Birth Story Part IV: Jack's Arrival

About 20 minutes before we started pushing, Daniel left to go get interviewed by the Chattanooga Chanel 9 News. They were doing a feature on 11-11-11 and we made their list since we were having our baby {naturally – no induction} on 11-11-11. 

While Daniel was gone, my nurse and sister started getting ready for me to push. Once Daniel came back to our room my nurse told me what to expect and how to push. Then she placed my legs in the stirrups and had Angela and Daniel stand on either side of the bed so that they would be ready to help me push.  

As soon as a contraction started, I was to take a deep breath in and then push with all of my might while holding my breath for a 10 count. Once we reached 10 I was supposed to take another breath and do it again. We would do it 3 times for each contraction. While I pushed, Angela and Daniel each helped to pull my legs toward my body.  

All I can say is that labor is tough work. Initially I was struggling to hold my breath for each 10 count. At one point my nurse even stopped me from pushing and lectured me on the fact that if I didn’t do it like she said I was going to have to have a c-section. This helped somewhat, but it was still hard.

Eventually I got angry at all three of them for forgetting to count – I really needed something to focus on and when they forgot to count it was infuriating. I even yelled that one of them better start counting. Also, I am pretty sure that Angela’s 10-counts were much longer than 10 seconds because they were prefaced with, “You’re doing great… You can do it… Keep pushing… One… Two… Three… ect.” Let me tell you, those extra phrases made me feel like I was going to pass out!

After about 15 minutes we had made some decent progress and Jack had dropped down to a +2 station. I naively thought we would be done soon. We kept pushing and I started to struggle. I could feel that Jack was crowning, but it didn’t seem to be enough. I had been awake for 30+hours, had not eaten in 19 hours and had nothing to drink in at least 8 hours.

After 45 minutes of pushing my OB came in and took a look. She discovered that Jack’s head was turned sideways which was making it difficult for him to descend further in my pelvis. She could also tell that I was reaching the point of exhaustion and there was concern that if I didn’t push him out soon, he was going to start suffering from distress. She offered two options to me: option one was to use forceps; option two was to use a vacuum to assist me.

Angela really thought she should go with the vacuum, but my OB said she was very proficient with the forceps and that it would be faster. Daniel didn’t want me to do either. But at that point I felt like I couldn’t take it for much longer. I was going to have to push with either option and I didn’t want to waste what little energy I had and then not be able to finish.

Daniel kept telling me that I could do it and I would do it, and I kept telling him and the nurses that I was done and I couldn't do it. It was a hard conversation to have, especially with the doctor sitting a foot away and a room full of nurses. I finally convinced Daniel that I needed the baby out NOW and we agreed to let our OB try the forceps.

She started by giving me localized shots in the birth canal since my epidural had weakened. Then she used her hands to manually turn Jack’s head so that it would be easier for him to come out. Once his head was turned, she took the forceps and tried to insert them around his head. Unfortunately {thankfully} the forceps wouldn’t fit around his head. So we moved on to Plan B.

During all of this I became incredibly calm. I am not sure where this calm came from because prior to the decision to have an assisted forceps or vacuum birth I was really starting to lose it – crying and arguing with Angela and Daniel that I couldn’t do it. Realistically if I hadn’t been in such good shape I don’t think I would have been able to push Jack out.

The vacuum turned out to be a fairly small disc that she applied to Jack’s head. We pushed through 2 contractions and his head was out! During the next contraction I had to hold off pushing while my OB cut the cord from his neck. Then I pushed him out. It was a pretty amazing experience. 18.5 hours of labor and 1.5 hours of pushing and baby Jack was welcomed into the world.

Once he was out, our OB let Daniel trim the umbilical cord closer to his body. Jack cried briefly as he was whisked away by a nurse to get assessed. 

 

 

Angela took lots of pictures. I think Daniel wasn’t sure what he should do. I was getting stitches {my first ever} for a 2nd degree tear and Daniel stayed close by to me for moral support, but I told him that he should go and see Jack.

 

Jack’s apgar scores were 7 and 8. It turned out that he had a fever immediately following birth, but it quickly resolved (and they didn't tell us this till the next day). About 15 minutes after birth, the nurses finally handed Jack to me. He was perfect with humongous eyes that observed everything. My sister took a picture and texted our families. My father-in-law later mentioned that we had a thoroughly modern baby because he got to see his grandson in the waiting room on his phone before he got to see him in person.

We took time to feed Jack and then invited Daniel’s family to come in to meet the newest member of our family.

 

Jack’s birth wasn’t what I thought it was going to be, but he is here and that is all that matters. Daniel and I are both in love with our little boy. Every 6lbs 12 oz and 21 inches of him. We are truly blessed.

Shortly after Jack’s birth Daniel said something about when we had our next kid… At the time I was so traumatized that I secretly thought that he was crazy and that there was NO WAY that I would EVER go through this again. However 12 days later the experience is becoming a distant memory. And while I can’t imagine having another baby any time in the near future, I am OK with the possibility of having another baby some day. Strange how your mind forgets the painful parts. 

