Jack's Birth
Our birth story starts 2am Thursday, December 27th (our EDD was 12-
26). I woke up at 2am with excruciating back pain. Jack had jammed
his foot up into my ribs and the pain was radiating into my back. It
hurt intensely to lie down, so I tried to sleep in our glider or on a
birthing ball resting my head on the bed. Our OB worked us in that
next day and prescribed some pain meds so I could sleep. My mom drove
up from Florida thinking we were getting close. Even with the pain
meds, I could not lie down. I worked on turning Jack and getting his
foot out of my ribs using a modified "belly lift" from Back Labor No
More and the pain stopped being so acute and it only really hurt when
I laid down.
On Friday, the 28th, at 10:30pm, I had my first wave. From that point
on, they were around 3 minutes apart for a minute each. The
Hypnobabies tools worked well, and the waves were intense enough that
I needed to use them. My husband, Cory would stand with me and I
would wrap my arms around his neck and go as limp as I could. He
would whisper the most wonderful and encouraging things to me through
each wave. I started working on brownies for our nurses with
excitement. Our OB said to call when we had waves that were about a
minute in length, 3 minutes apart for 2 hours. We called and the on-
call OB said to go to L&D. We got to the hospital around 1:30am and
found out I was only 2 cm dilated and 80% effaced, so we headed back
home.
We spent the next few hours with the same pattern… 3 minutes apart, 1
minute long. We slow danced and Cory helped me focus through the
waves. I threw up close to 5 am and decided it was time to go back.
They checked me again at triage and I was still only at 2 cm dilated
80% effaced, but Jack's heart rate was decelerating and the OB wanted
me to check in. I lost my mucus plug in triage and we moved on to an
L&D room.
Once I got in a bed, I was able to focus and felt calm and in control
of each wave. I listened to Easy First Stage repeatedly, and found it
helpful in keeping me calm and focused. The waves were easy to manage
in such a state and I stayed relaxed, even though many of them would
show on the monitor to be quite intense. Cory was so wonderfully
supportive and sweet, as was my Mom. We never saw the on-call OB and
were less than thrilled with our nurse. She was condescending and
gave me an incredibly painful hep-lock and two especially
uncomfortable checks of my cervix (which included scraping me with
long fingernails!!!), but had no problem taking my brownies with no
gratitude. After about 6 hours in our L&D room of waves 3 minutes
apart, I was dilated only to 3cm. The nurse made it clear that if I
did not start progressing at a better rate, they would send me home.
In hindsight, it must not have seemed that the waves were very
intense due to my calm way of handling them. Mom said that in our
family it was typical to take a while to get to 5cm dilated and then
NO TIME to get to 10cm. I made it clear that I did not want to be
admitted in the first place but that the on-call OB asked us to be
admitted, and that I did not want to go home after getting situated
at the hospital. Cory and I walked the halls a bit and our rude nurse
found us and told us the on-call OB was on the phone. He was
incredibly rude to me, talking to me as though waves 3 minutes apart
for more than 16 hours was in my head… even though I had been
attached to a monitor (by choice) for hours to show what my progress
was. He told me that I was not in labor, but that this was false
labor and that it could go on like this for weeks (even though I was
4 days past my estimated due date). He defined labor as dilating 1 cm
per hour. By this definition, I was NEVER in labor. I was insulted
and all the coming and going made it harder to use my tools. I broke
down crying, got dressed, and left.
We made it home, but I did not handle the change well. I felt
completely let down being sent home after so much time in the
hospital. I was already so sleep deprived and now felt that no one
had any faith that this baby would ever come. I pouted, cried, and
did not use my tools at all. I can honestly say that it
became "labor" and was very painful and emotional when I chose not to
use the techniques I had spent more than three months practicing. We
hunkered down for a long night. We tried to sleep, but what little we
got was interrupted every 3 minutes. There were some waves that were
so hard… one in particular where I fell into Cory's arms and just
sobbed. It was so hard and I felt so overwhelmed and defeated.
Cory and I tried to decide when to go back to the hospital. I was
worried that I would find, after so many more hours of intense waves
3 minutes apart, that I was still only 3cm dilated. At 4am (December
30), I just felt it was time. The waves were getting even more
intense. We decided that if I was still only dilated 4cm, I would opt
for the epidural as I was just so sleep deprived and worn out from 29
hours, at this point, of waves 3 minutes apart.
We arrived at the hospital for the 3rd time. I was so nervous that I
would hear that after hours of struggle I was still dilated only 3cm.
