Jillene's Birth
Jillene Danielle arrived on May 4th
10:58 pm
8# 9 oz
21 inches
Labor started in the evening of Saturday may 3rd, after being in a small town
parade and celebrating my sons 4th birthday (a few days late). I never had any
contractions with my previous babies that weren't pitocin induced so this was
new territory when I realized I was having them. They started out 45 mins
apart and by 3 am were about 15 minutes apart. They were mild and what I would
have said were braxton hicks, I was able to function quite well and our moms
who were here for the party even said I didn't look or sound like a laboring
person. I lost some of my mucus plug at 4 am. I called the office who left a
message with the on call Midwife. She called me back and suggested we head out
in the next two hours or so since this was our third baby. When we left for
the hospital, contractions were 7 mins apart. By the time we got there after
an hour and a half drive, they were 5 minutes apart.
We were surprised to find that we would have a midwife for the delivery, the
one whom I had spoken with on the phone earlier, as we had been told due to my
history of a previous c-section and multiple blood clots had to have a Dr for
the delivery. We had focused on meeting with the three Dr's since we switched
to the clinic around 34 weeks and had not met all the midwives due to this. We
were excited to have her even though we had never met with her before. The Dr
only had to be in the building for me and happened to be the one that we did
not care for out of the group of three as she seemed too pro c- section. We
had joked that she would be the one we get and sure enough was. I was 4 cm and
-2 station when the midwife checked me upon admission at about 8 am while I
was only 2-3 cm three days earlier at my 39 week Dr appt, the first time I let
them check me.
The anesthesiologist came in and counseled me... she had to be there too while
I was laboring. There were no other moms in labor while I was there as the
other two had already had their babies earlier that morning. I have to take
Heparin due to my previous history of blood clots and took myself off of it
2.5 weeks before labor started without telling my Dr's. I had been told that
if I went into labor while on the Heparin and an emergency happened or labor
didn't progress on its own the only thing they could do was break my water. If
that didn't do anything there was nothing else they could do to induce and I
would have to have a cesearean without being awake. I would rather chance the
blood clots than the sleeping c-section. Little did I know at the time I would
be avoiding the exact thing by stopping the medications early.
Several hours later, I was contracting every 2-3 minutes for while. The
midwife had urged us to consider breaking my water to get things moving along
faster as she was positive it would be enough to allow me to birth quickly on
my own. She checked in several times through the hours and asked again. Once
Dh was gone running an errand, and I said I would talk to him about it again
when he returned and she said she would check back in right after and never
did. She assumed we would page her if we wanted it done. Many many hours later
things got VERY slow. They were going to release us to stay at the hospitals
hotel house overnight, but had to check me again to be able to release me and
I had progressed to a 6 (but total, only progressing about 3 cm in 13 hours)
so they didn't feel comfortable doing that with the tiniest bit of progress
having been made and kept us in labor & delivery.
Labor was easy.. too easy.. dh massaged my ankle bone pressure points here and
there to help keep some form of contractions going. I hardly felt any
discomfort at all and had ALL day to listen to my Hypnobabies tracks. At one
point I was actually tired of listening to them and turned them off. I spent
some time in the tub which actually slightly increased my contractions and
they were harder ones but overall contractions were getting slower and further
apart. They went back to around 9 minutes apart. I asked to be checked to
check the babies position especially if we were considering breaking the
waters. This ended up being the longest cervical check ever as I didn't have a
contraction for over 9 minutes. Babies head was turned slightly to the right
but the midwife thought would easily turn when being born.
The anesthesiologist and Dr who had to be in the hospital building for me were
getting impatient (starting from when it had been over 12 hours from 3 a.m.).
They really wanted to break my water since my contractions almost completely
stopped by evening and I was stalled at 7 cm. I probably should have let them
since I was so far dialated, but we kept thinking less intervention would be
better, I wanted to avoid a repeat infection and having to likely have pitocin
for a long time as I never had labor start when my water broke with my last
baby. Dh and I kept denying it and they went along with it for quite some time
until our baby's heart rate jumped into the 180's and stayed there after being
in the 140's all day. I had noticed both the nurse and midwife staring at the
monitors looking concerned and asked them what was wrong. It was then that
they told us about the heart rate being accelerated and staying there.
