My Birth Story Part 2

If you have not read My Birth Story Part 1, go back and read it before continuing. Sit back, relax, and grab a cocktail. This is a long one.

Finally, at 3:00 pm on Friday, a labor room becomes available. Chance and I walk down the hallway to the very last room on the Labor and Delivery floor. He places our bags down, and I look around the room and take a deep breath. The room is of decent size with a large couch that pulls out to a twin-size bed for Chance, a TV at the opposite end of the room, a fridge, and a large bathroom. As I glance across the room, I see the infant warmer, and I immediately become anxious. That very moment is when I realized I will have to push a watermelon out of me; it just didn’t seem real. 

Since I was not in active labor, the doctor had to start the induction process. I was given Misoprostol orally. This drug is given to help soften the cervix, and it can take several doses to ripen the cervix for labor. I received my first dose at about 3:45 pm. I was anxious to get my labor started, so I found myself bouncing on a yoga ball, thinking this would help speed up the process.

7:00 pm Friday, December 10th, shift change. My night nurse came in and introduced herself. She also gave me my second dose of Miso. We got to talking, and it turned out she was a travel nurse from North Florida who had been working as a Labor and Delivery nurse for a while. We exchanged additional comments, and she was off to check on her other laboring moms.

At 11:00 pm on Friday, December 10th, my nurse comes back into the room with my third dose of Miso. She does a pelvic exam and finds no change. As she exits my room, she dims the lights and says, “get some rest honey, this may take awhile.”

At 2:00 am on Saturday, December 11th, my nurse returns, this time with the doctor and also my fourth dose of Miso. My doctor does a pelvic exam and finds that I am 2cm dilated and about 70% effaced. She looks at my nurse and asks, “have you started Pitocin?” My nurse replies, “no, we haven’t.” Ya’ll… If looks could kill, my nurse would have been taken out by my doctor. In that moment, I started to question my labor process. I knew that as a first-time mom, labor can take some time, but I was already approaching 24 hours.

The doctor and nurse left my room. I heard them speaking right outside my door. About 5 minutes later, my nurse comes in with a bag of Pitocin. She warns me that the plan is to start the Pitocin slowly, but eventually kick up the dosage to help my labor progress. She tells me to get some rest and leaves the room. I heed her advice and try to get some sleep, but I am not very successful.

7:00 am on Saturday, December 11th, shift change. A new nurse walks in and introduces herself. At this point, the Pitocin has kicked in and the contractions are starting to get painful. We exchange small talk, and then she leaves my room. I start to get antsy and grab my IV pole, I ask Chance to walk up and down the hallways with me. We do this for 30 minutes. My contractions are getting more painful as they have been steadily increasing the dosage of Pitocin.

11:00 am Saturday, December 11th. I’m tired and hungry. It’s been over 24 hours. My doctor comes in with my nurse. She does a pelvic exam. I’m 3cm dilated and 100% effaced. I am in pain. I ask for an epidural. My sweet nurse sits down next to my bed and goes over the pros and cons of getting an epidural this early in the labor process. She told me it can stall my labor since I would be bedridden. She suggests Fentanyl for pain management.

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch thinking, “Oh my gosh, why would you take this drug while pregnant!!” First, mind ya’ business. Second, don’t come at me unless you have experienced labor pain. Thirdly, I was in a hospital, under professional medical supervision. I was assured by my doctor and nurse that it was safe, and that they would be monitoring the baby closely. Plus, it was a very small dose.

They administered the fentanyl via my IV. It didn’t take long for it to kick in. I felt woozy, like I was drunk. I remember telling my nurse, “Woah, this feels weird. I need to sit down. I have never had a narcotic before.” It definitely took the edge off, and the contractions were manageable. She increased my Pitocin.

The fentanyl didn’t last long, about an hour and a half. As it wore off, I could feel the intensity of the contractions coming back. I was tired. I just wanted a break. I pressed the call button in my room and requested an epidural. I was only 3cm dilated.