I left my 3rd urine sample and as soon as I got my undies off, my
water broke. I wasn't sure that it was really amniotic fluid, but I
had just used the restroom and was pretty sure it wasn't urine. We
told her of our experience with the on-call OB and she told us,
regrettably, that he was on call until Monday. I started to cry. She
was a sweetie and said with a lot of energy, after the test confirmed
that my water had broken, that we were having a baby today! I tried
to get excited about that and looked forward to meeting our little
guy. I was still only 4cm dilated, but was encouraged that my water
had finally broken.
In the new L&D room, we liked our nurse much better, though when she
put in my second hep-lock it was much like the SNL skit with Dan
Ackroyd playing Julia Child spurting blood all over a turkey. We
thought the nurse, who was a midwife from Belize, was a good omen
that things would be better this time. I had a second wind and felt
so much better. I was once again able to handle the waves and focus.
The Hypnobabies tools worked for me and I forgot my plan to get an
epidural even though I was just barely more than 4 cm dilated. Much
later, I realized that one of the scripts that I heard repeatedly was
that I would have a rush of anesthesia when my water broke. It was
true for me. The nurses changed shifts shortly after I got settled
into L&D. My new nurse, Kim, was so amazing! It was polar opposite of
our earlier experience. I told her that I made brownies that were
meant for her, but I did not know how things would go. She laughed
and told me that she and her hubby were vacationing in Mexico in a
month and she would not have wanted the temptation of treats that
would make her look chubby in her bathing suit. She was a total doll!
The on-call OB came in to check on me and introduce himself. I
said, "It looks like I was in labor after all." He had the nerve to
say, "No, you were not. You were in latent labor." What a jerk! He
asked if I had any questions. I told him that I would like him to
call our OB, Dr. D, as I understood from him that in their practice
they tried to attend their own patients and that I would much prefer
that he be the one to attend our birth. He said that he had spoken
with Dr. D last night and that he would call him after 8am (it was
about 6am Sunday morning). He left the room and left the door wide
open. What a jerk! Dr. D called us a few hours later to reassure us
that he was close by, and that would be there for the birth. I was so
grateful!
I continued to progress very slowly. I handled the waves well if I
could just stay sitting up in bed. When the nurses laid me back to
check me, the back pain would start up hard again and it would take a
while to get my tools to work. Also, getting out of bed to use the
restroom was painful. I would just yell for Cory to hold me up if a
wave would hit me on the walk from the bathroom (and they always did
3 minutes apart!). They were stronger with me standing, or they felt
that way. I kept hoping Mom was right that I would progress quickly
to 10cm once I hit 5cm. Unfortunately, that was not my experience. It
took hours to dilate to 5cm and then 6cm. I was so sleep deprived and
would try to sleep between waves. Once, I fell asleep and dreamt that
Cory and Kim were talking about the Messiah choir I sang in a few
weeks before and I woke up asking, "Are you talking about Messiah?" I
knew I made no sense as soon as I heard the words come out of my
mouth. Cory looked uncomfortable, fearing the nurse would think I was
close to death seeing the Messiah… or think I was having visions… and
said, "She sang in a choir…" Too funny.
Eventually, I hiccupped loudly once and that began transition. The
waves that had not given me more than a 3-minute break for 37 hours
now came one on top of another. They got harder and tougher, but I
managed to keep using my Hypnobabies tools, though this was getting
tougher. I could not bear to watch the monitor anymore and depended
on Cory to tell me when we hit the top of each wave. They put me on
oxygen, as something about Jack was not right. I was already quite
dehydrated and the oxygen dehydrated me further, which I found out
later makes the waves feel stronger. I always understood that
transition usually lasts about an hour and opens the cervix all the
way up. After nearly 2 hours of transition, I was still only dilated
to 7cm. Dr. D came in and told me that the baby was probably
transverse (facing my side) and therefore wasn't pressing down on my
cervix in a productive way to dilate it. He said that at this rate,
we were about an hour away from a C-Section. Jack's heart rate
dropped in a big way and Kim said that I needed to change positions
to see if that helped him. She put me on my side, which caused the
back pain to come really strongly. I could not keep my focus to use
my tools and the couple of waves that happened then were doubly hard
due to the back pain. She recommended standing and leaning on the
roller cart. I got out of bed and another wave hit me hard. I
remember feeling desperate. I kept thinking that I had to get out of
this… that I had to escape! I could not look at Cory because somehow
that would make this too real. I kept saying, "I can't do this
anymore." I was not using my tools and was crying out, sobbing. Mom
was trying to make eye contact with me and I kept dodging her eyes.
She was trying to look tough, to steel me somehow, but it was all
over her that she was scared for me. She kept trying to keep me
focused and breathing.