We decided to break the water late in the evening (after 13 hours in the hospital) to try and get things going again due to the babies accelerated heart rate. The midwife gave us a short speech that the real tragedy would be to tire out this punkin and have to have an emergency cesearean when that is what we want to avoid. She also said I looked as comfortable as when I arrived in the morning, not like a laboring person at all. She tried to rupture the membranes and wasn't sure if she was successful as no water came out and seemed puzzled by that. Upon sitting up for a while though I realized that she had been successful. I didn't tell her for a bit since I was so focused. My water contained light meconium. I noticed it on the towel but remained focused and didn't say anything to her but that she was successful (she was sitting in the big area of the room behind me watching the baby on the monitor). The midwife and nurse sat watching the baby monitor for a long time. I noticed after a contraction the nurse go over and get one of the chuck towels I had thrown aside to show the midwife the meconium stain without a single word being spoken.
Not much happened with the contractions after breaking the water
just as I thought. We could sense the concern in the room and so we consented to
start a little pitocin which I also had to have an internal monitor to measure
my contraction strength due to my previous cesearean and this hospitals policy.
The monitor was strange, a long tube inserted inside my uterus that when the
baby moved or I moved it moved.
The pitocin kicked in and I was uncomfortable.. since I was contracting so
strongly. I was on it for about one hour or a little more of uncomfortable p***ful
contractions and then was feeling a tny bit pushy, shaky and like I didn't want
to give birth at all/couldn't do it. Mostly I was feeling like I couldn't do the
pitocin anymore and knew if I could just get off the pitocin I would be fine so
I pretended that I was a bit further into transition. I just sat on the birth
ball tethered to the side of the bed due to the internal contraction monitor,
with my eyes closed shaking my head back and forth saying no and I can't do it
from the start of the pitocin. Both the nurse and the midwife said I was doing
wonderful with the pitocin. Every contraction buckled my stomach and baby would
actually squirm quite violently and push away from my cervix. I asked the nurse
to turn off the machine. She was firm and said that she could not as they had to
get my contractions closer together. I told the midwife when she was summoned in
for deciding if I was in transition, that I did not want to deliver this
baby. She asked why and I said because it already is so p***nful now.
Then the room became a little frantic, there were about 8 nurses who came into
the room which probably were just because they knew I was about ready to birth.
I saw them wheel in the surgical table which had lots of metal on it and got ill
for a minute and thought I was going to pass out. At that point I was around 8-9
cm and still had the cervical lip in the way and the midwife helped get it
stretched out of the way with a few reluctant pushes. We tried the squat bar but
it wasn't working for me. I had a hard time pushing due to all the sensations,
but once I actually tried pushing instead of moving away up the bed, it felt
good to push. The midwife asked me to reach down and touch my babies head which
I had declined my last birth. I did this time and dh said I smiled ear to ear.
After about 6 minutes of laying down pushing we met our newest baby love. I had
hoped to listen to the Hypnobabies pushing track when we got there, but there
wasn't time to get the ipod, etc. Dh barely got any pictures of the baby after
being born. The midwife asked daddy to do the honors of announcing the gender, a
girl.. that looked just like our firstborn son. Dh surprised me by asking if he
could help me cut the cord.. he hadn't wanted to at all when I asked him while
preparing our birth plan. So, we cut it together.
After she was born I held Jillene for about 40 minutes before letting her get
checked out. My placenta cord went up inside me at the same time we cut the cord
and it was over 40 mins before I was able to push the placenta out. That was a
little scary, I was trying to enjoy my baby while the midwife was hollering at
me.. whether I wanted her to manually go get it, etc. No way! After the midwife
went to get cleaned up she came back in to congratulate and talk to us. She told
me that I should be a negotiator. (:
Then baby Jillene wasn't retaining her body temperature well (even before her
bath) and had to be kept under the warmer for quite a while. It was close to 4
am by the time we all got to our new room. The had to take Jillene out to the
nursery to put her under the warmers again so for the first time for any one of
our kids we were both too exhausted to accompany her and stayed in our room
sleeping for about an hour before I started looking for her.
We used the Hypnobabies home study course for this birth and I have to say it
really helped a bunch. I was comfortable through most of the labor and it was so
much more bearable than my last completely pitocin induced birth. Even though we
had to have a Dr in the building, she never set foot in our room. The only p***ful
part as the last hour and 6 minutes or so. (: This birth was also the first time
I had prepared a birth plan. None of the Dr's would sign it so we thought it
would be ignored. The midwife honored everything we had written there that was
in her control. It was wonderful!
The only odd thing about this birth was that it took so long. I
wonder if we timed the contractions incorrectly (like not a long enough blocks
of time) or were not ready to go into labor & delivery yet. I did dialate, but
thought it would be a much faster labor especially already being almost half
dialated when we were admitted. We really thought we wouldn't make it to the
hospital in time. If there ever is a next time, we are wondering when we should
leave to arrive in time (one and a half hour trip).
Laurie