My Labor Story - Two weeks after the fact..

I wrote this out for a friend of mine who wanted to hear my labor story.. so this is copied and pasted from that. :)

Once you hit 40 weeks you have one ultrasound a week and 1-2 NST's a week, cause the baby's living conditions can change rapidly. After 42 weeks in your uterus they will induce because the placenta starts to disintegrate or something like that and basically it's not safe for the baby anymore. So Monday (the morning of the 16th) I was scheduled to go into the hospital that I was delivering at for a "non-stress test" and an ultrasound to make sure that the baby was doing okay. I got there at 11am, had my ultrasound and then headed up to the Labor and Delivery floor for my NST. For the NST they take you into a room and lay you on a bed (depends on what nurse I got as to whether or not I had to completely undress for it - it's not really necessary to undress for them, fyi..). They use some stretchy bands to hook these two round things to your belly, one moniters contractions (even if you're not having any) and one moniters the baby's heartbeat. They also hook you up to a blood pressure machine and put a little thing on your finger to read your pulse. No biggie, bring a (calming!) book or something, nothing too exciting cause they'll keep you if your blood pressure goes up! lol.

Anyway so I'm laying in the room having my NST when the nurse comes in and informs me that my amniotic fluid was at "three point eight" and it's supposed to be at "ten or higher" - so they were going to keep me and induce me right then. =O I was shocked! I was scheduled to be induced two days later, so it's not like it wasn't something I expected.. I was freaking out a little bit though cause nobody was with me except my sister in law! She was downstairs in the waiting room and she didn't have a cell phone so I had no way to get down there and tell her they were keeping me. I called my mom and husband and told them that they needed to come to the hospital right away. I was calm and everything for about 15 minutes when it started sinking in that I was going to be having my baby soon and nobody was there with me! I knew the baby wasn't gonna be delivered before someone got there, it was a bit scary though. So my mom called my dad who works about 20 minutes away and sent him over. He got there a good 30 minutes before my mom did and calmed me down a lot so I am really glad he came over!

The nurse got me set up on an IV and brought in a bunch of paperwork for me to go over. Like I mentioned before, I'd suggest signing the epidural/anesthetic form before hand 'just in case'. Once you get any other pain medication you're considered under the influence and they will NOT give you an epidural if you change your mind. They won't force it on you either though. So after that the midwife came in and "checked" me to see how dialated I was (FYI - they stick like their entire freaking hand inside of you and it doesn't feel good! I was NOT expecting that which made it a little worse.. I dunno how I thought they'd check to see if you were dialated or not but that wasn't close to what I was expecting). I was only at 1cm and 50% effaced or whatever, so the midwife told me she was gonna give me something to dialate me and get my cervix ready for pushing. I didn't catch the name of the stuff she used but it was basically medicine on a giant shoelace that they stuffed inside of me right up against my cervix. They told me they'd leave it in for 12 hours and then come back in the morning to start me on Pitocin to start the labor. There was a very small chance that I could go into labor with the shoelace medicine but it was an incredibly small chance (and I didn't, lol). They put the stuff in at about 4:30-5pm I think? They told me that since the shoelace stuff would be done before 6am that they wouldn't start me till six in case I wanted an epidural because the anesthesiologists didn't come in till six.

So begin the waiting game.. My husband got to the hospital and my parents left around 8ish to get some sleep. We had Mitch's sister drive some DVD's and food over for Mitch cause we were really bored and he was hungry. Of course I could only eat ice chips and popsicles so we were careful to sneak the food in so he wouldn't get in trouble, hehe (you should see if your hospital has popsicles, it sounds silly but they really do help stave off hunger, especially if you're not gonna be allowed to eat for 12+ hours). After they put the shoelace inside of me I started having cramps like you'd get with your period. They started out like contractions - I'd have one for about 15 seconds or so every 10 minutes maybe? They got more frequent and lasted longer as time went on. Around 9pm I got tired of people telling me to "try and get some sleep" and told them there was no way I could sleep with those cramps! I'd doze off for a few minutes only to be woken up from the pain. They were incredibly uncomfortable. The nurse told me that she could give me some medicine through my IV that would help me sleep. Not thinking anything of it I told her that was fine and asked for another popsicle to go with it.

I don't know what medication they used, I really wish I had gotten the name for you! I'd suggest talking to the nurses before you get any kind of painkiller and see if they are going to make you drowsy or loopy. The stuff they put in my IV went into effect within like 30 seconds. I felt like I was drunk, that's about the most accurate explaination.. My head felt huge and heavy, I felt like I was floating all around, couldn't stop laughing, etc.. Unfortunately I don't really remember a lot from that point on due to that medicine they gave me. I slept off and on till about 4:30am. The nurse came in and told me that they were going to start the Pitocin at 5:30 and they wanted to know if I wanted to take a shower or not. I decided I did since I didn't know when I'd feel like taking another so they unhooked me from everything and let me take a shower. I called my mom and woke her up and told her she should come to the hospital cause they were gonna start my labor. She got there a bit before they started it up.