When the wave passed, Kim sat me down and said that there comes a
point when everyone wants to "get off the bus." I told her to stop
speaking metaphorically and tell me what to do. She said we needed to
speed things along and use pitocin or I would have to have a C-
section. I freaked out, knowing that I was not handling labor well at
this point and that I certainly could not handle pitocin. She said to
get an epidural, which would let me sleep and get my strength back so
I could push when the time came. I hesitated, feeling that all my
work was somehow cancelled out by an epidural this late in the game.
I looked to Cory and was afraid that my Mom would try to talk me out
of it. Surprisingly, she backed that option wholeheartedly. I got the
epidural. It was painful at first, but each wave got lighter until I
did not feel them anymore. The nurse anesthetist saw my struggle with
feeling let down and said that she was so impressed with how long I
hung in there. She said that she saw so many women come in before
their first contraction begging for an epidural. They put in a
catheter and realized just how dehydrated I was. Kim said my urine
looked like iced tea. They also gave me an IV to hydrate me.
After about an hour of sleeping, Kim woke me up for something. It was
about 3:40pm (after 41 hours of labor) and I felt like I needed to
push. She said they wanted to wait for the pitocin to work as hard as
it could before putting me in position to push. I tried to sleep
again for about 20 minutes, but I could not help the urgent feeling I
had. They checked me and I was fully dilated. Finally… 10cm! They
brought the mirror over so I could watch him be born.
The first few pushes were hard, because I had feeling, but was not
sure of myself. I let Kim count me and "purple pushed." I pushed 3
times with each wave. In the beginning, I had a wave that I only had
energy to push twice and Cory realized that this was hard work. I
could feel the waves coming on and worked with my body. Kim stopped
counting me when she saw my focus. Cory was on my left and Mom was on
my right, each holding a foot to support me. It was funny that Mom
and Cory were across from each other and did not look to see that
Mom's foot was about a foot higher than Cory's! I joked that they
needed to look at each other and keep me balanced! Also, Kim yelled
at them jokingly that they needed to stop holding their breath each
time I pushed, because if they passed out, she was just going to kick
them out of the way! They were "pushing" with me. I pushed for about
20 minutes and we could see a little bit of his little head. Dr. D
finally joined us (Kim did most of the work!) as we were getting
closer to meeting Jack. My sister wanted to hear his first cry, so
she was on my phone and Cory's Mom and sister were on his phone. When
he crowned, Dr. D said with authority to follow his lead and stop
pushing and just relax and breathe. He told me that I was going to
tear a little (2nd degree) and he wanted me to let Jack's head just
come out with the next wave and not put extra pressure on it. I had
so much practice with this (for nearly 2 days!) that I was a pro! He
commented that I had great control. The next thing I knew, I watched
his head slip out, followed by his shoulders and the rest of his
sweet little body. The nurses were telling me to stop looking at the
mirror and look down at our little son. There he was! He had the most
beautiful cry and we were so happy to finally meet him! It was
instantly pure joy! The delivery was not painful, but I could still
feel the "ring of fire" or the burning as he was born. Pushing him
out was intense work. I was so grateful for that one-hour nap and the
hydration, because I could not have exerted myself like I needed to
prior to the epidural. It helped me get my strength up. My sister and
her kids sang Happy Birthday to Jack and we were so happy to be on
the other side.
Jacoby "Jack" Thomas was born at 4:47pm on December 30 with his hands
near his face and HOLDING THE CORD! Cory cut the cord and Jack would
not let go! They had to wrench it out of his hands! They handed him
right to me and I wanted to put him skin to skin. He calmed down once
I had him in my arms. Cory helped the nurse clean him off. When the
nurse took him to briefly weigh and measure him, he cried hard as he
obviously did not want to be out of my arms. He fixated on me and it
was remarkable to see how alert he was. He weighed 7 pounds 7 ounces
and was 20.25 inches long. He is a wonderful, sweet son and we have
loved being his parents! He has been breastfeeding like a champ from
the beginning!
He is now seven weeks old and is a wonderful, calm baby. I can see
great benefits from using the Hypnobabies program. Our situation was
not ideal, obviously. I must be honest, though. I do regret having
such a negative feeling about interventions. Certainly, they are used
more often than they need to be and can create bigger problems. In my
case, however, they were necessary and without them I would have
undoubtedly had a C-section. I am grateful for a wonderful, "hands-
off" OB who supported my choice of a Hypnobabies birth and stayed out
of the way as long as possible. I am also grateful for the epidural
and pitocin that allowed me to deliver vaginally. We will use
Hypnobabies if we are fortunate enough to have other children and,
hopefully, we can have a smoother, quicker time of it.