All About Babies, Part I Dear Son's Birth Story

I have been posting a lot on Facebook about birth in our world today. It's a seriously sensitive topic! I posted this article about apparent Systemic Failures in American Maternity Care without even noticing the comments afterwards. But then I read on and on and on....after the article, there is a heated debate in the comments section between a former OB who is staunchly against home birth and other women who are for less 'medicalized' hospital births.

In any case, I think that a) my daughter's birth is intricately tied into my weird postpartum health problems and b) it might be worth telling my birth stories to explain how I ended up where I did with my views on childbirth. Here goes.

With my DS, everything went as according to plan as it possibly could. The only problem was that later in the pregnancy, they were concerned I wasn't measuring big enough. I got extra ultrasounds as a bonus and they couldn't point to any major growth restrictions or disproportions.

My water broke at 3 a.m. on August 24th, 2008 and then there was that dreaded 'plug' business. (Let me just interject that my husband works with other people's mucous all day but when it came to this stuff, he couldn't stomach it! Pansy.)

I woke up my husband right away and we just walked around together. It wasn't until I started puking and needing the toilet simultaneously that we decided to go to the hospital. We could have waited longer.

Triage at the hospital was just annoying. I knew I was in labor, irrefutably. But it's not really labor until a stranger with the tools of the trade tells you so.

In our room, I was welcomed by a nurse who, while otherwise nice, would NOT get off of my back about laying down and getting drugs. She eventually just resorted to the same annoying phrase: "You'll eventually want to...." Fill in the blank with whatever she wanted me to do.

I spent the next few hours walking in our room and meditating on a medicine ball, which I adored. 

After who knows how many hours, my nurse midwife came in and asked if I wanted her to break the rest of my 'waters'. Because I was impatient, I said, "Yes." In retrospect, I definitely would have waited. It's like a children's story. Because she broke my water, then the contractions got tough. Because the contractions were tough, Nicky got tired. Because Nicky was tired, Nicky caved to the aforementioned-and-refused medication. Because she got some weird med, Nicky got dizzy. Because Nicky was dizzy, Nicky couldn't stand up. Because Nicky couldn't stand up, Nicky didn't progress. You get the picture. :)

The next time my midwife checked things out, I wasn't dilated as much as she was hoping. She was suggesting we try Pitocin, which I really didn't want. Because Pitocin can be horrible, she suggested we get an epidural first. I did. It was lovely. I slept. Despite having a "window of pain", I slept. On my left side, down into my leg, I could feel the contractions. I could still feel my legs. I think this was probably a blessing.

While I was sleeping, I relaxed and everything else relaxed and I dilated to a 10.

Me, before the epidural:

Almost 16 hours after my water broke, it was time to push. This part was the most frustrating to me because there was a bowling ball stuck in my nethers and I didn't really try to push because everyone was so encouraging. Their encouragement led me to believe that my son's head was just about to fall out! Surely I didn't need to try that hard! After some crazy acrobatics (here's where I'm grateful the epidural wasn't total) and two hours of pushing later:

Someone handed me my babe. Even though I'd paid lip service to the idea of skin contact right after birth, I was a little out of it and he was slimy. And purpley. So I sent him to get bathed. :) The first thing I asked for after he was born? A Coke.

My DS was 7 lbs, 15 ounces.