Bailey’s Birth Story

Filed Under Birth | 3 Comments

Well, I promised myself I would get this written sometime this week- and I wanted to do it before I forget too much. I wrote down some quick notes during the labor so I could remember the details. But I am already to the point where I am saying, “I don’t think it was that bad. I would do it again in a heartbeat.” Am I forgetting the time without the epidural? Is Bailey just totally worth it and I can gloss over the yucky stuff? Or is this a point every mom gets to afterwards?

Warning: This is very long and detailed, because it’s mostly written for me to remember everything. Read at your own risk.

My due date was April 14th, which was a Saturday. At that point I was 4 cm dilated and 85% effaced. I was not having any contractions that I could feel. Some slight achiness in my lower back for a few days, and I was using the bathroom for, um, number two quite frequently. I kept hoping labor was beginning but finally I realized this baby didn’t want to come out on her own. So we headed into the hospital at 7:30 a.m. on Monday the 16th for my Pitocin induction.

Funny thing: The entire time we have lived at our house, our power has never gone out. Not in the July storm last summer. Not in the ice storm this winter. But when I woke up early on the morning of the 16th, our power was out. We had the joy of showering and getting ready for the hospital by candlelight. No breakfast of toast. No blow drying my hair. Not a tragedy, but things already weren’t going “according to plan.”

We arrived at the hospital about 7:20 a.m. and began checking in. The lady at L&D registration was very nice. I had already preregistered online, but I’m not sure it saved me any time. There was still plenty of paperwork. A woman came in for her scheduled c-section about this time. With her baby daddy and her ELEVEN MONTH OLD daughter. Um, was she just going to wait outside the operating room until mommy and daddy were done? Then a girl came in with her husband and mother and she was seriously in labor. They had to get her a wheelchair and she was breathing through contractions. At that point I was glad that I was being induced and would be safely in a hospital bed when that happened.

They had me change into a gown and get comfortable in a bed. Hooked up external monitors to my belly- one for contractions and one for baby’s heartbeat. I was told I had to leave the monitors on because of the Pitocin, but I could unhook them to go potty or walk around briefly. They started the Pitocin shortly after 9 a.m. and began at 2 cc. They said they would be increasing it by 2 cc every half hour. At this time they also began an iv of fluids and one of antibiotics. NO, I didn’t have Strep. It’s because I had heart surgery as a baby so they do it as a preventative measure for endocarditis. And I am allergic to penicillin so I was also tagged with a big red allergy bracelet. They also confirmed that I was slightly past 4 cm…still… The nurse who got everything started was really nice and showed me how to read the monitors so I could watch my contractions and stuff. At first the baby’s heartbeat seemed really high to me but then it slowed down and stabilized around about 150-155.

Throughout the morning I was only having some slight lower back pain. I went to the bathroom about twelve times. We watched some Friends episodes on DVD. Watched some crappy daytime television. I tried to nap. Jonathon called his work. Around noon my mom came up so that he could leave and eat lunch. I could only have popsicles or ice, so I didn’t want him to eat in front of me. I was starving. At 12:45 my OB came over and checked on me. Not an internal, just asked me how I was doing and looked at my charts. In the early afternoon I started getting more uncomfortable. My Pit was around 14-16 cc at this point, I think. I was getting kind of irritated and having Jonathon rub my lower back. But still nothing too bad. And I wasn’t hungry anymore. It felt more comfortable to sit up on the edge of the bed than to lay down.

At 3 p.m. they checked me again. My Pitocin had been at 18 cc for a while now, and they said that was the highest they could take it without special permission from my OB and internal fetal monitoring. I was still only at 5 cm, so I had gone less than a centimeter after 6 hours. No wonder I wasn’t feeling much pain. They told me that my doctor had given permission for them to break my water. At 4:00, the house OB (who was the same woman I had seen at 27 weeks with my bladder infection when I thought my amniotic fluid was leaking) came in to do it. She remembered me and joked that the last time she had seen me, we were worried my fluid was leaking, and now she was there to make it leak. She was a really fun and easy going doctor and made me feel comfortable. They put some towels under me and she poked a little thingy up me. I felt a small popping sensation and then a big gush of bathtub-temperature water. It felt like I had just peed all over myself. It was completely painless, and the fluid kept leaking out in small spurts the rest of the day because your body keeps producing more until the baby comes out.

Within about 20 minutes of breaking my water, I was having really painful contractions. At first I could breathe through them but within about another ten minutes I was flailing around on the bed and telling Jonathon that I needed help and I couldn’t do it. I was kind of panicking. I think it was shocking because the pain just came out of nowhere, like I had been fine and then WHAM, and the contractions were so strong because of the Pitocin.

