April 19, 2011: Labor Days, Part III -- The Birth Story

[The following is a historical post, originally written on Tuesday, April 19, 2011]

10:05 am

And we're... TEAM BLUE!!!!  Baby Boy (hereafter Baby Bird) was born at 1:10 am on Sunday, April 17, 2011. I managed to get him to 34 weeks 1 day gestation, he weighed in at birth at a whopping 6 lbs, 10.6 oz, and he was 19 1/4 inches long. He's now in the NICU, working on his breathing, and will probably be there for a week or so. Each day is touch and go because his lungs are a bit underdeveloped (despite the steroid shots I was given). At present his doctor is concerned he might have a leak in his lungs, because he is breathing really hard. They will x-ray his chest again this afternoon to see how things are going, but it sounds like all we can do at this point is wait and see.

Baby Bird's birth was, in the end, extremely quick. I remember the doctors who delivered him debating afterward whether they really could put down as record that pushing took only 10 minutes. It definitely was something precipitous like that. But let me back up a bit...

Saturday afternoon, as I mentioned in my last update, the doctors started me on pitocin to regularize my contractions, with the hope that they would become more productive, and start me into active labor. My hope was that this could get my water to break on its own. Well, truthfully, I had hoped to be able to move around a bit and use some of my natural birthing class techniques to get active labor started, but since I was put on the pitocin I couldn't move around (at least I think that's why --- so much of this is a blur, bear with me!). My doctors were sympathetic to my desire to have as little intervention as possible, but the nature of our situation threw most of those desires out the window, understandably. We needed to get the baby out as efficiently as possible.

We had a big discussion about breaking my water. The doctors wanted to break my waters early on in the afternoon, and I really didn't want them to. In retrospect, I think the toughest part about how the delivery proceeded was the inner conflict I felt over wanting to advocate for as few interventions as possible, all the while worrying that by doing so I was getting in the way of what was safest for the baby. But I suppose it was somewhat needless worry, in that, if push came to shove and the baby was in danger, the doctors would do what was necessary.

So we talked about doing an amniotomy, but my doctors agreed to give the pitocin some time to work, and we'd evaluate as we went along. Fair enough.

[Side note: the doctors who delivered me were not my regular doctors, rather a resident of the hospital and the on-call OB who tag teams with my doctors' obstetric practice. Both were great; in fact, the entire team who's helped me since Thursday afternoon has been wonderful.]

They started the pitocin at a very low dose and gradually increased it. I started feeling contractions, and they got progressively closer together, but they were mild, like menstrual cramps, the kind you notice and you feel kind of crampy, but they aren't very distracting. I was able to carry on conversations, check email, entertain visitors (DH's dad, sister and brother-in-law came by to see us after the shower was over), and even attempt to nap. While this was all great and wonderful (I kept wondering if I was going to luck out and have a really mild labor overall, or whether karma was going to come and kick me in the ass at some point), it wasn't helping much. The contractions were regular, about 2-3 min apart, but I wasn't getting anywhere. I maybe went to about 7 cm over the course of several hours.

Just before midnight, DH and I started to drift off to sleep; or rather, DH was already nodding off and I decided to make a concerted effort to get some rest myself, figuring that we were being left alone for a while. Well, a few minutes later, shortly after midnight, and basically just long enough later that I felt as if I had been awaken from a really decent sleep zone, my doctors came into the room and announced that it was time to break my water. Seriously it felt like they marched in to make the grand announcement. I'll admit though, by this time, despite the fact that I would rather have napped for a little while, I wasn't opposed to getting the show on the road. So I agreed (not that I think I had much say in the matter) and then the party really got started.

They broke my water and it seemed like within only a few short minutes everything changed. Full force contractions started almost instantaneously, and they were brutal. It was so sudden a shift in intensity that I was really caught off guard. Night and day doesn't even cover it. Yup, it was bad.

But, thank goodness it was short. As I'm adjusting to these new ferocious contractions, I kind of panicked that there was no way I could stand many of them... I had no transition, no time to get used to contractions gradually increasing in intensity and pain (was this the effect of all the pitocin without the buffer of the amniotic sac?)... I just wanted to escape my body. My husband was great as he coached me through the contractions, all the while the doctors needed to know if I wanted an epidural and I was desperately trying to figure out whether I did... another one of those moments of inner conflict. In theory I really didn't want an epidural, but this pain was more than I had anticipated, so I considered it. DH said the doctors were really pressuring me  -- I was at a hospital with a 98% epidural rate after all -- and they couldn't tell me how long I'd need to push, and I worried that I wouldn't be able to handle this type of pain for long. They told me that if I wanted an epi, it was now or never.

I was still debating the epi issue, and about to concede, when I started to feel like I had to poop really bad (sorry, but you knew this is going to be full of TMI, lol). Hearing this, the resident suggested trying to push for a couple of contractions. I said okay, and we tried. The amazing thing was that the contractions hurt much less when I was pushing, they still hurt like the devil, but within a more manageable realm, if that makes any sense.

After a couple of pushes, the resident checked me and said, okay, you're at about 9 1/2 now... this is it! The NICU team rushed in to get ready to take the baby (they probably were there already but it all seemed to happen at once), the other doctor was there too -- it was chaos and I can't remember all the folks who were there, but I know they were scrambling to get my legs in the stirrups and then they're telling me to push, sometimes up to three times per contraction, and I felt like I couldn't breathe, and couldn't get coordinated in taking breaths and where to hold my legs and pushing my chin to chest and... I was a discombobulated mess and had my eyes closed the whole time... but apparently I got something right, because after only a handful of contractions, I felt this burn, and a whoosh, and then, it was over. And then something was screaming like a banshee down near my feet. Oh, it's my son!

Well, I didn't know it was my son until they brought him up to my chest a moment later and I could see all of him. Yup, it's a boy all right, and man, was he upset (who can blame him, he just got evicted from a cosy home, and some 6 weeks early to boot)!

I got to have a brief moment of skin-to-skin contact with him before they whisked him away to the NICU (Daddy went with him), and that was great. But they had already cut the cord so we weren't able to delay the clamping as we'd hoped (and no one had asked us about it before hand --- our birth plan was still in draft form as we thought we a bit more time). Ah well, there wasn't much time for much discussion of anything, and really, the important part is that my baby got out safely.

I won't lie though, I'm super glad there wasn't even time for me to agree to the epidural. The anesthesiologist wouldn't have been able to get my consent and set up in time for me to get it (and the contractions were so close together I can't imagine how they would have managed to keep me still enough). So yeah, if there's one part of my birth plan I'm glad I got to stick to, it was that I managed to deliver without pain meds. Yup, certified masochist here... but seriously, pushing was better than just sitting through the contractions, so I lucked out in that I didn't have much time to wait before I could push. I ended up tearing, so I have stitches, but that happened so fast too that I didn't notice it (other than the general burn of pushing Baby Bird out).

All in all, it was quite the roller coaster ride. I'll have to write the analysis later. They're kicking me out of the hospital today, and I have to navigate this weird space of going home without my baby. But it's indescribable, this feeling of fascination and wonder at the fact that there is now a little boy in the world who wasn't here two days ago, and that I am his mommy.

And here he is, at about 17 hours old: