Benjamin's Birth Story

Benjamin is now 11 days old. I'm just now starting to feel like myself again - yesterday was the first day that I did not have a sobbing meltdown, and this morning I not only showered, I also put on make-up! My dad is sleeping on the couch with Benjamin right now, so I thought it was time to write down some of the details surrounding his birth - before I forget them. Although many of the details are already a bit foggy.

Early Labor

The first contractions started the day of my 38-week check-up. I wasn't really sure they were contractions, but something felt different, so I tried to prepare things at work "just-in-case" I didn't return the next day. At my check-up the doctor measured my cervix, which was 50% effaced, -1 station, and fingertip dilated. Nothing happened (ie no more contractions) though for another week and a half.

On Sunday night before Benjamin was born (June 3), I began having more of these very faint contractions. Some of them even got a bit stronger that I would call them mildly uncomfortable. Mark and I got pretty excited thinking that this may be it - and finished up a few of the last minute preparations, also "just in case" - we were both wary to get our hopes up. When I went to bed, though, the contractions went away. They returned again on Monday morning, and actually continued all through the week, although sporadically. I would mostly feel them in the morning and in the evening, but they either got weaker or I was too distracted to notice them while I was at work.

False Alarm

On Thursday afternoon, I went to the bathroom around 4 pm just before heading home. When I pulled my pants up, I notice that my underwear seemed rather wet. I didn't think much of it, because incontinence is a bit of a problem in late pregnancy (not too bad, fortunately for me, but also not perfect). On my way to my car in the parking garage, I felt some more contractions, also a bit stronger, and my pants seemed wetter than I thought they should. I pulled the towels out of my trunk that I had stashed in case my water had broken (which I was beginning to think had happened), put them on the front seat and called Mark to let him know that I thought my water had broken. When I got home, I changed pants and checked again to see if they got wet. They did, but just a tiny bit. I changed again, and this time everything stayed dry. I was beginning to doubt whether my water had broken, but I called the doctor-on-call (now it was past 5 pm), and they advised that I come in to get checked, just in case it had broken. Mark was supposed to play a concert on Thursday night, so we frantically packed up our stuff for the hospital, while he called the personnel manager (who he couldn't reach) as well as a sub to let them know that we were headed to the hospital, so he wouldn't be coming to the concert. We headed to the hospital, and were escorted to a room where I got to put on one of those wonderful gowns and was strapped up to a machine that checked fetal heart rate and contractions. A doctor came in and took a swab of my cervix to see if it was leaking amniotic fluid (which did so announcing that she could not use lubrication when inserting the speculum because it would taint the sample, as she was holding up the metal device - OUCH! - actually it was not as bad as I thought it would be).

The doctor actually spent a lot of time talking to us (apparently it was a slow night) as we waited for the results - she read over our birth plan and pointed out the problems (which we had already had approved by my doc) - and she was so pro-epidural it made us doubt our plans (ie that I was more likely to tear if I didn't get an epidural, because they wouldn't be able to massage my perineum, etc). The tests came back negative - ie. I just couldn't hold my pee- so they discharged us from the hospital. One interesting thing was that we found out that I was having contractions every 5-7 minutes during the time I was hooked up to the machines. I felt some of them, but not nearly that many.

The Real Thing

Friday morning I woke up at 6 AM (alarm clock was not set to go off for another hour) with some stronger contractions and very hungry. I poured myself some cereal and settled in front of the computer for my normal morning routine of checking email and reading blogs. I was surprised by how much stronger the contractions were, and how frequently they were coming. When I finished breakfast, I went and woke up Mark to tell him about them, and we stayed in bed for a few minutes timing them, and trying to decide what to do. I had been having contractions all week during the morning (although none this strong), so we spent some time figuring out if I should go to work. Also, I was supposed to have my 40-week appointment at 8:45 am, but if this was real labor, I didn't know if I should go to my appointment, or wait at home and labor until I really needed to go to the hospital. We still remained indecisive, as we showered and got ready for the day. Finally, I decided not to to go work, and we decided that Mark also should not go. We also decided to go ahead and head to my doctor's appointment, and decided (thankfully) to pack up the car just in case we needed to check-in to the hospital when we got there. Once again, I seemed to be leaking fluid, but after the false alarm the night before, I thought I might still be suffering from incontinence. From here, everything seemed to happen really fast. My contractions got pretty intense very quickly, and as Mark drove us to the doctor's office (right next door to the hospital), we both called people at work to let them know we weren't coming in. I remember having a lot of trouble dialing the right phone numbers, and then the admin who was supposed to set up my disability leave was out of the office. So I called Randy, my boss, to let him know I wasn't coming in, and by this point the contractions were hard to get through - but I didn't want to be moaning in labor while on the phone, so I tried very hard to have a normal conversation with him. When we got to the doctor's office, I had to stop every few minutes as we walked through the garage and through the halls to the check-up. She checked my fluid, and this time I was actually leaking amniotic fluid - my waters had broken. I was also 3 cm dilated, 75% effaced, and I think still a -1 station. My doctor recommended I check-in to the hospital, which was a relief, because I wasn't up for another car ride home and back. We checked into the hospital around 10 AM, at which point the contractions were really strong and close together, and meanwhile I'm trying to change into a robe while nurses brought my form after form to sign (that's really hard to do while you are in labor! I didn't even care what I was signing - just writing my name down was hard enough). Mark called the Doula and asked her to head over, and I was wishing we had called her sooner, because it was already getting really challenging to get through them. Although Mark and I had practiced and prepared with Bradley, we weren't able to really focus and work on relaxing with all the distractions of getting "settled in" to the hospital. I think Patti, our Doula, got to the hospital around 11 AM, and she also brought (with our permission) Soila, her intern. Patti got started massaging my back right away (the baby was posterior for all of the labor, which means that I had back labor, which was REALLY hard), and we tried different positions on the birth ball, I tried standing in the shower as hot water ran on my back, tried leaning over the bed, etc. It was really hard to relax, and right away I was thinking of an epidural, but I couldn't seem to say anything about it - the contractions were so intense, and it seems I couldn't fully recover from one before the next one came.

