Experiments in Life

Well, between the sleepless nights, the bottle washing, and the baby crying, I have not had the time nor the desire to really post much lately. However, it appears that things may be finally calming down some. Little Emily may finally be adjusting to life outside the womb.

I actually started this post a few weeks ago but am just now getting to finish it up and publish it. Emily is now 8 weeks old, better late than never right

As you can see from the title of this post, I am going to capture Emily’s first few moments in the world and what it took to get her here. Many of you may not care to read what I am about to write, but that is okay. I guess this post is more for me than for anyone else. I want to write about it before I forget it all. It is a story not for the feint of heart, so if you are expecting or don’t enjoy labor and delivery stories, I’d skip this one.

Here is my labor story…

After staying put for two weeks longer than expected, my doctor finally told me it was time to induce. We arrived at the hospital on Sunday, June 10 at around 7 PM or so. We checked in and then got settled in for the night. The nurse started hooking me up to all the monitors while another nurse put in a heplock so that if they needed to put in an I.V. later, the hard part would already be done. It took two tries, but she finally found a place on the side of my arm. The labor nurse for the eveing then checked me. She announced that I was only 4 cm dilated and the baby was at -1 station. She informed me that my doctor would be up soon in order to break my water. I was a little disappointed that I was not dilated any further than when my doctor checked me last, but I dealt with it.

My doctor arrived within half an hour. Apparently I was not the only patient who needed their water broken. She came in and checked me and announced that I was actually 6 cm dilated and the baby was at +3 station, meaning that the head was so low, she couldn’t get around her to break my water. At this point, I begin seriously questioning my labor nurse’s abilities. Since she couldn’t break my water, we decided to let me labor through the night and see what happened. We were all hoping that it would not be long. Alas, that was not to be.

As the night went on, my contractions became more and more painful. At this point, I was still trying to go as natural as possible for as long as possible. My doula was not there yet seeing as I was still handling things on my own well enough. Jonathan was extremely supportive as things began to unfold. He would talk to me and hold my hand and tell me he loved me. Unfortunately, the nurse decided we needed to push I.V. fluids because Emily’s heartrate was not “assuring” enough. However, once she started pushing fluids, the I.V. started leaking horribly. I think I wore most of that first bag of fluids, so she had to redo it. This was my third I.V. attempt, I began to worry that this may not be a good omen. Once the fluids got going though, Emily’s heartrate was great. The contractions were getting intense now but the nurse kept telling me that I had not yet gotten into a good contraction pattern. I think I asked her about it every time she came to check on me, and every time the answer was the same. I just wanted to cry because the pain was starting to get to me and I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to handle much more.

As the night wore on, the pain got worse. It wasn’t so much the pain that I wasn’t able to deal with, it was the lack of sleep. I could hardly lay down comfortably because of Emily’s position. I pretty much had to stay in an upright position all night. Finally, Jonathan laid down to get some much needed rest and fell asleep. I had to ask the nurse for something to help me sleep. She gave me half a dose of nubain. It dulled the pain just enough for me to doze in between the contractions, but I woke up each time I had one, so there was no rest for the weary.

About six or seven that morning, I realized I needed help so we called my doula and told her to come on. Then things seemed to slack off a bit and we called her back and told her she didn’t have to rush. Not long after that, the shift changed and my new labor nurse came in and introduced herself. She was great. She checked me and I had only progressed 1 cm during the night. This was not good, after ~12 hours of labor, only 1 cm progression called for more drastic measures. My doctor came in and we had no choice but to start the pitocin. We agreed to start with the smallest dose possible to see if that would kickstart my labor. That’s when we called our doula to come in soon.

