Birth Story

My birth story

Order and time is prob way off…. Birth time is weird,…. Its like a another world… but This is how I remember it to the best of my ability.

I have been dreaming for months about this story. Previously, I wrote about my “ideal” birth. How my husband and I educated ourselves and prayed for a natural childbirth to bring our first son into the world. I write this finding my birth story the furthest thing from natural and including almost every type of medical intervention…. And I would like to say I am at peace with that. As much as we planned, as much as we learned, as much as we prayed, we still had no control. God is in control and it gave me so much peace throughout this experience. So here we go….

Friday August 23:

I woke up after a terrible nights sleep. I maybe got a total of four hours. It was awful. I was tired but had a doctors appoint to get to. I go ready and thought that hopefully I would have time for a nap that afternoon. I was 41 weeks and one day and I knew my appointment would be the “induction” talk. I had tried everything to get this kid to come…. EVERYTHING. He wasn’t moving lower, I wasn’t really having any contractions anymore and I knew the inevitable would happen. I went to my appointment and everything was great, blood pressure fine, baby heart rate fine, dilation the same….of course. I had my membranes stripped and then began the talk. I have a doctor that I truly trust and told him I wanted to wait until 42 weeks to be induced. He said he applauded my conservative approach and would agree to it if my biophysical came back with a perfect score and that baby was healthy.

I quickly left the doctors office to head to the store to get food for my best friends shower that was the following day. I grabbed the food, grabbed some lunch, dropped everything at the house in a hurry and got up to the hospital for my biophysical. As I was leaving the house I noticed how dirty my floors were, such a pet pev of mine…. “I will clean them when I return, this won’t take long” I thought……

I arrived at the hospital and went into radiology. These sonos were so routine at this point I was ready to get in and get out. Usually they last like 10 mins…. This one did not, the tech kept looking, kept searching, and was concerned at my babies lack of movement. (he was asleep) He had been moving all morning and I knew he was fine but still she had to fail me on my biophysical. So up the stairs I went to labor and delivery for “observation”. I kept telling everyone my baby was fine, I could feel him move, but no one wanted to take chances, which I am very happy for. They hooked me up to monitors and I made a quick phone call to the hubs. Being as loving as he is, he wanted to drop everything and run to the hospital to be with my while I was being observed. I told him no, that everything was fine and I would be out in a little bit. After about an hour of observation I hear the resident outside my curtain talking to my doctor on the phone about me. NOT A GOOD IDEA PEOPLE. I heard her say, “ok, we will start the pitocin” My heart lept out of my chest, all of my monitors started going off  and my nurse ran in asking what was wrong…. Through tears I explained that I heard the dr talking about inducing me RIGHT NOW. I was freaking out. They had to take my heart monitor off because it was continuously going off. The resident came in and told me I was going to be induced and not be going home today. I was bawling my eyes out, no no no, not pit please please anything but pit…. I fought and fought for other options. Begged them to break my water, try cervadil, anything. I did NOT want pit. I was told pit was the only thing for my circumstance and that was that.

I needed to call my husband but my phone was dying. The poor intern that had been helping take my vitals felt so bad for me as I was crying alone in my hospital bed. He gave me his phone and charger and told me to take as long as I needed. I called my husband and could hardly get through the tears to tell him what I was happening. I could hear it in his voice he was freaking out too but would never let me know. He started his way home to get our hospital bag and everything in order and would be there shortly. I called my doula who calmed me down, and said she would be on her way shortly.

So, alone I sat, full of anxiety and just prayed and prayed and prayed. All I truly cared about was my baby and I just wanted him to be ok. The anesthesiologist came in to go over everything (I had previously met her and not really cared for her) and was very comforting… and gently told me she knew this wasn’t what I wanted but we are ultimately not in control. I enjoyed that she was speaking truth to me and  just continued to pray for peace.

They took me to my labor room and my husband showed up. I started contracting on my own consistently (stress) so they decided to let me labor on my own for awhile before starting pit. We walked and talked together for hours and I really got calmed down… the contractions weren’t getting stronger though so we had to head back to the room to start the pit.