At 4:40 I asked for an epidural. At 4:45 I told Jonathon to go find the anesthesiologist and tell him to hurry the hell up. He was in my room within minutes of my second request. My current nurse, Jo, was a big woman and not my favorite. She just didn’t have the most sweet bedside manner. They raised the bed up really high and he cleaned my back and inserted the needle or whatever. The pain from it wasn’t too bad. I think it was nothing compared to the contractions. The hardest part was that I wasn’t allowed to move at all, even during contractions. I was leaning over with my chin against my chest and they had me hugging a pillow. The air was getting hot in front of my face and I started feeling kind of icky. Then the anesthesiologist informed me that he catheter for the epidural kept going into a blood vessel instead of where it was supposed to. He had to take out the needle, reclean the area, and reinsert it THREE times, each time poking stuff around inside me and causing funny twinges and hot feelings. The second time it was in, he told the nurse I was going to “go something-cardic” (I don’t remember the word but I think it started with a T) and then I could feel myself about to pass out… I started to worry that it would never work and finally it did. Within about a minute the pain started easing up. Within about five minutes I was laying back against the pillows and couldn’t feel any pain at all. I could still move my legs, but that’s about it.

Around 5:30-5:45, once the epidural was in, they checked me again and I was 7 cm, so it seemed that breaking my water really sped things up. They also gave me a catheter at this point- which I was dreading but I couldn’t feel a thing. I spent the next few hours just laying around. My parents came up and visited. I was in a great mood and looking forward to the baby being here. My second nurse of the day, Stephanie, went home at 7 and her replacement, Nancy, arrived. She was wonderful. She checked me at about 7:15 and said I was 9.5 cm and 100% effaced. I also noticed at this point that they had turned the Pitocin off and I asked about it. She said the baby’s heartrate had a few dips and that’s why they shut it off but I had been progressing fine without it. At this point we were waiting for the baby to move down more and for me to get that last half centimeter. Around 8:45 they said I was 10 cm and I could “practice” pushing but that it would be easier to wait for the baby to move down a little on her own from the contractions. I did a few practice pushes and it was weird. I didn’t really have any urge to do it and I was afraid I was going to poop. The nurse said that if I pooped it was normal and at least I knew I was pushing correctly.

Around 9:00 I started feeling the urge to push when contractions came. It felt like a lot of pressure in my rear area and I could tell exactly when I needed to push. At first the nurse helped me count and hold my breath because it was hard to get it all coordinated. She asked me if I wanted a mirror and I thought I wouldn’t but I asked for it. I could just see some gray thing in there but she said that was the head. My first concern was whether the baby had hair, and she said she was pretty sure she didn’t have much. I knew it. After a few more pushes she told me the doctor had been called and was on her way and that I needed to stop pushing until she got there. That was the hard part. I cheated and pushed a few times anyway because it was really uncomfortable not to. Once I could feel the head coming out I asked her to take away the mirror. I didn’t want any more detail. It was burning, and I asked them to up the epidural, which they did.

Dr. K ran in and put her gear on really fast. I was so relieved to see her. At this point Bailey’s head was about a third of the way out. Two more contractions and the head was out (and pain, the burning pain, I think I was making some weird noises at this point) and then one more contraction for her shoulders and the rest of her body seemed to just slide out. She was born at 9:38 pm and was 7 lbs 7 oz, 19.75 inches long. They put her on me right away and I think I just stared at her with tears in my eyes. She was so pink and wrinkly and perfect. And I was so relieved to see that she really WAS a girl. Her apgars were 8 at one minute and 9 at five minutes.

We stayed in the L&D room for about two hours after the birth, I think. I had to have stitches from tearing (apparently that’s what the burning was- I’m glad I didn’t know while it was happening) but even the stitches didn’t bother me because I was so happy and busy watching everything they were doing with Bailey. Jonathon was so proud and busy taking pictures. He kept saying how beautiful and precious she was. He got to hold her, and then he went to the waiting room to get my parents. They came in to see the baby and then he went to the cafeteria with my dad to get me some chicken strips and a grilled cheese. I was starving.

I also nursed Bailey about a half hour after she was born. She did really well that first time. The latching problem didn’t start until about her third feeding (and was completely fixed by about four or five days old). Once the epidural had worn off, a nurse helped me to the bathroom and then we went in a wheelchair to my regular room, where I stayed for two nights.

Someday I might write a few notes about the rest of my time in the hospital and my recovery. This was enough for now.

Comments