My (almost natural) Birth Story!

I've not done a good job lately of keeping up with the blog... oops.  I can't promise I'll be better about it since I now I have an ADORABLE newborn, but I will try.  :)

Meet T!

Excuse the exhausted looking mother in the photo...surprisingly I don't have any good close ups of T except for a few on my phone.  But I think the look of exhaustion is pretty fitting...

For those interested in T's birth story, here it is:

I had planned and prepared for an all-natural, drug-free delivery.  My doctor was very supportive, the hospital was equipped with natural delivery rooms complete with birthing tubs and birthing balls, I read as much as I could (I highly recommend the Bradley Method!  Even though I couldn't take the class, the book was great preparation!), I did stretches, exercises, practice "contractions," received chiropractic care to make sure my hips were in line...I was as prepared as I could have been without having actually taken a class.

Almost two weeks after his due date, my doctor determined that we must induce.  So we had an induction scheduled for Thursday, June 28th at 6am and I started looking up natural methods to induce.  I tried acupuncture, walking, ahem...the other....everything that I could feel safe doing (I did NOT drink castor oil or any herbs - I wasn't quite willing to go that far).  Tuesday before the induction she stripped my membranes, another method of natural induction.  I won't elaborate what that means since it's kinda nasty, but that's what google is for.  :)

 And we got busy praying.  Of course, we had already been praying but for some reason God decided to delay his response.  But if anybody could give me a natural delivery, it would be God.

Around 11 or 11:30 on Wednesday night I started feeling what I thought was really bad gas.  I would go sit on the toilet, try to get something out, and after an unsuccessful few minutes get back in bed.  Ten minutes later, I was back on the toilet.  At some point I realized, "this pain is really intense, and it fires up about every 10 minutes...maybe I'm in labor!"

Sure enough, labor had started.  Knowing that early labor can last for hours and hours, we decided to just try to get some rest (ha! what were we thinking??) and wait for things to get intense before calling anyone.

We didn't have to wait long.

I got no sleep whatsoever and by 12:30 the contractions were so intense there was no way I could lay in bed any longer.  I started trying to breath though the contractions like I had learned in the Bradley book, and I found that the most comfortable position was on my knees, leaning over our own birthing ball.

By 2am we decided we should call my mom - it would take her 2 hours to get here.  We figured that we should just let her know but she could still stay in bed a little longer.  But she decided to go ahead and get on the road, and it was a good thing she did because things only continued to get more and more intense.

We thought it would be a good idea to fill the tub up with water and get in (after all, that's what they do at the hospital.  Why not at home?), but unfortunately our tub is so small that it was ineffective at relieving the pressure.  M tried to sleep as much as he could (he had stayed up all night the night before studying for a Hebrew exam) while I labored alone.  I knew I would need him more at the hospital.

Mom arrived a little after 4am and took one look at me, asked how far apart the contractions were, and said "we need to go to the hospital."  We weren't timing the contractions consistently, but they were very close and very intense.  It took a while to get things together, but we made it to the hospital a little after 5am.

I was already 6 cm dilated.  We were thrilled!  All that work my body was doing all night long had given us great results!

My sister arrived soon after (but I have no idea what time - I was just focusing on making it from one contraction to the next) and I spent a few hours in the birthing pool.  But the pain in my back was so intense and the pool made it very difficult for anybody to give me a back rub so I decided to spend most of my labor sitting on the birthing ball instead.  By 11am I was 9 cm and we thought, "we're going to have a baby soon!!"

But the hours passed and while I had a few urges to push, there was nothing significant.  The nurse and doctor examined me several times and thought maybe he was "sunny-side up."

After a few more examinations they determined that he was not just "sunny-side up" but sideways - transversal.  That meant that the widest part of his head was trying to make it through the narrow birth canal...not an easy trip.  In other words, OUCH!

We tried method after method of getting him to turn.  I labored on my side for a few hours (which was extremely painful - I preferred the birthing ball) in hopes to facilitate him turning with the contractions.  I labored on all fours in the bed to use gravity to bring him down, they tried turning him manually (and every time he would turn right back), and yet my contractions started getting farther apart and less intense.

At this point, I was watching the clock.  My contractions were 5 minutes apart.  Every time a contraction would hit I would look at the clock and think, "has it only been 5 minutes??  Will this ever end??"

The doctor broke my water to try to get things going again, and after 6 hours at 9cm, she told me that in situations like this, the delivery almost always ends up in a c-section.

I had some choices to make.

She encouraged me to try getting the epidural to relax my body (I would need it for a c-section anyway) and use some pitocin to bring on the contractions again.

I was devastated, but after discussing it with M and my mom and sister, they encouraged me that I was making the right choice for my baby.  6 hours at 9 cm...lessening contractions....and we had done everything we could to bring this baby down naturally.  It was time to let modern medicine intervene.

Tearfully (bawling, really) I accepted the epidural and pitocin.  The worst part was sitting still through two or three contractions while he put the epidural in.  I couldn't move even an inch while that needle was going in.  I don't know what I would have done without my amazing nurse encouraging me through it.

