always say that it is the worst pain I’ll ever forget because I’ve already forgotten. Not enough to do it again quite yet ;) but enough that I don’t ever even think about the actual pain. I’m very proud of myself and I’m not ashamed to say that. What I did was a lot of work but worth every single second of it.
