September 2011

I tried to write down every single detail of Caroline’s birth for Jeromy and I to remember as soon as we were home from the hospital.  The result?  4 typed pages outlining the story of Caroline’s birth.  I’m not going to make you read all of that I’m going to give you the short, yet still informative, version.

As I’ve mentioned before, we did not write a birth plan.  We expected that Caroline would arrive when she was ready.  Except that she didn’t arrive on her due date.  She didn’t arrive the day after either.  Or the next day.  We knew from the very beginning of my pregnancy that my doctor would not let me go more than a week overdue.  And let’s be honest, by the last trimester, I was done being pregnant.  I absolutely loved pregnancy but I was uncomfortable and ready to meet our baby girl.  So we went in for an induction on Tuesday, August 9. 

I was really torn about being induced—my husband can tell you how many times I went back and forth about if it was a good idea or not.  But at the end of the day it didn’t matter to us how Caroline arrived, we just wanted her and I to be healthy.  And that’s exactly what happened.

Here is what we expected to happen: check in to the hospital. Receive cervidil.  Sleep through the night.  Start pitocin early in the morning.  Labor through the morning, receive the epidural at some point.  Start pushing in the afternoon, have a baby by dinnertime.  That’s what we thought would happen.  That’s not what happened.

Once we checked in, we were brought to labor and delivery room 7 and started to get settled in for the night.  It was such a surreal feeling to know that we were going to meet our baby girl in the next 24 hours.  Our lives were about to change completely and forever.  It’s no wonder I had a little trouble sleeping  

At 9:11 pm, the doctor began my induction by giving me cervidil.  In order to let the medication do it’s job, I couldn’t get out of bed for 2 hours.  I was also starting to panic a bit about the whole labor and delivery thing.  I had been having contractions off and on so I knew how they felt, but what scared me what the idea of pushing.  And the epidural.  Luckily, I have friends that have recently given birth and during the two hours that I was confined to my bed I received two amazing pep talks.  One of my friends told me that the most painful part of the entire thing was the IV stick at the very beginning, which helped to set my expectations.  The other compared labor and delivery to running a race, which I’ve done many times before.  Thinking of it in those terms helped a lot. 

Once I was allowed out of bed, I ate a Greek salad and a piece of chocolate cake.  Jeromy and I watched Family Guy and got ready to go to sleep for the night around 12:30.  But I was far too awake to get any sleep.  At 1 am, I took a half dose of Ambien, hoping that would help me sleep.  It didn’t.  The nurse then offered to give me another drug that would make me relax enough that I would be able to sleep, even through contractions.  That did the trick.   Around 3:30ish the nurse came in to check on me and saw that the cervidil had done it’s job, but it also sent me into active labor.  The doctor had told us that could happen and I was thrilled—it meant that I wouldn’t need to receive any pitocin.  My body would take care of dilation itself—woo hoo! 

At this point the contractions were there but still very manageable.  I was even able to sleep for about an hour.  Then around 4:20, my water broke.  And the contractions became a lot more intense.  I tried to relax and breathe through them as best I could.  Jeromy massaged my back and helped me get through them.  Around 5:30 am, I asked for the epidural.  It was administered at 6:30 and life became exponentially better.  At the time I received the epidural, the contractions were so intense that they brought me to tears.

After the epidural, my blood pressure and the baby’s, dropped suddenly.  The nurse told me this was a common side effect of the epidural and they gave me some medicine in my IV to bring it back up.  Luckily, that worked and both of us were fine.  One thing I did not expect to happen was that when I received the epidural they also placed a catheter, which was removed when I started pushing. Then, Jeromy and I went back to sleep for almost 3 hours.  During that time I dilated from 3 centimeters to 10.  When the doctor came in to check me at 9:30, he told me I was ready to push.  Jeromy and I called our parents to let them know to come to the hospital—the baby would be here soon.

At this point, we were being taken care of by our labor and delivery nurse that would stay with us until the end.  Her name was Kia and she was a Godsend.  Between her and Jeromy, I had all of the support I needed.  She went over how to push, which was different from how we had learned in Lamaze class and much more effective {we tried both ways to be sure}. 