After that, I was confined to the bed.  But I felt better knowing that we had tried every method to get this baby out naturally.  I could do it.  I didn't "give in" to the pain, which as silly as it is had been one of my fears.  I made an informed decision, without regard for pain.  It wasn't how I had wanted things to turn out, but it was what we felt was best for my baby and that is what mattered.

I was thrilled that the epidural wasn't so strong that I couldn't feel anything.  With help, I could roll over (which got easier as the time went by) and after about an hour I could feel the contractions again (and since I had been falling asleep between them earlier, it was nice to have nearly an hour to rest!), and I still felt more or less in control of my body.

Soon I felt the urge to push.

So I started pushing.

And pushing.

More pushing.

Nothing.

Eventually the nurse could see a little bit of his head.  We thought that surely this would be over soon.

More pushing.

Nothing.

The doctor kept coming back in to check on me.  The first time, when she asked how long I had been pushing and the nurse said "about an hour and 15 minutes" immediately the look on her face told me that she was not pleased.  We couldn't even see any of his head!

More pushing.

Doctor checks back.  She mentions c-section, but that we still have plenty of time to push.  I start crying.  Again.

More pushing...we can now see a little sliver of his head, and I reach down and touch it.  I touched my baby's head!

The doctor came back...I had been pushing for over 2 1/2 hours and there had been no progress since the last time she had checked on me.

Now she tells me directly, that we are coming up on three hours of pushing.  Her personal limit is three hours and she feels that anything beyond that is getting to be unreasonable, especially when we see so little progress.  She tells me that some women just don't have the strength to push hard enough, but she can see that is not the case with me.  She can see that I have been pushing with great effort, which is why it concerns her that there is so little progress.  However, since it appears that the baby and I are both in good health, she can't (or won't) force me to have an unwanted c-section.  She will let me make that decision.  Yet another reason why I love my doctor.

So I decided to push for 20 more minutes - I wanted to reach the three hour mark and decide from there.

Not that I hadn't already been pushing with all my might, but now I knew we had to beat the clock.  I had until 9pm.  My mom and sister texted family to ask them to pray for us, Matt prayed with me by the bed, and I pushed some more.

The nurse began to mentally prepare me for a c-section: what would happen in the room, when I would get to see the baby, etc.

So I cried some more, and then I pushed even harder.

Finally we started to see some progress!!

We were so thrilled when that little sliver of his head became more visible with each push.

The doctor came back in and took one look and said, "now that's progress - I can work with that."

I was so relieved!  I knew that she would let me go past three hours if there was evidence of good progress.

I pushed through one more contraction and suddenly his head was on the verge of coming out.  Boy, did it burn!!  The epidural had faded enough that I could feel very strongly everything that was going on.  Suddenly everybody was moving around, talking loudly, and all I knew was that it burned and I needed to push!  Apparently they were telling me to wait so the doctor could get clean gloves on, but I didn't hear anything.  It was all just noise in my ears and all I knew was that I had to push that baby out!

One more big push and he came out, sideways and all.  Once his head was out the rest of his body just sort of fell out.  Talk about a crazy feeling!  The doctor told me afterward that usually the shoulders take some time to maneuver out, but since my baby was already sideways and the widest part of his head had already pushed through, the shoulders just slipped out on their own.

T was 8 pounds 5 ounces and 20 inches long.  Born at 8:59 pm, one minute before our previously designated time-out.

I heard him screaming and immediately they put him on his chest.  I remember the look on M's face, of love and amazement.  He was yelling, crying, laughing - I can never forget what my husband looked like in that moment.

After it was all over, the nurse and doctor both just kept telling me how amazed they were, and that they didn't think it was going to happen.  The nurse especially just kept repeating, "I'm just so proud of you!"

And I was proud of me, too.  I felt SO empowered.  Almost like Wonder Woman.

But most of all, I felt so very blessed.

None of this went how I had hoped it would, but M reminded me that God showed us that He is the one in control.  Everything happened in His perfect timing.

I had wanted T to come early (what pregnant woman doesn't?), and really thought he would be.  He gave us several signs of an early arrival.

I prayed and prayed and prayed.  And yet God delayed.  He delayed until the night before I was set to be induced, as if to say, "see?  I'm doing this in my time.  I didn't forget about you - I'm still the one in charge.  And THIS is my time."

I know there was a reason...if nothing else it was to teach me patience.  I'm not sure I learned patience (I would say that I was forced into patience), so I'm sure there was another reason.

We thought we would be having a fairly reasonable labor...a little after 11pm it started, and 11am I was at a 9.  Surely he wouldn't take much longer.

And yet I delivered at 8:59pm, one minute before the 3 hour pushing mark - the minute we had decided that if there was still no progress, we would need a c-section.

At 8:50 we still thought we might have a c-section.  At 8:55 we thought we would probably get this baby out naturally.  And at 8:59 we had a baby.

It was as if God was saying again, "see?  This is MY time.  There is a reason for this."

Maybe it was so the doctor and nurse would see us praying, and see God answer our prayers.  Maybe it was to teach me more patience (can we stop with the patience??  It's no fun!).  Or maybe there are other reasons unknown to us.

Whatever the reasons for what seemed to us as a delayed response, God made it clear that HE is in control.

And now we are blessed with an extremely adorable, EXTREMELY hungry newborn.