Belated Birth Story

In honor of Mallory’s recent birthday, I thought I’d post her long-ago written up but never posted birth story. And it’s fun to go read my post from the morning of November 5…

Sunday afternoon, November 5, I was starting to have some weird tummy feelings, so I checked in our childbirth prep book to see what it said. I was feeling some pain in my lower back, which they say is a sign of “real” labor but the cramps I was feeling in the front weren’t very painful. They were coming about every 30+ minutes apart so I figured it wasn’t anything to worry about. Rick & I went to dinner at my dad’s and I was sort of grumpy so we headed home right after. The pains were coming a little more consistently, between 20-30 minutes apart all evening long. Rick kept asking if I could talk through them (he remembers the doctor saying that I would have to stop and catch my breath and not be able to talk through them when they were real contractions). I could still talk through them but they were getting a little stronger.

Of course Rick had an 11:30p hockey game in Ann Arbor; we decided that since the contractions were still 15-20 minutes apart, and we still weren’t sure if they were “real”, that he could go but he had to call me before he got on the ice and had to come home right after the game. I tried to go to sleep but the contractions were waking me up. I got in the bathtub and that seemed to really help make the contractions more tolerable. Rick got home ~1:15am and the contractions were about 7-8 minutes apart. At this point I asked Rick if he thought that we were really in labor, because I was worried that I wasn’t having “real” contractions ~ he looked at me and asked “what else could they be?” (good point sweetie). Rick was only timing the duration of the contractions, not the time between them, and he was also falling asleep on the bed next to me. I told him to get his post-hockey sweaty self into the shower because I didn’t want him to be nasty at the hospital.

We called Triage at 3a (morning of November 6) –contractions were varying between 4-5-6 minutes apart and lasting about a minute each (and were to the point where I couldn’t talk through them). They said that they like to see the contractions closer together but since they were pretty painful we could go ahead and come in if we wanted. We waited another hour and left the house a little after 4am. Cooper got dropped off at Grandpa’s house (who was WIDE awake and soooo excited) and we made our way to the hospital. The contractions were exactly 5 minutes apart the entire way in to Ann Arbor and getting more & more painful.Arrived at Triage around 5a and they hooked me up to the monitors and confirmed that yes, I was in labor. The baby looked great on their monitors and they checked me out – I was 3cm dilated and about 70% effaced. The OB resident told me I should get up and walk around some more but there was NO WAY that was happening, seeing as how I was practically in tears from the contractions. The nurse came in and said that since I was overdue and already had the induction scheduled for the next day, they would go ahead and admit me. (I seriously do not know what I would have done if they’d sent us home…the thought of getting back in the car at that point was unfathomable).

We got settled into our room about 6:45a. The epidural guy showed up at about 7am and they got started right away. Unfortunately the first epidural didn’t take so I had to get another one at 8:30a. That second one worked *right* away and I was in HEAVEN! The nurses were getting a huge kick out of watching my contractions on the monitor while I was oblivious, chatting away about how great the pancakes in the cafeteria were. Rick & I tried to rest for most of the day; unfortunately he was able to sleep better than me since I was constantly being asked to give my arm up for a blood pressure readings, etc. My mom showed up around 10-ish I think, right after Rick left to get food with the instructions from the nurses to NOT bring it back to the room since I wasn’t allowed to eat anything. Of course then my mom breaks out a Tupperware full of cut up fruit. Thanks mom.

They checked me around 10:30a and I was already 7-8 cms dilated and 90% effaced. They told me to keep trying to rest as much as possible. My sister was “working” that day but only had one case so she was able to hang out with us most of the day. When it was apparent that the baby wasn’t coming before her shift was over, she had Michael call in to work (he was supposed to work 3:30-7p) so he could stay home with Lauren & Shane, so that Emily could stay with me at the hospital.

My water ended up breaking at some point in the afternoon (I was past trying to keep track of everything that was going on), and at 4:30p I was dilated 10 cms and completely effaced and was told I could start pushing.

Rick & I had decided early on that he would be the only one in the room during my pushing & the actual delivery, but my sister had been such a good help during the day (along with being a nurse and having just had her daughter 1.5 yrs ago), that I got clearance from Rick to let her stay in. My mom will never ever let me live it down that I kicked her out but oh well. My dad showed up around the time I started pushing so he & my mom went to wait in the waiting room.

The next couple of hours are a blur…each different nurse that came in had a different philosophy of pushing techniques and positions to try. I was so exhausted from not sleeping the night before that I was actually falling asleep between contractions (and at one point I actually started to snore…Rick & Emily got a big kick out of that). But at about 7pm the doctor came in and asked what my thoughts were about a cesarean section, forceps, vacuums, etc. All I could think about was “next week is Ohio State week…I can’t have a c-section b/c Rick won’t be able to take time off to stay home and take care of me!!”. It was a dirty trick for the doctor to play but I somehow found some way to get down to business and push the baby out.

Having my sister in the room was sort of like having a doula there with us ~ she kept telling me when I would have a *good* push. I guess at one point I asked her if it was really a good push or were they just telling me that to make me feel better (she assured me that they could tell by how my tummy looked when I pushed whether it was a good push or not, and later told me that they really have no idea if it’s a good push…another dirty trick to play on a laboring mom-to-be).

Anyway, after the cesarean threat, I got my pushing act together and all of a sudden it was just like on the tv shows. The nurse was calling for backup, delivery tables, doctors, pediatricians, etc. Lights came down from the ceiling, my bed got rearranged and doctors were getting gowned up. My mom said that from the hallway it was a little scary because people were rushing to our room and she wasn’t sure what was going on.

I guess it took me two good pushes to get her head out. When they were trying to get me to push through that pain, supposedly I screamed “@%$&…I CAN’T DO IT!!!!”. But I played through the pain well enough and all of a sudden they were holding up this little baby (at 8:11pm, after 3.5+ hours of pushing) and I was asking Rick what it was. Rick’s response “is it a girl?” They confirmed that yes, it was a girl, and whisked her over to the warmer where she started to cry on her own right away (Rick was able to cut the umbilical cord before they took her). Rick was wonderful throughout the whole labor, counting for me (sometimes a little slower than I would have liked) and was so so supportive. I was so exhausted and could barely keep my eyes open while they were finishing with me. I had to get a shot of something because I lost quite a bit of blood (one nurse said I lost the same amount as if I’d had a c-section) but soon they brought Mallory back over to us and we got some good family time.