At 10:20, my contractions were 2 minutes apart and we started pushing.  Every 2 minutes I would push for 30 seconds—not a lot of time to rest in between.   I was able to move my legs and feel pressure with the epidural, which was fantastic.  I knew when a contraction was starting and could lift my legs into position without having to feel pain.  It was exactly how I had hoped the epidural would take effect.  After an hour, we took a break—I needed a rest and I was feeling nauseous.  Kia propped me up so I was sitting up straight and could allow gravity to do it’s thing during contractions.  She stepped out of the room and said she’d be back in 30 minutes to resume pushing, leaving Jeromy and I alone.  Then I threw up.  Twice.  Poor Jeromy had to deal with that, I felt terrible.

What was Jeromy doing this whole time?  He was holding one of my legs up, the nurse had the other, he was counting to 10 three times when I was pushing, he was supporting my neck when I was pushing, giving me ice chips, ice water, mints, cold wash cloths, basically anything to make me more comfortable.  He was also being the DJ and alternating between the Dave Matthews Band, Live at Fenway Park CDs and James Taylor’s Greatest Hits and sending out updates to family and friends.  He was one busy guy and I could not have done any of it without him.

Kia came back in just before 11 am and we started pushing again.  Periodically the doctor would come in and check me to see how I was progressing.  I didn’t think they’d let me push for more than 2 hours, but the baby was fine and I didn’t want to stop, so we kept going.  After 3 hours, the doctor said we could use forceps if I was getting tired and wanted some help.  If we used forceps, she’d be out in one push.  I said I was okay with them preparing to use forceps, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to just yet.  After 3 and a half hours, I saw the forceps.  And I said no thank you. 

I have no idea where the energy was coming from to keep going, but I was determined to get the baby out myself.  And for some reason, 4 hours seemed to be a good deadline.  So I kept pushing.  Kia had explained to us that pushing was a lot of two steps forward and one step back until the baby’s head was past the pubic bone—the baby can’t go back at that point.  At 3 and a half hours of pushing, the baby was past the pubic bone and I knew I could get her the rest of the way.

At 3 hours and 45 minutes, things really started to move.  The room was set for delivery, the baby’s bassinette was all set up and it was time to get her out.  Kia told us that as soon as she was born she would put her on my chest and rub her vigorously with a towel to get her to cry.  She didn’t want us to be alarmed by the vigor with which she would be rubbing the baby.  I looked at Jeromy and told him to remember that even at almost 4 hours of pushing, I was still smiling. 

I don’t remember how many more pushes it took, but shortly after the doctor told me to reach down and feel the baby’s head.  I didn’t.  I was afraid I would lose my concentration and I didn’t want to get distracted.  During the next two pushes, I felt every little bit of the baby’s body come out of mine.  It was incredible.  A sensation I hope I never forget.  It wasn’t painful, thanks to the epidural, but I know what it feels like to give birth.  And it was amazing.

As the baby was born, Jeromy had Sweet Caroline playing.  It was the perfect way for our sweet Caroline to enter the world.  The doctor put her on my chest and Kia rubbed her vigorously to get her to cry but she just started breathing without crying.  I, on the other hand, started crying I was so happy and relieved that our baby girl had arrived safe and sound; it was an overwhelming moment.  I didn’t even care that she was covered in gunk, I kissed my daughter and wished her a Happy Birth Day as Jeromy cut the umbilical cord then they took her away to the other side of the room to clean her up.  Jeromy went with her to get pictures while the doctor took care of me {I had a second degree tear that needed to be stitched up}.  After about 5 minutes, I had my girl back in my arms.

All in all, the entire experience was not at all what I expected.  I thought it would be massively painful, incredibly disgusting and somewhat chaotic.  Instead, it was a peaceful experience that I will never forget.  Jeromy and I thank our lucky stars that we had an uneventful pregnancy and uneventful birth.  It was so much better than I ever could have hoped for, despite the fact that I was pushing for four hours. 

At 2:56 pm on August 10, 2011, the center of my world changed. 

How sweet it is.

Do you have anything you’re dying to know about Caroline’s birth?  Let me know in the comments or send me an e-mail, thesplatteredapron@gmail.com and I’ll answer in a future post!

All photos in this post are from LinDC Photography.

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