Monday Memories: Baby E's Birth Story

Did I ever tell you about BABY E'S BIRTH STORY?

I wrote out AJ's and MM's birth stories while waiting for Baby E to be born, but I don't think I've ever shared the detailed story of Baby E's birth on my blog. Since she' now 9 months old, I'm thinking I should write it down before I forget too many more details.

So, Baby EA's birth story.



Here's a post giving a bit of information about the pregnancy itself and the surrounding circumstances.

I started having a lot of contractions 5 weeks before Baby E was due. Both of my other babies had been a week or two early, so we thought it was likely Baby E would be early too.

Since we were worried about going into labor 5 weeks early, I spent the first couple of weeks of contractions sitting down and taking it easy, which made them stay down to just a mildly annoying level at 1 to 4 contractions per hour. We went into the hospital several times to get checked, and I even went out and bought some preemie sized clothes because we were sure this baby was going to come early.

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Once we got past 37 weeks, I kept thinking and hoping I was going into labor. The contractions would be 10 minutes or 5 minutes--sometimes even 3 minutes--apart for several hours, and then quit. Some of them were hard enough that they made me want to double over or would wake me from a sound sleep.

After 6 weeks of this, I was becoming exhausted and was more than ready to have the baby. Baby E was about a week overdue by that point. We had been to the labor and delivery room thinking we were in labor several times, only to be sent home with no progress.

My midwife had been telling me for weeks that this baby was going to come any day and that when it happened it was going to be fast and easy.

My last baby was born 35 minutes after we got to the hospital and 12 minutes after the midwife arrived, so we were expecting something similar with this one. Especially since those 6 weeks of contractions and a couple of weeks of being 80% effaced and dilated to 3 made it seem my body was doing a lot of the work ahead of time.

The first time we went to L & D after several hours of contractions 3 minutes apart and fairly intense, the midwife was standing at the hospital door ready to catch the baby as I walked in, thinking labor would be going really fast. But nothing happened--just lots of ineffective contractions with no dilation and very little effacement.

All this early labor was really wearing me out, and DH had to be gone on business for a couple of weeks in 2 weeks, so we were really hoping Baby E would be born soon.

On Tuesday, August 2nd, I had a midwife appointment and had my membranes stripped, then we went home and tried several other home remedies to get labor going. Something must have worked, because in the early evening the contractions significantly intensified and changed in nature.

We got to the hospital Tuesday night with regular but not too painful contractions every 2-3 minutes, and the midwife said I'd made obvious progress since my appointment that afternoon. We walked around for a while (stopping for me to squat and breathe through the contractions), then checked into our room and DH rested while I walked around the room, rocked in the rocking chair, talked to God, and sat on the birthing ball, singing to myself and the baby between contractions.

All was so peaceful that I tried to take a nap, but even though the contractions were only moderately painful, I was too excited to rest. I couldn't wait to have my baby, and I was very pleased that the labor was going along so well.

After making good progress with very little pain in the first few hours, MW assured me that if she broke my water I'd be all done having my baby within an hour or two.

Of course, this is the same midwife that told me I was miscarrying this baby and had been telling me for weeks that I'd be in labor any day now, so I should have been a bit suspecting of her track record by this point. :)

At 2 a.m. my water broke on its own while the MW was literally holding the hook at the ready waiting to break it with the next contraction. This was the first time my water had broken before a baby was born (my other two were already coming out before it broke), so it was a new experience for me.

It all seemed rather fun and exciting, and I was relaxed and confident. Even though the contractions were intense enough that I couldn't walk or talk through them, I was managing them well and was expecting this labor to be an even better experience than the last one. I remember thinking, "Wow, my body just knows how to do this really well."

I was dilated to 5 at that point. The breaking of the water immediately intensified the contractions, and within a short time I was wanting to push, and being encouraged to go ahead and do it as gently as possible if I felt I must. We expected that would hurry things along and pop out the baby quickly.

By then I was no longer smiling or talking even between contractions. Everything was becoming a blur as I just tried to get through each contraction. It was intense and difficult, but I was working with my body well, asking for what I needed and trying different ways of managing the contractions as they intensified. I spent quite a bit of time in and out of the jacuzzi and on the toilet and birthing ball.

By 6 a.m. I'd been pushing with growing pain and intensity for 4 hours. The baby was putting a lot of pressure on my tailbone (which I broke as a teen and again during the birth of my first child), and that hurt. Every time I'd complain about it, the MW would tell me that was good (!!!) because it meant the baby was descending. I didn't want to be told it was good, I wanted sympathy! It hurt! Grrr, people! I was worried something was wrong, though, so I guess the midwife's assurances were probably helpful.

The MW checked at 6 a.m. to see if I was about ready to deliver. Labor had gotten so intense that we all thought the baby would be crowning at any moment. The midwife checked me, getting ready to catch the baby.