4:00pm Saturday, December 11th. The anesthesiologist walks in and introduces himself. He reviews the risks/side effects of the epidural with me. I signed the paperwork. He prepares my back, and my nurse places the blood pressure cuff on my arm (epidurals can tank your blood pressure, so it is important they monitor it). As he is preparing my back to place the epidural, my husband decides to throw a bombshell of a fact on the poor anesthesiologist. “Oh, just wanted to let you know, she tends to pass out when she gets her blood drawn,” Chance says. “Oh gosh really..?” he replied. As if it isn’t already hard enough to place a needle in someone's back, now he has to be thinking, ‘This lady is going to hit the floor with a 3.5-inch hollow needle in her back’. It was not bad at all. I could definitely feel pressure, but once the epidural was in and I was completely numb, they increased my Pitocin again. For the next couple of hours, I took some short catnaps, watched some movies, and occasionally asked my nurse to reposition me.

2:00 am Sunday, December 12th. My nurse comes in to do a pelvic exam. I am 4cm dilated. The disappointment was real. She also tells me that she feels a second bag of fluid. My mouth hit the floor, “I’m sorry… what? There better not be twins.” She laughed and proceeded to tell me that it is common. She explained that she was going to have my doctor come in and examine me, she just had to call her. (Since my labor was over the weekend, the doctor was "on call," meaning she was working all weekend long but would go home on occasion and come back to the hospital as needed.)

3:15 am Sunday, December 12th. My doctor walks in with my nurse. I already know she wants to do ANOTHER pelvic exam. She starts to feel around and can feel the second amniotic sac when all of a sudden there is a loud pop and fluid goes everywhere - my water had broken. It was like a water balloon had burst all over her. It was so loud it woke Chance up from a dead sleep. I immediately apologized. She shrugged her shoulders, laughed, and went off to take a shower.

The secondary bag of fluid was preventing Maverick's head from engaging my cervix and not allowing my water to fully break, which is why I was slowly leaking amniotic fluid. Since both sacs were fully broken, I progressed fast. I went from 4cm to 7cm very quickly. Over the next few hours, I started to feel the pain of my contractions. I asked for anesthesia to come in a few times for a bolus, which is a single dose of pain medication all at once pushed through my IV. Think of it as me getting topped off with pain meds.

9:45 am Sunday, December 12th. My doctor comes in with my nurse doing her rounds. By this time, I am in a decent amount of pain (little did I know my epidural was failing). I am primarily feeling the contractions and pressure in my back. She checks me and tells me I am 8cm dilated, but Maverick is in the Occiput Posterior Position, meaning Maverick’s head was down but facing my front instead of my back. This would explain my intense back pain. It is safe to deliver a baby this way. However, it can be harder for the baby to get through the pelvis and can cause perineal tearing.

Due to this, my doctor suggested she turn him in utero. Keep in mind, my epidural had failed, and I was experiencing full-blown labor contractions at 8cm. In comes two more nurses. One was pushing an ultrasound machine to use once the "procedure" was complete to make sure Maverick was in the correct position.

My doctor looks at me and lets me know this will be painful and uncomfortable. "If at any point it becomes unbearable, just tell me to stop," she said. She shoves her entire arm up into my uterus, grabs Maverick by the back of the shoulders, and starts to turn him. During this, I am gripping the hospital bed and my mother-in-law's hand, tears streaming down my face, wincing in pain (I did not want to scream and be "that mom"). Chance walked away as he could not stand there and watch. It became unbearable. "Stop, stop!! Please stop!!" I said. She removed her hand and looked at the ultrasound machine. It worked, she had successfully turned him. She saw the amount of pain I was in and said she would get anesthesia to check my epidural. Since I was in an immense amount of pain and progressing well, she told my nurse to turn off the Pitocin as I should be ready to start pushing soon. She explained that she had to go do a C-Section and that she would be back after to check on me.

11:45 am Sunday, December 12th. Anesthesia never came to check my epidural. Every time I asked where they were, I was told they were in surgery or with another patient and would be here soon. Too late. My doctor walks in to check on me. She sits down at the foot of my bed and does a pelvic exam thinking I'll be 10cm and ready to push. The expression on her face looks concerning. "Hmm, it appears you have regressed and have gone down to 7cm," she said. All I can think is, WHAT THE HELL, is that even possible. I don't know what came over me, but I looked at her dead in the face and said, "cut him out of me!"

Come back next week for Part 3!

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