Colin's Birth Story

I finally have a minute to type this up, but I'm sure it will be ridiculously verbose, so bear with me.

The Sunday before Colin was born I was one day past my due date and made Joe take me to our favorite pizza place for dinner.  Within an hour of getting home I started feeling some cramping in my lower back.  We watched a movie and I noticed that the pain persisted all night, coming and going but not really hurting and not getting any closer together.  Either way I was hopeful and excited to see what would happen in the morning.

I woke up around 2 am Monday morning and lost (part of) my mucous plug.  Which looked pretty much exactly how I thought it would.  Ick.  But hey, progress!  Sometime around 4 am I told Joe he should probably call in to work and let them know he'd be staying home, since the cramping was still sticking around and occasionally was even kind of painful.  First thing in the morning we got up and took a walk to see if anything would progress.  The cramps continued but didn't seem to get worse or closer together or anything.  We came home and took a nap, and then took another walk.  This is where I got sort of dumb.

I kept thinking to myself that this was might not be 'it' so in order to be sure I kept moving all day and not really resting.  I had heard that walking or moving around starts things going, whereas resting might make the contractions stop.  I so desperately wanted to be in active labor that I kept cleaning the house and baking banana bread and doing laundry when in hindsight I would have been much better off getting some rest while I still could.

Around 6pm Monday we went for another short walk before dinner and ran into our ne

ighbor.  His wife was due the day before me and apparently had her baby two weeks early.  This, of course, made me all the more determined to keep moving to make sure this would be my night.  Around 8pm the contractions started becoming more frequent and around 9 I told Joe to go ahead and time them.  At that point they were just about 5 minutes apart, lasting just under a minute, but weren't exactly regular.  My midwife told me to stay at home as long as possible if I didn't want interventions, so we stayed.

Throughout the day I'd been losing more and more mucous and at one point even lost another huge disgusting chunk like I had in the middle of the night.  All of these signs were encouraging, but also slightly disgusting, so I wore a pad all day.  Thus while sitting in bed at 10pm and discussing with Joe for the umpteenth time when I thought we should call the hospital, when I felt a slight gush I assumed it was just more mucous.  I even checked to see if it was my water breaking, but other than the one big leak there was nothing else.  Meanwhile the contractions were starting to require my actual attention.  I leaned on the exercise ball, had Joe apply pressure to my back, repeatedly warmed up my heating pad, and focused on taking deep breaths.  At 10:30 I put on a tivo'd Family Guy episode and Joe fell asleep on the couch while I sat on the birthing ball thinking positive dilation thoughts.

Finally at 11:30 I called the hospital and they told me to come in.  Joe asked if I was sure I wanted to go, since it was probably still going to be a long time before anything happened.  I told him I didn't really think I'd be all that dilated, but if they sent us home maybe they'd give me something so I could sleep.  It was at this point that I started thinking maybe I should have napped more during the day.

The ride to the hospital was cold.  I sat against my heating pad but I was shaking and my teeth chattered the first half of the way there.  Every bump Joe hit made the contractions that much more painful and I kept begging for him to slow down just to make the ride more pleasant. 

We arrived to a quiet Labor and Deliver floor at 12:30 am on Tuesday.  I was expecting to be checked immediately but first they wanted to monitor my contractions for half an hour.  I was hooked up to the monitors and left shivering cold and moaning with each contraction in my lower back praying for them to just check me already.  The on call doctor came in to check me and said that I was having contractions but they weren't lasting all that long and were fairly irregular.  And then she said exactly what I was hoping not to hear: I was 1 centimeter dilated.  At that point I'd been having contractions in my back for almost 30 hours.  On a whim, they decided to check my fluid and found out that "hey, your water broke, so change of plans: you're staying."

I was just happy at that point that I'd get to stay and hopefully sleep, but they told me they didn't like to give epidurals until patients were 4 cm.  They started pitocin around 1:30 am and I had Joe turn on a Jim Gaffigan routine so I'd have something to take my mind off the pain.  Around 2:30am they decided to give me internal monitors since they couldn't really get a read on my contractions.  I was still at 1 cm and writhing in pain as contractions moved steadily from my back to my front and back again without a break in between.  The nurse told me to tell her when a contraction started and ended so she could get a baseline.  The conversation went something like this:

Me: here comes one.  Owwww.  (breathing, moaning)

Nurse: ok, and it's done?

Me: No. (moaning)

Nurse: How about now?

Me: No. (deep breathing, shaking)

Nurse: are you sure?

Me: um, it's still painful and hasn't stopped yet.  Unless I'm confused as to what a contraction is it's still going.

Suddenly several doctors and nurses came in at once and started doing god knows what.  I basically remember shaking uncontrollably as nonstop contractions ripped through me just hoping that someone would do something to make it stop.  They played more with the monitors, stopped the pitocin, gave me terb to stop the contractions, and who knows what else.  Not 15 minutes after pronouncing me 1 cm, another doctor said I was at 3 and that they'd go ahead and get me that epidural now.  

The slew of doctors left and just our nurse was in the room with us.  Joe asked if someone could please explain what the hell was going on and the nurse explained that I was, in fact, contracting but they couldn't get a read on how strong the contractions were.  What they could tell was that my uterus wasn't relaxing in between contractions.  This was a problem because it could cause my uterus to rupture.  Oh really, thanks for the update! 