I was, ta-da! still dilated to 5. No progress whatsoever.

I think I burst into tears at that point--the first of many times during the process. The MW said that my contractions were intense, but weren't lasting long enough to be effective. I was in the transition stage of labor, but not progressing. After quite some time of this, she felt that they needed to give me pitocin to help the contractions get the baby out.

I pushed for a while longer, hoping to see progress, but still there was none. So finally I agreed to the pitocin.

At 7:30 they started me on pitocin. MW assured me it wouldn't make the contractions more painful or intense, just longer.

Who did she think she was kidding??? The contractions got a lot more intense and hurt a lot more than I thought was possible, with fewer and fewer breaks between them.

I kept saying, "Aren't these contractions hard enough yet????" and they just kept pumping more pitocin into me. They gave me some kind of IV painkiller (I think a narcotic) at some point, that was supposed to last for an hour, but it accomplished diddleysquat.

After a couple of hours of that, I think I was dilated to 6. Still not progressing well. So they kept upping the pitocin.

By that time I was ready to quit and go home. I just knew I couldn't do this. I didn't want to have a baby any more and I informed DH that if he wanted any more children we were definitely adopting.

I told the midwife that I wanted to make it all stop, and sleep for a few hours before trying to have the baby. I begged them to stop the pitocin and they said they couldn't. But of course there was no way to make labor stop. The contractions kept coming and I kept pushing. Of course, even though I said and felt that I wanted to give up, I didn't really mean it. I kept working to get that baby out.

The baby's heartbeat started taking longer to recover to normal speed after contractions. I was afraid we were going to end up with a C-section, and I was scared. I was really worried about the baby--that she would be hurt in delivery or that I wasn't going to be able to get her out of my body.

Something was really wrong, and nobody knew what it was--just that the baby wasn't descending and we were making very little progress. Something was wrong with the angle of the baby, the midwife thought. Knowing that something wasn't right, but not knowing what it was or how to fix it, was frightening.

I was shaking so hard my teeth were chattering and had lost all muscle strength by that point. I was really too tired to push and I couldn't even lift myself up on my arms and legs to change position. My arms and legs just wouldn't hold me. DH, a nurse and a midwife had to bodily pick me up and move me every time they needed me to change position. That resulted in the heparin lock catheter getting bumped and pulled on a lot, which really hurt. It made a bruise there that lasted for weeks.

I had made it through a very long and difficult labor with my first baby and no drugs with either baby, but this was a whole different ballgame. All those hours of pushing were taking a toll.

At the suggestion of the midwife and after some persuasion from DH, I opted for an epidural. That was scary for me--something I'd thought I'd never, ever do because I have a mild spinal defect and a history of back problems, so I was worried that the nerves might not be in predictable places in my spine. Plus, I really just wanted to have a natural labor with no interventions, like I had with my first two babies (one very long/difficult and one much easier). But the anesthesiologist did a great job.

Actually, there were two anesthesiologists I think.

It's all a bit blurry, but I think there were a lot of people in the room at that point--two midwives (they were changing shifts), at least three nurses, two anesthesiologists, DH and I think one or two other people floating around. I really didn't care much by then who was watching me groan and cry.

The second midwife was asking DH and the nurses if the intensity of labor was something new. She thought surely it must have changed recently since it seemed I was in transition and ready to push the baby out any moment. They had to tell her that no, this had been going on like that for the past several hours. Ugh.

After another 30 minutes or so, the epidural finally started to take effect. Oh, the blessed relief! It didn't make the pain go away (I had thought it would), but it made the contractions so much more bearable and gave me a rest from the urge to push. I was ready to grant some kind of award to whoever invented epidurals and the technician who inserted mine. Just being able to rest without that overwhelming urge to push was heavenly.

While the epidural was working relatively well, DH got on his laptop to check work e-mail, etc, so I had him post an update on my blog. He also e-mailed the church and asked them to put us on their prayer chain, since the labor was not progressing well. It helped a lot to know that people were praying for us.

DH went out to the car to get something. While he was gone my dad called our room to see how we were, sure we must have had the baby by then. By that point labor was getting so intense that even with the epidural the contractions were getting difficult to manage again. I answered the phone and blubbered to my dad that we were STILL in labor, then had to hang up when the next contraction hit.

At 9:30, two hours after getting the epidural, I started pushing again in earnest. Hard, hard holding-breath pushing, trying to fit 3 or 4 big pushes into each contraction with 30-second breaks to breathe. I was so exhausted by that time I was having a hard time mustering the strength to push at all.

I kept asking the midwife if we were making any progress at all, and she kept assuring me that we were--but to push harder. I was so scared and exhausted by then that I didn't think the baby was ever going to come out, but I kept trying. I thought that no wonder sometimes people need C-sections or even die in childbirth. I prayed a lot, begging God to help me, to get the baby out, to let her be okay. I knew others were praying too, and that helped.

