A Baby Story

[This post will be full of TMI. You have been warned.]

[Also, it's super long. Sorry. I'll post a short version at the end if you want to skip to that.]

I feel a little weird for posting a birth story 4 hours after birth, like maybe I should still be exhausted and wait a few days... But honestly, I feel great NOW, the baby's sleeping, and I don't really wanna wait until after he keeps me up all night.

He is a grumpy monkey.

So to start at the way-back beginning, I've been frustrated for weeks at my lack of labor, and seriously considered posting a vent about it. How does one get to 4+ and 80% and just stay there?? Turns out there was probably a reason for that.

So this morning (Monday) I woke up to pee as per usual, and was shockingly awake for 7:30 AM after going to bed at 2. After emptying my bladder and going back to bed, I still felt... well, trickly, to be honest, but that wasn't anything new. I decided to get up and check anyway. And realized on my way back to the bathroom that my water was quite thoroughly broken. I ate breakfast, finished packing the hospital bag, loaded the dishes so they wouldn't smell, and finished up a few other last-minute things. Two underwear changes and about 10 super- pads later, I decided I was DONE with standing and moving, I couldn't take the grossness anymore, so we left. I never expected to have my water spontaneously rupture... I thought that was pretty rare. And FYI, it's pretty dang gross. Had the experience, got the t-shirt, let's not do that again.

So I got admitted right away, no triage needed. Unfortunately, even with my water broken, my uterus wasn't doing ANYTHING. My contractions were unfeelable, and at least 10 minutes apart, often more. I tried walking... it helped a little, but still not really enough. So I started pitocin. I had to get up to 12-14 before my contractions started getting regular and uncomfortable, and I still wasn't dilating too quickly. I think I was up to 5 or 6 by that point. My midwife wanted to put in an internal contraction and heart rate monitor, and discovered that I had another membrane to rupture. So between her breaking that, and the literally 5 tries it took to get all the monitors in place, my cervix was good and irritated and things were MOVING. And hurting. And apparently Corbin was good and irritated too, because his heart rate started dropping with contractions, enough to scare them into giving me oxygen and calling the Doctor.

We hypothesized that the cord was probably around his neck (and that was probably the reason he'd been taking so long to move down, both pre-hospital and up to that point), and the doctor and midwife strongly encouraged me to get an epidural just in case we needed to go in for a C-section. If things got that bad and I didn't have an epidural, they would have had to do general anesthesia, and that's no fun. Well by that point I was hurting so bad I jumped right on board. But the anesthesiologist had to be called in, so it took a good 20-30 minutes for him to even get there. That was THE longest half hour of my ENTIRE life. I wanted to die. The contractions got to the point of completely unbearable, and I didn't feel like I had any break in between. The world completely lost focus for me. I couldn't move, couldn't reposition myself without help (I felt like I might as well have had an epidural for how little control I had over my legs), and I was just writhing and practically screaming and saying over and over "I can't do this, I can't do this."

The rest of the experience is a pretty big blur of pain. I know a ton of people came in the room... at some point around when the anesthesiologist got there, his heart went down to and stayed in the 70's... they kept telling me to arch my back or reposition and I kept having contractions and couldn't cooperate properly... at one point I think they checked me and I was complete, and they stopped trying to get an epidural and were trying for a spinal... and while he was stabbing around sending shooting tingling pains down my leg, I suddenly said "I have to push!" I don't even know if I really did or not. It all just hurt. I couldn't figure out how to push without screaming though, it took a minute to remember to hold my breath and tuck my chin and all that jazz, and still it was all a blur. I think I only pushed a few times, but I was so afraid I would have to push for hours. I would NOT be able to handle that. The midwife wasn't even the one doing the delivery, it was the doctor... and she had to use forceps to pull him out because of his scary heart rate and my ridiculous inability to cooperate and push properly.

Approximately an eternity later, they got him out, and I completely checked out. I couldn't even open my eyes to look at him when they laid him on my chest. I had no muscle tone left in my body, and they pumped Fentanyl through my IV which made me even more sleepy. I found out later that he was born at 5:50, he was 8 lbs 12 oz, and he had a cord wrapped fairly tight around his neck. After doing his vitals and whatnot, they wrapped him up and brought him over to see me before whisking him off to the nursery. His cap refill was a little slow, and with the rough birth and everything they just wanted to make sure he was ok. I couldn't raise my arms to hold him, and again I could barely focus or get my eyes open.

It took me a long time to wake up, or want to eat, or feel better at all. They brought him back close to 7 because he wanted to eat. He had a hard time figuring out what to do with it because he just wanted to cry. But he got a good meal.... and started crying again. Seriously, a grumpy monkey. But I guess he's had a hard day. They took him back, I got a good nap, and just barely got all cleaned up and refreshed.

So NOW, I feel great. It's so good to be clean. And awake. And eating. But seriously, I am never ever ever trying to go natural again.

Think it's worth it? :)

The short version:

My water broke at about 7:30 AM. We got to the hospital at 9-ish, had very slow labor until...... I dunno, 3 or 4? After breaking another membrane and placing internal monitors, it picked up HARD, and I wanted to die. Corbin's heart rate started dropping, I tried to get an epidural but got to complete and pushing before they could place anything, and a few pushes and forceps later, Corbin was born at 5:50, 8 lbs 12 oz, with a cord around his neck. And I am never trying to go natural again.