The labor though was absolute hell. Much worse than with Katie! I was absolutely not prepared for it, and I prepared A LOT!
We arrived in our room around 5 PM, got all set up, and then midwife Robin told me her induction plan. She was going to put an induction pill at my cervix (which I wasn't for but ended up going with anyway) as she said she never has any luck with a foly bulb and usually it'll just dilate someone to a 3 and then they get stuck. At a 3, the pill is no longer a possibility so you're on pitocin for the entire rest of the time. She said with me being still high and at a 1 with my water in tact (they didn't want the bulb to push the baby's head back up and risk getting the cord come down first when the large amounts of water did break) that the pill would be the best option. She told me that should get me to about a 4 and then they'd put me on a low dose of pitocin and monitor it. She said she hoped that by sometime in the morning, I'd be ready to push.
Once she put the pill in at 7 PM, she told me she'd be leaving until midnight and then would be back to check on me. She said if I was more than a 3-4, she'd come in for the night and hoped to start pushing around 4 AM. If not, she'd wait until I was further along and we'd have baby in the morning.
I was exhausted. I went into the hospital super tired, so I slept as much as I could. The pill gave me contractions that were frequent by 9 PM. They were coming every minute or two, but I was happy that even while watching the contractions spike really high on the machine, I was able to breathe my way through them with minimal issue. I eventually fell into a light sleep until at a little after midnight, I woke up with a horribly sharp pain that felt like a knife went through me. Instantly, I started to gush. Bill was asleep and I couldn't reach the nurse's call button, so I started yelling and throwing things at him as contractions started instantly. He eventually woke up enough to call, and a doctor came in to check me. I was at a 2! I was completely crushed. Here I was thinking if my water had broken, I must be at least half way there. I was so excited, and it really was a harsh blow. She said she would call Robin and update her. Robin decided that it wasn't far enough for her to come in, and that she'd check on me in about 4 hours.
Meanwhile, I started dying. I tried to call my mom again to update her on my water breaking, but I was in so much pain I couldn't. I was gripped with contractions that were the most hellish, horrible feeling pain in the world, and they suddenly came every 30 seconds. There was no gradual build up of pain, it went from 0 - a million suddenly. I couldn't even catch my breath! They often double teamed as well, where as soon as I'd start to feel the relief of one contraction ending, another would come roaring in. They always started at the very tip of my pelvis, where it's been hurting for months, and would spread like wild fire. I don't think anyone knew what to do with me, I was absolutely flipping out at only a 2! The nurse kept asking me, though I told her in the beginning not to, if I wanted drugs. At this point, I had no focus, I was being thrown from one contraction into another with no time in between to gather my thoughts and the intensity of the contractions was so rough that I could barely breathe, let alone do the calming hypno-breathing to calm me down, so I agreed to get nebain in the IV they had set up for pitocin. I could only think that if it was tearing me up this badly at a two, I would never make it to a ten without help. I was so afraid of it taking me so long while using up all of my strength that I'd end up with a c-section. I just kept saying that there was no way I was going to get through this with being at only a 2 and that was the biggest fear of mine. If someone could have only told me that I was in transition, I would have been fine continuing on.
Instead, at this point, I felt like such a pansy! I was losing my mind while barely being dilated. I had no idea at the time, but this was actually transition, and I was not a 2, I was probably about an 8-9. I asked for the IV meds, declined the epi, and begged for them to hurry up already. It did extremely little once they finally got it for me. It made me very dizzy and drunk feeling, and for about five minutes it helped in between contractions. But since there was barely any time at all between contractions and it didn't touch the contractions themselves, it quickly just became something that made me dizzy.
It was around 2 AM that I got up needing to go to the bathroom terribly. I finished a contraction and practically ran to the bathroom, lugging my monitors with me. I got on the toilet and emptied everything, but still felt a lot of pressure. I could feel the baby's head, still high up but starting to come into the birth canal. I had two or three horrible contractions on the toilet, where I practiced breathing down the baby. I didn't push, but sort of beared down with breathing like the hynobirthing book talks about. As soon as I could, I jumped up and literally ran and jumped into bed as another contraction came to take me out at the knees. I laid back down and was going insane from the pain. For some reason, (actually, I know exactly the reason - I thought it someone stuck their hand up there to feel for dilation, it would be enough pain to actually kill me. I was doing everything I could to avoid that) I decided to not tell anyone that I could feel the head coming down. As I laid there, I started to get a bit more wild. I could feel my hips spreading apart, my pelvis feeling like it was shattering, my tailbone pushing back. This is around the time that they lost the baby's heartbeat on the monitor and kept trying to flip me back and forth, back and forth to find it. I was so damn annoyed at this because it hurt SO badly to go from side to side. I wasn't worried, I knew why they couldn't find the baby's heartbeat and that he was fine. (The other horrible part about going back and forth was that I was leaking so much fluid, it was filling the entire bed. I was literally soaked from my feet to my shoulders, and I told them to stop touching the bed dressings because I was just gushing gallons every time I had a contraction - which was constantly.