I'd hold my breath and push as hard as I could, and the baby would move down maybe 1/16th of an inch with every 4 brain-exploding pushes. DH and the midwife and nurses worked tirelessly to help me, trying different angles, trying to get me up onto my feet to help gravity bring the baby down, holding me while I struggled. My legs wouldn't hold me, so DH and the midwife together held me up at an angle for a while to try to get Baby E to come down. All I could do was push, and push some more.

The pressure was so intense, as well as the pain from the contractions. Then the midwife did something that allowed some of the meconium behind the baby to escape, and that helped a lot. I remember telling her it felt so good to relieve some of the pressure.

At some point the phone started ringing again, and I yelled out, "Nobody's home!" and then went into another contraction. Nobody answered the phone and eventually it stopped ringing.

They all kept telling me that I was doing a good job and encouraging me to keep pushing, and to push harder and longer, and not to give up. I didn't think I could keep going, but somehow I did. One minute at a time, for about a hundred minutes.

It took well over an hour and a half more of extremely hard pushing before the baby came out--with her left fist next to her right cheek, so her arm came out with her head. That's what had made the labor so difficult--her arm and fist across her neck and next to the opposite side of her head made the angle of her head all wrong.

She looked so strange coming out. DH and I thought she had a broken arm or some kind of wierd deformity. But then the midwife reached down and pulled her arm out, so her head and one shoulder were out, and her arm was sticking straight up over her head. She looked like a baby then. We could immediately see her huge, chubby cheeks and her open, alert eyes. The midwife said, laughing, "Look at those cheeks! That must have been what was holding her up."

With the next push, the midwife helped pull Baby E out and laid her on my chest.

I burst into tears. It was the most intense rush of emotion I've ever experienced. The pain, fatigue and fear had been so intense. I was so glad it was over, that I had my baby, and that she was okay. I kept asking if she was all right, and they said she was.

"My baby. My baby. She's beautiful. Oh, I love her. My baby. She's here. Give her to me. I want her. I want her now! Oh, my baby. Thank you, God. Thank you. Hi, Baby girl. I love you."

Baby E was born at 12:20 p.m. on Wednesday, August 3, 2006, after 6 weeks of early labor, about 24 hours after the active labor finally started progressing, and 10 1/2 hours after I went into transition and started pushing.

She was so big and chubby, and so healthy-looking. She'd pooped before she was born, but after the water broke. So there was no meconium in her lungs--it was all trapped behind her. The midwife kept exclaiming about how big she was and how chubby her cheeks were, and she and DH were hefting her and guessing how much she weighed as they handed her to me. She laid on my belly, with a towel draped over her, and pooped all over both of us.

I was still shaking violently for the next hour or so, and I could barely move for a long time, but all I wanted to do was hold my baby. I was so glad it was over. I couldn't get over how good it felt to have her in my arms. She was so much bigger and chubbier than my first two babies had been (they were about 2 lbs. lighter) and she looked and felt so much different to hold. It seemed strange to me at first, but she was delicious to hold.

Finally I let them take her and weigh her, wipe her off a bit and put a diaper on her. After pooping twice, she was 8 lbs 13 ounces. I'm sure she was 9 lbs. before that, LOL. She gained weight even before we left the hospital (as all my babies have), and by her 4-day-old appointment she was 9 lbs. 1 oz.



We held her and took pictures, and rested a while before family and friends started coming to see her. Baby E was so amazingly calm and alert, making eye contact and giving us little half-smiles right after she was born. Her sisters loved her and were so excited to see us both when they got to visit.

Amazingly enough, neither Baby E nor I were injured. I didn't need stitches, and she didn't have a broken shoulder or collarbone (likely with her birth position) or even a misshapen head. It did take me a full 24 hours before I could sit up or walk without help, and recovering from the epidural and the sheer exhaustion was a bit difficult. All in all, though, it was a pretty easy recovery--especially since this time around I knew to rest a lot and not overexert myself for the first few weeks.

The midwives told me that I did have an unusually long, hard labor. It was definitely the hardest thing I've ever done.

We narrowly escaped needing a C-section. In fact, the MW said if I'd had a regular doctor or any care provider less averse to intervention, I would have certainly ended up with a C-section. I was disappointed that we ended up needing pitocin and an epidural, but I'd rather have that than a C-section. Not that a C-section would be the end of the world either. I was glad to avoid one, but any birth experience that ends up with a healthy baby and mommy is a good thing.

Baby E's name means "consecrated to God". We're so thankful for her. I really believe that God protected us both from injury during her birth, because one or both of us "should" have had more complications than we did given the circumstances.

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