Birth Story

Here's PJ's birth story. I am already finding the days to melt together in my mind into one big glob so I thought I better write this up before it becomes a big blur.

So my due date was Wednesday January 30, 2008. I went to work and to my doctor’s appointment as scheduled. My doctor couldn’t reach my cervix but could tell that the baby’s head was much lower than previously. My blood pressure and vitals were fine. I wasn’t feeling any contractions just pressure from the head getting lower in my pelvis.

I was scared of labor, scared and nervous about the pain. I had been dealing with this fear by not thinking about it. I had read "The Big Book of Birth" back when I was three months pregnant, but hadn't read up about the stages or anything since. I tend to under prepare for or maybe underestimate new experiences and birth would turn out to be no exception. But really how could I have prepared?

Shannon’s classmate Kathleen was having a birthday dinner at a Thai restaurant over by Macalester. I was feeling fairly social plus I didn’t want to have to make dinner and eat by myself so I tagged along. I had a red curry with shrimp and tried to get it spicy to help labor begin, but since I’d never been to that restaurant before, I didn’t order it spicy enough. We ended up out later than we thought and got home by 9pm I think.

As I was getting ready for bed, I started having back pains. Kind of like menstrual cramps and a lower back ache all in one. They continued every so often and kept me from falling asleep. I eventually realized that they were probably contractions and woke Shannon up at 3am or so to time some. I was nervous and kind of excited that it was starting. Lying down during them made them feel worse so I was up and trying different positions. I tried to breathe through them. They didn’t last very long and the time in between varied from like 4 minutes to 8 minutes. We went back to bed and tried to get more sleep. I called into work and left a message that I wasn’t going to be in that Thursday January 31. I also called our clinic who got me in touch with the triage nurse who let the hospital know I’d be coming in eventually.

I took a shower which helped and basically just hung out. We ate some food although I wasn’t hungry at all. I made a smoothie that I only drank a bit of and had some toast. I tried to drink water I think. I wasn’t feeling nauseated, just tired from not having gotten any sleep. There was some mucous when I went to the bathroom which I guess was my mucous plug but no gush of waters or anything. I tried to lay down in between contractions but they really hurt when I was on my side. I had to stand and lean against the wall and sway and try to breathe through them. They tensed me up and freaked me out. I got more anxious than I thought I would be at home. I couldn’t watch television that I was actually interested in (like the Doctor Who dvds from Netflix) just silly stuff like the Martha Stewart show. I didn't really have any happy place to visualize during the pain, I just tried to wait it out.

By the afternoon, I wanted to go the hospital. I’m not sure why just that I wanted to be out of the house and maybe getting it going. I was hoping I’d be somewhat dialated, maybe even a lot so that the pain which I thought was intense wouldn’t get worse. I was scared of more pain, scared of what was coming, scared of making a mess all over our house. Shannon had been getting all our stuff together. We had a lot because we didn’t know what we’d need. She had been very calm all morning but then got stuck on the phone figuring out a school issue and then freaked a bit. But I needed her to stop freaking out because I was freaking out.

Shannon hauled all our bags down to the car and off we went to the hospital. Upon checking in, the nurses all mentioned that they had been wondering when we'd come in. Apparently since I'd called in so long ago, they'd been waiting for us. After the required monitoring of my vitals and the baby's, a nurse did an internal check. I was 3-4 cm dilated. We could either go back home or get settled into the hospital. I wanted to stay.

We hauled all our stuff into a nice big room. I don’t know what is was about the pain, but it really freaked me out. I was tired and handling the contractions alright but as Thursday night continued, I was less and less comfortable between them. My coping techniques in life (being silly/talking and distraction/ignoring pain) weren’t working for me. I took a shower. I took a bath. Both were great but I was just still getting so tense during each one. My back was spasmy. When I was dry and dressed, I’d have to lean against a hard surface and try to breathe and sway. Shannon would try to help, but I felt like I couldn’t lean on her. She was great during the bath and while I was trying to decide if I should get an epidural or not. I felt like I was totally taking the easy way out if I went with it. I worried that I was dooming myself to more interventions. In hindsight, I think the only thing I lost was the ability to let gravity help during pushing. Once I cried a bit and tried to make peace with my desire to not endure the pain but to be ok with getting help, Shannon was so helpful while it was happening. I had to sit very still and lean forward during contractions, no easy feat. But the needle insertion itself didn't hurt. There was some shakiness due to the drugs kicking in which was weird.

As soon as the epidural was in, I got super chatty again. Then everyone left us alone to get some rest (I think my doctor had shown up by now. She wasn't on call, was 8 months pregnant herself, but arranged child care and came in to be there for the birth - she rocked). Shannon had the fold down chair next to the bed and promptly fell asleep. I could still feel the contractions in my right hip which kept me from actually sleeping but I laid still and tried to relax for a few hours. I say tried because I still wasn't comfortable. I wasn't in much pain, but I realized afterwards that comfort didn't really return until after PJ was born. It was bizarre in fact that the epidural took in my left side much more than my right. My left leg felt two or three times too big and all pins and needles. I would try to move it but couldn't, whereas my right leg was easy to control and where I still felt the contractions as pressure.

After the resting, they did another internal check and were going to break my waters. Just doing the internal check though caused them to break I think. To everyone's relief, the pain meds had not slowed down my contractions or dilation one bit. I was now fully dilated and ready to begin the pushing stage. I think we are at 12:30am or so on Friday morning now. Nurses have been coming and going and overall they were good by the way.

I think I had sort of forgotten that pushing would last for awhile and require effort. We turned down my epidural by about half so that I would be more with it for pushing. I really wanted to be sitting almost upright, mainly because I was still so uncomfortable lying down, but the nurse assured me that the baby's head had to get under my tailbone I think and couldn't do that if I was sitting up. Pushing involves holding up my legs and holding my breath and bearing down, as if to poop for example, for the count of 10 or so.

Basically pushing was hard and it seemed that I pushed for hours and hours although Shannon remembers it being only about 90 minutes I think. As I pushed, I felt more and more pressure down there but not really any burning or ring of fire sensation. The big problem I had which led to much trash talking and thrashing around was how pushing is like two steps forward, one step back. The head of dark hair they could see kept moving like 2 cm down and then 1 cm back up with each push. Everyone (eventually there were like four nurses, my doctor and Shannon all trying to help) kept being all "Good push" and "More like that" and "yes, yes, yes!" but no baby. So I'm all "Where the fuck is it already?" and "What was I thinking?" and "Let's stop now" which was followed by apologies and me voicing my fears that I was already the worst mother in the world.

After even more of this, I apparently gave a mammoth push that causes a big tear and whoosh, there's a baby! No more pressure and pain, so I am ecstatic. Shannon can't see if it's a boy or girl yet but then it's a girl! Shannon's cutting the cord. They are plopping her body up on my chest and both Shannon and I are all "where did this human come from?" It was bizarre that she was a girl and out in the open and with a head full of hair. She latched on a bit and nursed I guess. They weighed her and cleaned her up. I asked about the placenta and then there it was coming out of me. Because I felt immediately better now that she was out, I was all chatty again. Delivering the placenta didn't hurt because no bones. No bones equaled no pain I realized.

My doctor sewed me up and that was weird to feel slight tugs and watch someone sew knowing it's your flesh and not cloth. But again I was all kinds of chatty because my pain scale had just been reshuffled and this sewing barely registered on my new scale. I also wanted to be off the monitors and to get out the IV but I had to wait. We moved to our recovery room all three of us and it was so many feelings all at once. I still didn't sleep much the rest of the night, I was just glad it was over. Also too many nurses came in and out bugging us.