The thing about pit was that I was stuck in the bed, I couldn’t really move, couldn’t use the bath, had to be monitored… it is very limiting to help with pain control… but we began the pit…. And kept uping it and uping it and uping it….. nothing….. contractions got stronger but not super strong and I was not progressing ….. About two in the morning after no progress they came in and broke my water…. Oh lord did I have a lot of water….. This was the point that the pain hit me…. Hard. Contractions hit so hard that I could barley breath. I wanted to walk, I wanted the bath and I couldn’t leave the damn bed. I was so frustrated and in so much pain. This went on forever….. with no progress….. I had contractions lasting as long as 6 mins because of the stupid pit,,,, and no progress. Things get really fuzzy because the pain was so intense, I remember screaming “My pelvis is breaking, Im telling you this baby is going to break my pelvis” My back was in so much pain. I just wanted warm water that’s all I wanted.

At this point they gave me a shot of something to calm me down, cut the pit to see if my body would take over, and let me into the bath. Oh, sweet relief. I could breath, I could think. The warm water was so comforting. We had all the lights out and I got a glimpse of what I wanted my birth to be like. This was manageable. The pain was there, but the water relieved it so much. I got so relaxed I almost fell asleep. They only allowed me in there for 20 mins though and then back to the bed.

At some point the contractions started not being strong enough again and they started the pit…. Again. They gave me an epidural in hopes that it would help me progress. They then monitored how strong the contractions were since I wasn’t progressing. We were getting really high on the pit again and I started shaking uncontrollably. I felt super nauseous and  my babes heart rate started acting funny. Too many drugs….. they cut the pit because I was not reacting well to it and baby was not either….all this time on it hadn’t done much anyway.

I was so frustrated, so tired, and so done. I had every intervention possible to try and get this baby to come “naturally”… nothing was working, my body was not responding to it, the baby wasn’t moving down, and I wasn’t progressing….. I had been awake for over 30 hours, hadn’t eaten for about 22 hours and had been in labor for about 22 hours.

After we cut the pit,  we were talking about what to do. My sweet baby’s heart started dropping…. Nurses and doctors were flooding the room, hooking me up to oxygen and telling me calm down (really??!!) I was so scared, I just wanted my little boy to be ok.

They got everything back in order, baby’s heart rate went back to normal and then the laborist came in to talk to me. She gave me two options, start the pit again, or c-section. Since we had tried pit twice, and I was not reacting well, and my baby was clearly stressed at this point I choose the c-section. I was completely at peace with ith. Dakota kept asking “are you sure….” I explained to him that I trust my baby and my body… something isn’t right, there is a reason I am not progressing, there is a reason nothing is working and I want to trust that and my baby. I would not start pit again and risk the stress on my baby.

We started prepping for surgery, they made me drink this nasty stuff that I threw up…. And started pumping more meds in me. I got crazy light headed, couldn’t focus my eyes, words became hard to form… but I was at peace…. My baby was now coming. We got in the operating room, my poor husband had to take a min (he was freaking out… don’t blame him) they put the sheet up and started my c-section. I was so nauseous and kept almost throwing up that they kept having to up the meds…. At one point I started feeling some slight pain where they were cutting and freaked out… and they gave me more meds. Soon enough, I heard a cry, and tears came…. All I wanted was to know he was ok…. Please someone tell me he is healthy….. I heard doctors and nurses start talking to each other “wow, that’s a big head…” “ whoa… that’s a big baby”….

I was sad that everyone got to see my baby and I couldn’t….. I just wanted to hold him but I couldn’t…. I couldn’t even see him. The nurse took a photo with our phone and showed me…. Oh, my sweet chubby boy. He was healthy, he was ok, and I could breath.

The stitched me up, gave me my baby and wheeled me to recovery. I was so drugged and everything is a blur but I remember seeing my baby and the feeling of relief when I knew he was health…. As in 10lbs 2 oz healthy…. Then we all knew why I was not progressing, why he never could fully engage into my pelvis…. He was way to big for my to birth.

As much as I did not want any intervention, any drugs and did not want a surgery, I’m thankful for the medical staff that helped me have a healthy baby. Recovering from a major surgery with a new born is not ideal but people do it all the time. I am now home and able to enjoy my baby. This has been such an amazing first week home… I am so thankful to have such a loving and caring husband that stayed home and took care of us this week. I could not have done it without him. If anything this experience has made me fall in love with him all over again to see how much he cares about our little boy, and how much he wants to take care and provide for me and him.

The Lord was with us through the whole experience, from sending my favorite nurse Mindy to come in and pray with us…. To having my doctor quote scripture and pray over our baby. Such an amazing experience to feel the Lord present through it all once again.