TMI – Alexander’s birth story as told by momma

Greetings all. I thought I’d take a few minutes to write a bit for you. Xander sleeps, but who knows for how long. It is the three o’clock hour in the morning, but what is time anyway…

I thought maybe I’d tell you all a bit a bit about my birthing experience. It is true, there is a certain amnesia that washes over you, makes you forget the birthing process. I wouldn’t know the entire process, my body wound up not being able to birth that baby the natural way. If I had lived in pioneer times, I don’t think I would have survived…modern medicine is a beautiful thing, isn’t it?

I had a plan going into this birth. You see, it was an evolution of self to create this plan. How did I want Xander to come into this world. I came to the conclusion of a natural unmedicated birth. Had to take a long had look at myself to believe in myself that I could do it. I decided I could, and it was liberating.

I was seriously bummed out when the decision had been made for my labor to be induced. This was due to the fact I had borderline Pre-eclampsia that wasn’t going to get any better. Safe mother, safe baby as the medical professional aspire to. Plus Xander was over 40 weeks and he was ready.

You can imagine my surprise and happiness that my water broke on its own, at home at 3:30 AM, the morning of 9/3/11. I wound up laboring at home for twelve hours, while Steve and my parents and his mom waited until I was ready to go to the hospital. I know that most people think that once water breaks you better haul ass to the hospital, maybe for some. My water was clear, so without going into total detail about that, it means it is ok to stay home for up to twelve hours before a real concern of infection happens. I think Steve warned the parents to only give me positivity, but I know that wait to go to the hospital was excruciating for them…if they only knew how long the wait would be….

At home my contractions started out at ten minutes apart. Then they spread out to around twenty minutes. I involved myself in a relaxation program in preparation for labor. I used it and I could manage my contractions quite well. The part that did concern me, before we went to the hospital, was that my midwife, who I kept in contact with via phone, kept saying we’d have to probably do something to get labor started. This confused me because I thought if what I was experiencing wasn’t labor…then what the hell was it?

Getting to the hospital and going to my room is a little foggy for me to remember. I did wind up getting a drug for dilating because I was at a big fat zero. Its called Cytotec and is quite controversial. I said it was fine as long as I only got one dose. We had to wait for four hours to see if any progression had been made. There was a big bath tub in the room I really wanted to labor in. I wasn’t allowed to get into the tub with high blood pressure because I’d have to stay hooked up to monitors. I was bummed and hoped my BP went down. Remember that one dose of Cytotec I wanted to be limited to, ya well I wound up getting two more doses for an additional eight more hours. The nurse took pity on me however and when my BP showed signs of improvement she let me get in the tub for a little bit. It was heaven. Our tub at home is so small I can’t relax in it ever, prego or not. Unfortunately the Cytotec didn’t work, I got to a dilation of five, but stalled out. So I guess if I’m doing my math right, this puts me at about 24 hours since my water broke. This whole time the baby showed no signs of stress, he was active and his little heartbeat was strong.

The next course of action was using Pitocin. A drug to kick start this “actual labor” the midwife talked about. It came through an IV and it actually got my contractions to around five minutes apart. Keep in mind I’m using relaxation techniques to deal with the contractions. But after around 36 hours, and no progression in dilation I began to lose it. I had a good cry with Steve there by my side which helped relieve the stress. I began to question if I could keep hanging in there. The nurse suggested trying different laboring positions like walking around, sitting on the birthing ball. I decided to get on the birthing ball. BIG mistake. What I felt was no longer manageable by mind over matter anymore, I was exhausted mentally. I’ll admit it, I bawled my eyes out.

When the nurse came in I reluctantly ask for pain management options. The quick and dirty was a narcotic put in my IV. I was so devastated to accept that option because I hadn’t even taken an aspirin during this pregnancy and here I was about to dose myself with the good stuff. Which I did, twice. It only lasted like and hour and it took the edge off the contractions. I didn’t want to continually dose myself so I made the terrifying decision for an epidural. It was the thought of getting an epidural that highly influenced me to want to go natural. The anesthesiologist came in with a nurse and got me ready for the epi. Steve held my hand, or rather helped hold me still, while they inserted the epi “bee sting and a burn” is what the anesthesiologist said I’d feel. Imagine my surprise when I felt something inside my spine. I believe after the fact Steve said he saw an “oh shit” expression on the anesthesiologist’s face. He took it out saying he might had nicked a vein. So a second epi was put in my spine. I was saying prayers in my head the whole time. The anesthesiologist thought I might have gotten double dosed, which turns out I did and I got numbed too high. I suppose that poses a risk to lung function and heart rate. As soon as he knew I could breathe ok on my own he beat feet. Then my heart rate crashed which in turn made the babies heart rate crash and the nurses came flying in to give me epinephrine to get my heart rate back up and the baby’s as well.

I think going through all that put me in a type of shock because I tensed up so hard I shook. I’d use a relaxation technique only to realize I was tensed up and shaking again and my wisdom teeth began to pound. One weird thing about this pregnancy is that my wisdom teeth grew and totally threw off my bite. Being all tense must have aggravated the hell out of them. At about hour 44 I had had enough. I told my midwife and the nurse I wanted this baby out. The midwife suggested upping the Pitocin again and I didn’t want to anymore, I wanted the C-section. That was really hard to admit, like throwing in the towel, but I was still stalled at a 5. Fortunately my body agreed with my mind and I began to run a fever. A fever poses a risk to the baby and qualifies for an emergency C-section, healthy baby healthy mother…thank god.

I got prepped and wheeled in to the operating room within minutes. I still shook, was still absolutely terrified. Up to this point in my life I hadn’t even had stitches or a broken bone. I could feel the surgeon behind the curtain. It wasn’t painful, just pulling and tugging sensations. Then someone said for Steve to stand up a look over the curtain, which I can’t believe he did…and Alexander was pulled out at 11:17 PM, 9/4/11. I could hear him cry right away and I did the same. He was perfect.

Steve went with the baby and I got sewed up. I heard the surgeon say something like “nice abs” and I said “thank you” and she said, “oh you could hear that?” So, I’m not sure if that was a real compliment on my abdomen muscles or a crack at them…I took it as a compliment. I continued to shake and I knew I was creating them, but couldn’t get rid of them. They even gave me a drug to get rid of them, didn’t work. Finally, I got wheeled to my recovery room where I got to meet Alexander for the first time. I got to go skin to skin with him and he nursed immediately, my shakes stopped. He was all I needed.

Through it all Steve was a true support. I am so thankful beyond words. He managed the parents who were at wits end with worry. I feel bad for putting them through 44 hours of waiting and worrying, but I can at least say I tried everything to stick to my birth plan. I did get a couple bullet points from that plan, I got to experience laboring at home and I got to labor a bit in the tub….and that’s about it.

Turns out Alexander was stuck and I have a misshapen pelvis or something. He would have never come out on his own. I know I said that a certain amnesia washes over you and there is a lot I’m sure I left out, but this is my birth story as I recall, Steve will probably fill in after he reads this. I’m looking forward to blogging about Xander and my little family’s experiences. We’ve already had pooptastophies and precious moments with this little man. My life will never be the same, but… I’m good with that.