I had a pretty easy pregnancy, I guess, as these things are measured.
Tolerable morning sickness, no weird food cravings (just a mild distaste
for french fries for a few months), no blood pressure problems, no
swelling or hemmorhoids. I had a high 1-hour blood glucose level, but it
was only the one high mark in my 3-hour test, so they decided not to
really worry about it. I also had some serious pelvic pain, but I told
myself that I had the rest of it so easy compared to everyone else that
I really had no room to complain. But oh, easy or not, I so hated being
pregnant.
My birth plan was very Bradley-esque in philosophy. I wanted to labor as
long as possible at home, then go unmedicated, no episiotomy, pushing
position of my choice, etc. Of course, I made it clear to my doctors
that I knew it wouldn't necessarily go that way, and that I would be
reasonable about on-the-spot changes; some things you just can't plan...
But I'd always sort of expected an easy labor; it seems to run in the
family. My mom had me in 2 hours, start to finish - half an hour after
she got to the hospital. And I'd been practicing relaxation techniques
for years for theater, yoga, aikido, and so on, so I figured I had a
pretty good shot at getting what I wanted.
One reason I wanted to avoid medication was because I've had bad
experiences with nausea and fast wearing-off with anesthetics in the
past (Novocaine, Demerol, you know the deal). I didn't really think
labor was the time for me to be trying new drugs and playing that good
ol' side-effect roulette. The doctors on staff suspected a mild allergy
to -caine drugs, and noted that in my records.
I'd been having contractions off and on for a few weeks; some of them
serious enough I had to breathe through them, most of them 30 to 45
seconds long and 4 to 5 minutes apart, for hours. They would generally
peter off when I went to sleep, or when my husband went to work in the
morning. Through all that last week, I was going through the turmoil of
having our furnace repaired and eventually replaced; I think the baby
would've come earlier, but my body was stalling until we actually had
heat in our house again...
On my due date, Sunday, May 19, we went out to look at patio furniture,
partly because we needed it, and partly because I wanted to walk to try
to bring on the baby. :) We bummed around at home for a bit, had a bit
of dinner, and then went to a local carnival to get the first zeppole of
the summer. I know, not great nutrition, but I'd been wanting them for
weeks! Then we settled in to watch the season finale of "Survivor" and
just generally vegetate for the night.
At 7:30pm, I felt a weird and sudden gush of fluid into my pad. I was
surprised, since I hadn't been having contractions at all. I went to
check it out; the pad I was wearing was pretty well wet, but I wasn't
sure if I was still leaking something or not, so I changed it and waited
an hour to see what would happen. An hour later, I had felt a couple of
more little gushes (nothing huge, mind you) and a couple of very, very
mild contractions. I called the doctor, and she said I should come in to
the hospital to be checked out. My husband made a few necessary calls
and then off we went; we got to the hospital at about 10pm.
They had a bit of trouble determining if I was leaking amniotic fluid or
not, because the amount was so inconsistent, but after getting me to
walk the halls for a bit (and sending my husband off to admitting
because I apparently had never managed to do the forms I needed ahead of
time), they discovered that yes, I had ruptured. Such began the total
death of my birth plan. Due to worries about infection and etc., my
doctor wanted to start me on pitocin right away; I asked her if she
could give me until 1:30am to see if natural labor would start, and she
agreed that that would be safe. At this point, I was dilated a bare 1cm
and not at all effaced.
Then she suggested breaking my forewaters manually, because the rupture
I had must've been higher up, and it might start things going a bit
faster. I couldn't see any reason why not - I mean, I'd *already*
ruptured, what did one spot or two matter? So she did the deed, and it
was then discovered that there was meconium in the fluid. Ugh. The
baby's heart rate was beautiful and showed no sign of distress, but I
was just enough worried about this that I agreed to go on the pitocin
right away. I knew this might be the kiss of death for the birth plan,
but I felt it would be safer not to risk her going into real distress
and having all sorts of breathing problems.
I was all set up and on the pitocin by 12:30. I am apparently very
sensitive to pitocin, and was having painful but non-productive
contractions on 2 ml/s (I think it was). They nudged me up to 6, but I
had trouble coping, so they knocked it back down to 2. All this time, my
husband was helping me out, holding my hand, telling me when one was
coming, getting me ice and fetching the nurse whenever I needed
something; he was really wonderful through the whole thing. At around
4:30am, I was examined and they found that I had pretty much gone
nowhere, painful contractions or no. I decided then to get some Stadol,
so I could get some rest, so my poor, patient husband could get some
rest, and hopefully I would make some actual progress. Everything after
that is weird and woozy for me, because I was fading in and out of sleep
the whole time.
