My Labor Experience

The first thing I want to say is, it's impossible to plan for something you've never experienced. Also, it's useless to fully plan out an experience that you aren't in control of. I never had an elaborate birth plan. I knew I wanted to walk as much as possible to speed things up. I was open to an epidural but not sure if I wanted one, so I planned to wait for a while. I wanted to push naturally with the contractions instead of relying on artificial counting. I wanted to go through early labor at home. That was about it.

Well, none of that happened. After a false alarm (I'll have to tell that story later) I went past my due date. 5 days later we went to the doctor's office for another check up. My parents were in town, so we met them for breakfast (I insisted) at a little diner, then headed off to the appointment with plans for the afternoon with the parents and my brother.

Instead the doctor said that my amniotic fluid was low. This was not an emergency at all, but it was a sign that the placenta was starting to degrade. There was nothing to be gained by waiting, so she sent us off to the hospital. We arrived and were in our room by noon. I hadn't started contractions yet and we were already at the hospital.

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WARNING: POSSIBLE TMI ALERT. Details of labor and delivery! I'm writing this mostly as a journal for myself; feel free not to read it. Or if you want to read detail about a particular labor and delivery, carry on.

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They had to ripen my cervix before they could start the contractions. So from noon on I had two monitors around my belly but other than that I could do what I wanted. The doctor had said not to eat but the nurses said that since I was nowhere near delivery it would be okay and they brought me dinner. Yay nurses! We also started watching the movies I had brought - Lord of the Rings Extended Edition, the entire trilogy. **grins**

Around 9 or 10 things had finally progressed to the point that they could give me Pitocin to start the contractions. Well they started alright, 2 minutes apart. They weren't strong enough to deliver, but they were close enough that I wasn't getting any rest. I knew that we were hours and hours and hours away from having the baby, and I didn't want to be exhausted when it came time to push, so I asked for an epidural. It made a huge difference and I was able to sleep. The only problem was that I now was confined to the bed. No walking and no eating. Grrrrr.

The next morning both families arrived. We visited for a bit and I was in good spirits, other than being grumpy about missing breakfast. After a bit the doctors came in to check me and I kicked the families out. For the most part, the day went slowly but well. Steve tried to eat something while sitting behind me, but I heard the crinkling of the plastic and the crunching and kicked him out until he was finished.

We did have a bit excitement. I called the nurse's station for some reason. They answered and everything was fine. Then another station answered. I explained that my nurse had already been called and was on her way. Then a third station answered, as my nurse was arriving and I explained the situation. Then a fourth at the same time as another nurse and a doctor arrived. About the time the fifth station answered, a full emergency team of nurses and doctors came running into my room. It seems that my button was stuck and was dialing every station on the floor. Attempting to reset it, the original nurses' station turned it off. This turned it into a Code Blue and it sent out an emergency signal. Luckily everyone quickly figured out what was going on and laughed about it. But the only fix we could find was to completely turn off my button. The nurses station was literally right across the hallway from my L&D room and I had Steve with me, so it was no big deal.

Later that day I sent Steve to go give an update to the parents. They kept him for almost an hour, asking him questions. Meanwhile I was alone in a room with no way to call a nurse. Poor Steve, when he got back I was a little peeved. He apologized, I apologized and everything turned out okay.

Towards late afternoon, my labor seemed to stall. We went 2 hours with no change, then another, then another. There was a shift change and the new doctor was the one I had seen for almost all of my pre-natal visits. We had a good relationship so I was happy to see her. We discussed the fact that we hadn't seen any progression in 3 or 4 hours, and decided that if I hadn't made any more progress that we were going to move to a C-section. She left to prep the OR, and they took blood from me to run some tests and get me ready for surgery. The midwife checked me just to be sure and surprise! She looked up and said "Every thing is ready. You're going to have this baby - it's time to start pushing."

We went through a few different positions for pushing and settled on my being on my side, because it seemed to stress the baby the least. I was proud of myself for not cussing out anyone **grins** and I only yelled at the midwife twice.

After about two hours, though, there was more talk of a C-section. I hadn't made much progress in my pushing. I don't remember it, but my husband says that was when I really started pushing. I made more progress in the next 20 minutes than I had over the past two hours. Unfortunately, the baby's heartrate was starting to raise uncomfortably high with each contraction. There was again talk of an emergency C-section, when the midwife made a judgement call. She performed an episiotomy and got the baby out. I heard her cry, and it was the most beautiful sound I had ever heard. I had a daughter now.