The anesthesiologist came in to give me an epidural and it was like angels stared singing the hallelujah chorus.  I hadn't wanted an epidural at all, but I also hadn't wanted pitocin or back labor, or to be stuck shivering in a hospital bed, so at that point I went with it and was so happy at the idea of finally getting some rest.  It was almost 4 am and other than a two hour nap in the afternoon I hadn't gotten any good sleep in, well, weeks.  Full term pregnancy doesn't really lend itself to restful nights.

As they set me up to get the epidural Joe stood there rubbing my arm.  I felt a huge gush of water and pushed him away, afraid that he would get amniotic fluid all over his shoes.  The epidural hurt a little bit, but compared to everything else I'd been through since arriving at L&D I didn't even care.  At 4:30 am I was drugged up but could still move my legs and passed out within minutes.

I was checked again around 8am and told that I was 4 cm and expected to dilate 1 cm per hour.  At 9 I was still 4 cm, and the head OB came in to tell me that if I hadn't dilated to 5 in two more hours they were going to do a c section.  I fell back asleep and hoped for good news.  At 10 am the story changed.  I was still 4 cm, but the baby had stopped reacting favorably to the contractions, and whether than wait any longer they were going to prep me for surgery.  I hadn't wanted an epidural, and I sure as hell hadn't wanted major abdominal surgery.  But I was exhausted, emotionally and physically, and I signed the consent form and just hoped I could get some sleep soon.

By 10:30 they were wheeling me down the hall to the OR.  Joe was left to don scrubs and reassured that they would get him once I was ready for the surgery.  They moved me onto the table and pulled my gown up to my chest.  My arms were strapped straight out at my sides, and though I had told myself if I had to have a c section I would ask for my arms to be free I didn't even bother asking, I was so tired.  They started running more medicine into my epidural and I realized that I could see everything they were doing to me in the reflection of a light above my bed.  I didn't want to see it and yet couldn't look away.  I was naked and exposed and being doused with iodine and I was suddenly horrified at what was about to happen to me.  By the time they put up the drape and blocked the reflection I was terrified.  

They pricked me in a bunch of places to see if I could feel it and I answered uncertainly, afraid to be wrong.  I vaguely remember Joe coming in and hearing them say they were beginning.  The surgeon was accompanied by a resident and was giving him instructions that I could clearly hear and didn't want to.  I was told I would feel a bit of pressure, but what I felt was a lot of painful tugging.  I guess it could be called pressure, but it actually kind of hurt.  When I said this I was told that it was just pressure, I couldn't really feel anything.  I lay there moaning in discomfort as they tugged and pulled for what felt like ages.  I remember thinking just before surgery that it didn't make any sense that there was about to be a baby in the room.  Where would it come from?  And it would be mine?  It couldn't possibly work like that.

Suddenly, there was a ridiculous amount of "pressure" akin to ripping out my insides accompanied by the loudest newborn wails I have ever heard.  At 10:59 the surgeon announced "it's a big boy!" and I bawled, and my baby screamed, and Joe kissed me and said "it's Colin!" and the surgeon said "would you like to cut the cord son?" and Joe was gone and I was crying and couldn't wipe my face and was sniffling into my oxygen mask.  There were congratulations and comments on how loud and big he was and they asked if I saw him when they held him over the drape and I shook my head no.  Then Joe was back with a tiny bundle and I kissed his forehead and they were gone and I was left with tears on my face alone in a room full of medical staff.

I asked how much longer I'd be and they said about an hour.  And then I felt a sharp pain and another and another and started shrieking that I could feel what they were doing.  They said it was just pressure and I said I could feel it and started yelling.  The doctor stopped suctioning, and then started again, and when he started I could feel what he was doing and was crying and moaning and yelling out afraid and in pain.  He told them to give me more medicine and there was a lot of movement and the pain got a little better but the rest of the time they were sewing me up I could feel them suctioning and moving me around and hear them discussing why stitches were preferred to staples.  

I tried to shut my eyes and breathe through the pain and think about my new son in the nursery with my husband but I just wanted to be asleep.  They moved me to the recovery room, and I don't remember much.  I think they inserted a catheter and I remember trying to make a joke with the nurses but I don't remember what it was about.  I have a fuzzy memory of Joe finally quietly wheeling in the bassinet with my sleeping baby in it.  I think I might have gotten a nap before that.  And then there were nurses showing me how to breastfeed and complimenting his latch, and phone calls to my parents and my college roommates.  At some point we were all moved to a room where we would spend the next two days but I really don't remember most of it.  

The days at the hospital were both wonderful and frustrating.  I couldn't move, I was in pain, I needed help getting off the bed and on and off the toilet.  My first walk down the hall was excruciating and I didn't see how I would ever be able to function again.  My son was beautiful, and Joe was wonderful and Joe couldn't wait to get home and off his uncomfortable cot and I didn't want to come home where there would be no one to help me move around.

And then we came home and it was hard and it was painful and it was so much better than being at the hospital.  And we had a tiny, perfect, newborn baby boy.  Our Colin.