As the pitocin began to work, it didn’t seem all that bad at first. However, after a couple of hours, my coping skills were down to zero, even with the help of my doula. The pain finally began to get to me. I could no longer deal with it. And the worst part was that I still had not progressed and the pitocin dosage needed to be increased. At the lowest dosage, my contractions had begun to last for about 5 min. with a break of about a minute between each contraction. At this point, I wanted something for the pain. My doctor recommended an epidural for the pain. She said I could get a full dose of nubain but it wouldn’t help with the pain, I just wouldn’t care as much. The other drug options were not her first choice since they could have adverse effects on the baby. So, I chose an epidural.

I began to lose it soon after that decision was made. We could only hope that the anasteasiologist would appear soon. He finally made it not long after we called for him. Unfortunately he was in demand and everyone wanted him at the same time. Of course, it is almost impossible to bend over when you are having a contraction. I could not bend my back at all because it increased the pain so much. Finally, he managed to get it in. They laid me down and I started to lose it again. Laying down increased the already painful contractions exponentially. As I lay there trying to deal with the pain, I formed a blood clot at the epidural site and it would no longer work. We had to do it again. So, they sat me up again and the doctor started all over again. At this point, his pager was going off continuously. So much so that my labor nurse finally answered it for him. Then he got flustered and knocked over an entire epidural tray. The second epidural did not take either because the space was too tight, there was no room for the catheter to be threaded in. So, the third try is a charm right? That one finally took, however, it didn’t go in as far as he would have liked it to. But by this point, I had a couple of test doses of medication in me and it wasn’t so bad by the third try. Once the epidural kicked in, I was a new person.

For a procedure that normally takes just a few minutes, it took me an hour to get an epidural. Immediately after I was seriously numb and comfortable, I was checked and was at 9 cm and +4 station. Within an hour, I was at 10 cm and Emily was still at +4 station. It was time to push, unfortunately, my contractions started to die down at this point and I could no longer feel them. So the pitocin was turned up. The nurse would tell me when to push and I did. My doctor and everyone else said that I shouldn’t have to push for more than 30 min. or so since Emily was practically here. Unfortunately, that also did not happen.

I pushed for about 3 hours, and still no Emily. I had pushed in every position imaginable, which is very difficult when you are numb from the waist down. I was exhausted and felt like I had nothing left to give. I just could not get Emily’s head to drop anymore. She was essentially stuck. My doctor arrived and announced that we had to get this baby out and that I only had a couple of pushes to do so. I knew that if I didn’t get her out now, I would be in surgery very soon. The doctor had to use the vacuum to get Emily’s head out. I also ended up with a third degree laceration. Apparently I am really good at carrying babies, just not so good at delivering them. Emily was finally born late that afternoon, after 22 hours of labor. Twenty-two hours is a very, very long time. It would be a couple of days before we found out that Emily’s collar bone was broken as a result of the hard labor and delivery. This poor child had quite an entry into the world.

I remember feeling this enormous sense of relief as my child was born into the world. Hearing her first cry was amazing. I now understand why women cry after delivering a baby. It’s relief as much as it is happiness and elation. I was a bit worried though as I heard them call down a couple of NICU nurses. Apparently Emily was grunting which can be a sign of respiratory problems, especially after she had been in the birth canal for so long. But they dubbed her healthy and left soon after checking her out. I remember watching Jonathan hold her for the first time. There are no words to describe it. I tried to burn that image into my brain so that I never forget it. So far, I haven’t. So many of the events towards the end of my labor are a blur to me. I am surprised that I have remembered this much and how clearly I do recall it.

Although my labor and delivery experience was less than pleasant, it was my experience. It was the experience I was meant to have. My attitude afterwards was, “it was what it was and there is no reason to dwell on what went wrong.” I am not disappointed with how things went. It just showed me what I could take and what I couldn’t. I think I am a stronger person for the way the series of events unfolded. Would I have been happy had things gone better? Sure I would, but I wouldn’t change anything. I got out of this experience what I wanted, a healthy baby.

So, Emily, even though you have been in the world for a little while and our hearts even longer, welcome to our family!

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 9th, 2007 at 10:12 am and is filed under Family Matters, Reflections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.