The doctor also suggested setting up some sort of uterine catheter that
would try to flush the remaining amniotic fluid out of me, meconium and
all, and I agreed; but that made the contractions even MORE painful, and
moreover, nothing seemed to be coming out! But the Stadol did its
business, and I dozed in and out for the next few hours. From what I
understand, they administered Stadol another two times over the course
of the morning. By 11am, I was at 2cm and 80% effaced, but I couldn't
have any more Stadol, really, and I was truly suffering with each
contraction - I couldn't relax during the contractions to save my life,
I was just clenching the hand rails on the bed and trying to breathe
for all I was worth. I was on the edge of starting to cry uncontrollably
because I couldn't keep on top of the contractions; I couldn't even stay
awake well enough to brace myself when one was coming. I begged them to
take out the catheter, since it wasn't helping and seemed to be hurting
a lot, and they did. Things didn't seem to get any worse after that, but
weren't getting better, either, and I was STILL making no progress.
So, at around 9:30am, side effects or no, we all reluctantly decided an
epidural would be the best bet for me. The doctors were unhappy about it
because of my previously-noted tendency to side effects, but eventually
agreed it was probably the best thing. I was very unhappy at this point
about all the drugs my baby was getting, but it was the classic domino
effect of one intervention leading to another, and honestly, I had known
the second I agreed to go under pitocin that it might end up this way.
More important to me that the baby be safe. :) Fortunately, no nasty
side effects happened! I was pretty well asleep after that.
Within 3 hours of putting the epidural in place (and cranking the
pitocin up to I believe 12 ml/s), I was complete and ready to push! It
turns out that in my case, the epidural was just what we needed to get
to meaningful, productive contractions. And a good thing, since by the
clock, I was about 6 hours away from a C-section. So we decided to let
the epidural wear off so I could push. While it was going, I could feel
*something* going on...it felt like my body was pushing the baby out,
with or without my help! But the epi wore off fast, so I was able to
participate in this part of my labor, at least. :) My husband and the
nurse started coaching me in pushing, and gave me support to push my
legs against. I had wanted to push on my side, but of course the
epidural ruled that out, so I settled for sitting up as much as I
possibly could.
The pushing was (of course) really hard work, and the pressure grew to a
degree I could hardly believe during the contractions. I think I sort of
gasped and squealed when each one started, then everyone got into
position to help me, and I'd get a good three pushes per contraction.
After around forty-five minutes of pushing, the doctor told me that I
was tearing pretty badly, and that a quarter-inch episiotomy would have
the baby out on the next push, so I agreed to that, too. I honestly
hardly felt it! I hadn't really believed that until it was done. And
then, just a couple of minutes later, my beautiful ray of sunsine, Sasha
Louise Phillips, was born! :)
Oh, but when the doctor twisted her around to get her shoulders out,
that was the most awful part of the whole thing, and I screamed
uncontrollably. I'm not sure why, but that sticks out in my mind as
being really unbearable. Her Apgars were 9/9. I was able to spend just a
few minutes nursing her after I was stitched up from my third-degree
tear (which took a MILLION YEARS, I swear it did). She had SO MUCH hair
and we had been so sure she would be bald! And she was strong from the
get-go, too; she lifted her head up from the warmer and looked around
for her daddy's voice!
They kept me in recovery on Pitocin (and also gave me a shot of I think
Methagen) for two hours, while they sent Sasha upstairs with her proud
daddy for her bath and weighing. Sasha was a Big Girl - later I found
out 8 lbs., 10 oz. - and the doctor and nurse said my uterus had been
hyperextended, which wasn't helped by the fluid they were pumping into
me not coming out again, and my bleeding didn't slow down fast enough
for them. The doctor kept pushing on my abdomen and expressing out more
blood, which is I guess what they were worrying about. It was also very
painful, so I was incredibly happy when they finally let me go to my room.
And then... they wouldn't let me have my Sasha! It was hours before I
could see her again, because she had glucose problems, and they had to
make sure she was stable and then finally bathe her. They had to wait so
long that when I finally got her, she still had crunchy bits in her
hair! But finally, I was able to hold her and look at her chubby little
cheeks and play with her tiny, soft fingers and toes...pictures are at
http://www.hottub.org/~sasha if anyone is interested. :) The nurses
thought it was the funniest thing, once she got washed up - her hair is
brown, but it's got golden streaks through it, like she went to the
salon and got it highlighted before coming out!
My theory is that I was really borderline gestational diabetic, and
should probably have been on a more controlled diet this whole time.
This led to Sasha being much bigger than my body was strictly designed
for (babies in both our families tend to be 6 and change) which led to
unproductive contractions, which led to the whole classic hospital kit &
caboodle. I knew every step of the way what was happening, though, and
under the circumstances I feel we made the best choices we could.
Some thoughts on my hospital stay: Nobody warned me about the freakin'
pharmacy I would have in my panties for the next few days. Yeesh! And
after not retaining fluid through my whole pregnancy, I swelled up like
a balloon from the IV fluids. I didn't recognize my feet when I woke up
the next morning. And after having such a big baby, I managed to have
lost 4 pounds when I got home. It was nice to see another 20 melt off
over the next week, though. :)