They brought in another IV bag thingy with the Pitocin in it and hooked it into my IV. They started me out at 3 drips a minute I think.. I still was quite out of it, I can't remember if they were still giving me the pain medication or not. I remember asking for it 3 times, the last time I asked for it was about midnight.. so like I said, I don't know if they kept giving it to me or not.. So after I got back into bed at 5:30am I only remember a couple things. I remember waking up and asking if my mom was still there and I remember them waking me up to ask if I wanted the epidural or not. The contractions were waking me up every few minutes and they were pretty painful. Apparently I was having "back labor" which is more painful than regular labor I guess. Makes sense cause I remember thinking it was annoying that I couldn't feel my stomach contracting like you're supposed to.

So the epidural people came in, I have no idea what time.. The had me sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. They swabbed my back off and stuck me with a local anesthetic so I wouldn't feel the tube thing going in. It hurt a little bit but nothing compared to the contractions, lol. After they got it in, they taped it to my back and let me lay down. It was amazing how I couldn't feel the contractions at all after that..

So then the next thing I remember was waking up on my side (apparently my blood pressure went up so they turned me on my side) at about 10:30am with these insane contractions that made me feel like I needed to PUSH. I've read that some women are so numbed with the epidural that they can't tell when they need to push but I could DEFINETLY tell. I think that has something to do with the fact that my mom and I have always been hard to numb (at the dentist, etc) so I don't think the epidural "took" 100%. I could also still feel my right leg and move myself around. While I was having the "push" contractions I remembered something I had read, someone said that pushing against an undialated cervix can make the whole thing take longer, so to help prevent yourself from pushing you were to "pant and blow, hard if you need to" to keep yourself from pushing. That came in REALLY handy, if I hadn't been breathing like that I would have been pushing.

The nurse came in and checked my cervix while I was on my side and told me I was still only at 4cm so I couldn't start pushing. I didn't think much of it cause as soon as the contraction stopped, I was asleep again. The contractions from then on out woke me up each time. About ten minutes later I told my husband to "go find the freaking nurse because I can't NOT push anymore!" I still remember feeling amazed at how my body like took over and knew what to do.. it was an interesting feeling to need to push and know you can't stop yourself from pushing..So he went and got the nurse really fast and she rolled me over on my back and told me I was at 8cm I believe. She said there was still a bit of a "lip" but that if I really couldn't hold it, I could push past it. Sooo the midwife was called and they brought in a couple extra people.. they dropped the end off the bed, popped up the foot holder thingies and told me to scootch down right to the edge.

They put a nurse (or maybe it was a med student - I think I remember one of them in medical school scrubs..) on my left side and my husband stayed on my right. They held my legs in their arms, way apart and pushed them back towards me when it was time for me to push.. They also made me grab my legs and curl myself over my belly as much as I could which was really difficult, the urge to lay out flat and put my hands over my head was really strong! Then for the next contraction the nurse told me I could start pushing and I told her I didn't feel like pushing anymore.. haha. They let me lay there for one contraction and then on the next I felt like I needed to push again. So basically - pushing out a baby felt pretty much like I expected it to which was interesting. I didn't even think about asking for a mirror to watch, I was concentrating SO HARD on pushing.. and it was hard to push! For each contraction they'd make me start to push, the nurse would count to ten then tell me to take a deep breath and push again. I had to do that 3 times for each contraction. They make you do it 3 times during each contraction cause it's apparently like one of those "two steps forward, one step back" type things.. After the first 5 or so contractions I could feel his head coming out and it was insane! It was like I could feel every detail of his face, his eyeballs coming out and his nose coming out and his mouth coming out..

After his head was out they told me to give one more push and his body came out. As soon as he was all the way out, the put him up on my tummy to wipe him off. I don't remember much about that but I do remember him being grey.. don't freak out about that! Babies don't get their pigment till a few minutes after they're born so that's normal. They clipped him up and helped my husband cut the umbilical cord and then took him across the room to this little bin with a light over it. My sister in law told me that once they pulled the baby out it was the weirdest feeling ever to be so full and then so empty in the next second but honestly all I can remember thinking was "Oh God YES!" = YAY it's over! Apparently before I started pushing I asked a nurse how long it was going to take cause I remember her telling me afterwards that I pushed for 17 minutes before he was born. Honestly, it did not feel like that long! If I'd had to guess I would have said five minutes at most, lol.

So then the midwife had to stitch me up because I tore a little. The actual tearing wasn't as bad as I expected, every time I'd think about it I'd imagine hearing a ripping noise and feeling myself split apart but honestly all you can feel is the gigantic alien trying to get out of you! The stitching up part was kinda painful though.. she put 2 stitches on the outside and I dunno how many on the inside.. After that they lowered me down and fixed the bed again so I could lay back a bit. They brought some food in for me immediately and I also sent my dad out to checkers for a gigantic burger and fries.. I ate the burger and fries and whatever it was they brought for me to eat as well! While I was eating the Lactation Consultant came in and helped me get started on breastfeeding. It was a little weird feeding him and eating at the same time butI got over that really quick, lol. They let me rest for a few minutes while they cleaned everything up and the baby was eating.. and then my husband packed everything up and we were taken to our recovery room. Thankfully we had the whole room to ourselves all night! It would have been insanely stressful to have to share with another mom and brand new baby..

That's about all I can remember.. :)