 

Birth Story Part I, Part II, Part III

Birth Story Part III: You Want to do What???

In all of my research about giving birth there were several things that really made me cringe...

Internal Fetal Monitor. So you want to stick something inside my body and screw an electrode into my baby's head? No thank you.

Forceps. You want to stick salad tongs up in my nether regions and yank my baby out? Double no thank you.

Vacuum. You want to suck my baby out of me? What the??? I actually watched a video on this {granted it was old and the suction cups were rather large} but it really made my skin crawl.

C-Section. You want to cut me open? This just scares me because I have NEVER had stitches or surgery or even a broken bone. However I can at least stomach the idea of a C-section since it is a common practice, but it still scares me.

Those were my main concerns before going into labor. Who knew that I would have to face the possibility of every.single.one. of them...

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So once Jack's heart rate had leveled out my nurse suggested we turn out all of the lights and try to get some rest. With the epidural my body could continue to labor and I could sleep.

I think that Daniel actually managed to fall asleep. I just lay in the dark and listened to the heart rate monitor. Angela {who is used to working nights} sat in a rocking chair and surfed the internet on her iPhone.

Not much time had gone by when Jack's heart rate plummeted again. Angela jumped up and asked me if I thought the external heart rate monitor had moved. No, I didn't think so. None of the nurses were coming, so Angela went ahead and got an oxygen mask out for me just as my nurse came running in the door. Evidently the nurses station had a glitch and NO ONE had noticed that Jack's heart rate had dropped. Our nurse frantically tried to find Jack's heart rate again and soon the room filled up with nurses.

Angela may have gotten a little bossy at this point – insisting that a doctor be called. You could tell some of the other nurses were uncomfortable with this. I am just glad that I have a bossy sister who knows what to do in an emergency. I think that my actual nurse was glad to have someone competent there.

Anyways a doctor came in and they decided to insert an internal fetal monitor. It was like getting a catheter inserted – which wasn't too bad since I had an epidural. They also inserted a intrauterine pressure catheter so they could know the exact force of my contractions. 

It was about 5am and I had to stay on oxygen until things were under control. My OB made an appearance and we discovered that I had progressed to 8cm. Unfortunately it seemed to be that each contraction was causing Jack's heart rate to drop. This was NOT GOOD.

My OB left to go look at my files and came back to say that around 32 weeks they had noted from a 3D ultrasound that Jack's umbilical cord was probably wrapped around his neck. Angela commented that she had thought the same thing upon seeing my ultrasound {she had kept this to herself through my whole pregnancy because she didn't want to scare us – definitely the right choice}.

So. The umbilical cord was the culprit. Every contraction was making the umbilical cord clamp down and restrict Jack's oxygen supply. 

My OB also said that since progressing to 8cm earlier that morning my body had really put the breaks on progressing – maybe it was trying to compensate for the fact that Jack's heart rate kept dropping. My OB wanted to start me on pitocin to get things moving again. Daniel and I asked the OB to leave the room so that we could discuss our options. We also took advantage of quizzing Angela on what all of this meant. In the end we agreed to use pitocin.

The nurses had just changed shift and we were blessed to get a very experienced, no-nonsense nurse. She started me out slow on the pitocin. Unfortunately Jack reacted badly to it. Our nurse came back to tell us that a c-section was probably eminent. She stopped the pitocin and Jack's heart rate evened out. She even went so far as to prep us for what to expect if I did get a c-section.

This made my heart drop. I really didn't want to be cut open.

My OB came back and looked at all of my stats and said that Jack was actually doing really well. She also checked me and learned that I had dilated to 8.5cm, so the pitocin was working. We decided to give it a bit more time. At this point Angela frankly told us that we had about a 30% chance of a c-section.

The nurse started the pitocin at an even lower level and I kept breathing oxygen with each contraction. Throughout the morning, my nurse kept increasing my pitocin to help increase my contractions and keep me dilating.

Around 1pm, things were looking bad again and my nurse came in and frankly told me that we were probably going to get a c-section. Daniel was out of the room at the time and I tried to digest what I was being told. I was scared but trying to hold it together. We needed to do what was best for Jack and my personal feelings needed to be pushed aside.

Daniel came back and we updated him on what was going on. Angela told us that she thought there was a 90% chance of c-section.

My OB came in and checked me and said that I was at 9cm and close to being fully effaced. However Jack had still not dropped at all. She looked over all of my stats again and said that Jack was handling everything remarkably well and she wanted to increase the pitocin even more and that we would just ride out each contraction sans oxygen since he was recovering on his own.

During the course of the day I had my epidural redosed 3 times. By 3pm I was getting tired and things were starting to hurt again. My nurse came in to check me and said that I was at 10 cm and fully effaced and that Jack had dropped a little to the -1 station. Ideally you start pushing when baby gets to +2 {see image below}... +3 means that baby is crowning.

My nurse said if I wanted we could try pushing, but if I couldn't move him down on my own, we were DEFINITELY going to have a c-section. I told her that I DEFINITELY wanted to try pushing...

Stay tuned for Part IV.