It was around this time (which was around 2:15-2:20) when the nurse couldn't find where to get the heart beat, that I had become loud and thrashing enough to draw the attention of two doctors. They came in and I heard the nurse say "I don't know, she's only a two! She was just checked an hour ago." They asked if they could check me, and I told them to stay out. They said they thought they could see my body bearing down, and told me DO NOT push, I wasn't dilated enough to be anywhere near that stage. I told them okay, but I wasn't pushing - my body was bearing down all on it's own. It wasn't even forcefully, I could just feel all the muscles doing exactly what they were supposed to do, and it felt really good for them to do that! I think I was trying to escape the nurse touching my belly to find the heartbeat at this point too. Finally one doctor said "I'm just going to check really quickly, okay?" At this point, the head was far enough down that I knew he would barely need to touch me, so I said okay. The look on his face was priceless! He said "Oh, that's the head!" as he took his hand out. Before he could finish the sentence, the baby's head rushed through the rest of my birth canal, crowned and popped out, then the rest of his body slid right out at 2:31 AM. I never had to intentionally push. The part of the hynobirthing that I thought was impossible - never pushing but letting your body naturally take over - was the part that ended up happening completely. I never pushed, never had to be coached, the baby was guided down with my muscles and my body would bear down only a few times.
Obviously because of this, we once again got no pictures of the baby coming out. From the time the doctor tried to check me to the time the baby's head was out was the span of maybe 10-15 seconds, and the body followed within a very few seconds of the head. The baby was literally placed on me before my mind even had time to realize the baby was completely out. I was 100% expecting a birth like Katie's, where I pushed for 3 hours and her head got stuck crowning for a half hour in a horrible ring of fire. This time, while I was able to start yelling that I was tearing and holy freaking ring of fire, the baby just wooshed right through it, not even slowing down at that part!
It was a good thing the doctors heard me, because the nurse had no idea what was going on and wasn't even looking at the end of the bed or trying to figure out why I kept telling her that I couldn't put one leg down when she repeatedly told me to (I had to keep my leg up to keep my pelvis open, as the baby's head was coming down. I guess it didn't occur to her that this could be happening.) Had they not been there, the baby would have just fallen into the bed.
Once he was in my arms, they had Bill cut the cord and gave him to me to skin to skin. They were trying to ask me questions about the baby, but I was in so much shock that I suddenly had a baby in my arms after 2 hours of active labor that I couldn't answer. It didn't even occur to me to check if he was a boy until a few minutes later when someone asked to make sure. The baby was staring at me and I was staring back saying "oh my gosh, you're here!" Someone said Robin had been alerted a bit ago of my insane thrashing about and that she should come check me, and she was on her way. I guess on the way in someone told her what happened, because she burst in the door saying "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Did I at least make it for the placenta delivery?" Which she did. She came over and checked the baby, muttering apologies, massaged my belly and told me to give one push - the only push I did the entire time. It easily came out all at once. I was still complaining of a lot of pain after, but they checked me and said I had no tearing or rips. The pain I was referring to was my tailbone, which ached but not in the same way it had with Katie. It feels like I bruised it pretty good, but it's not broken or fractured this time. What a great improvement, I didn't think there was any way I was going to get around that!
The delivery itself was quite wonderful, much better than Katie's, but I'd never wish a short labor on anyone again after this. I was in active labor for only 2 hours and it was such a horrible shock and unbearable pain, I'd much rather the labor be like last time with Katie, where it was 7 hours long and the pain gradually built up so I could learn how to deal with it and become accustomed to it, instead of just getting thrown in the deep end and being held down by riptides. Next time if I need to be induced, I won't be using the pill again. While it worked, it just worked too strongly for me. I now realize that my body just needs a little push to get started, and the foly bulb works great for that. It's gentle enough to start my body but let my body take control and do it on it's own. Medical induction, which I never wanted, was unnecessary. I learned quite a bit about my body during this labor, and hopefully it'll help next time.
I knew from Katie's delivery to deny the sleep meds because they make you so groggy. This time I learned that even when the pain is horrible, deny the nubaine too, because it doesn't touch the pain at all and just makes you feel dizzy and drunk.
After birth, I got to cuddle my baby for an hour or so before they started taking stats. Around 3:30 he was taken to get dressed and looked over. They said he was perfectly healthy and looked great. Our rainbow has finally arrived!
William Lee Keller Jr.
Born on 12.27.13
at 2:31 AM
8 lbs, 1.8oz
20.5 inches long
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