Around 2 PM, my doctor came to check on me. I was now dilated to 4 cm (only one cm progress since my 9 am checkup), and she said that we could go naturally for a while longer if we wanted, but we needed to start thinking about using Pitocin to move things along, particularly because my water had broken the night before, and we didn't know exactly when. She left, and Mark and Patti and I discussed how to proceed. Patti said that we could continue naturally, but with the back labor, I wasn't relaxing enough, so things were likely to continue slowly - and I didn't have the luxury of a lot of time. Also, she had been trying to massage the baby off my back all afternoon, but every time we changed positions, he went right back to it. I was also getting really worn out. At this point, I was very willing to have an epidural, but it was much harder for Mark. One reason is that the anesthesiologist makes everyone leave the room when I get it. Also, the hospital was known for giving very strong epidurals, which worried us about my ability to feel contractions effectively to push. We decided to get one - and the procedure itself was painless. I think I finally actually got the epidural around 3 PM (I had to get hooked up to all the monitors, get IV fluids flowing etc), and it really wasn't very bad at all. And finally I was able to get some relief from the contractions.

Looking back, I am glad that I got an epidural, because I think I may have ended up with a C-section had I not. For one thing, I had the clock working against me (I was NOT going to take Pitocin on top of back labor without some relief! - and later they found some meconium in the fluid I was leaking, which was also not a good sign). Secondly, the baby showed distress at one point, and they gave me a pepcid tablet, which is apparently what they do if they think you are going to need a C-section (He recovered, though, with some help from Patti massaging him off my back rather vigorously). And finally, I tore pretty badly, and I am glad that I didn't feel that. The only part I regret is how strong the epidural was - I couldn't feel anything at all - I had to be coached when to push - and I didn't feel the baby come out. It made it all rather dream-like, because here I was pushing without having any knowledge of the progress being made, and all of a sudden they are holding this baby up for me. That being said, I'm still glad I got the epidural, and we achieved our goal - which was to have a vaginal birth. Next time, though, I think I may try a different hospital where they don't give them so strongly.

Anyways, the next few hours passed rather quietly. Since I didn't feel much, I pretty much just rested. Patti gave me more massages to help me rest and prepare for the pushing. Mark came and sat quietly next to me, holding my hand and stroking my hair, and we talked a little about how soon we were going to meet Benjamin. Soila (the Doula intern) came over at one point to give me a massage, but the rolling chair she was going to sit on slid out from behind her and she fell loudly to the floor, bumping her head on the chair before it slammed into the wall. I was facing the other way, and it was all rather confusing, but she recovered okay.

At one point, I hit transition (I don't remember what time) because my body began shaking uncontrollably. Mark seemed distressed by it, but it really didn't hurt - it was just a bit tiring to have all your muscles tense up and shake. The nurse kept telling me to let her know when I felt like I needed to make a bowel movement, but I couldn't feel anything. At one point they rolled me to my other side, and I guess they saw something, because they decided it was time for me to push (they weren't doing many vaginal exams to reduce the risk of infection, since my water had been broken for a while).

The nurse held one leg, while Mark and Patti took turns holding the other leg for me for the pushing. I also pulled back on both legs. For each contraction, they counted to 10 while I held my breath, curled my chin to my chest, pulled my legs back and pushed. I then took a quick breath, and repeated two times. The baby was still posterior at this point, so they had me push on one side and then the other. I guess I began tearing at one point, because they were trying to assess how bad the tear was, and how to proceed. I guess it wasn't bad enough for an episiotomy at that point, so we continued. I ended up pushing for about an hour. It was hard to figure out if I was pushing right because I couldn't feel anything, but I could tell from everyone's eyes lighting up when I was doing it right, and I would try to remember what I had done to repeat it for the next push. When I was getting close, they started warming up the baby receiver, and then called the doctor in. I think I only had to give a few pushes once the doctor and her assistant arrived before he was born. Then they put this wriggling bloody little boy on my chest and began cleaning him up. After we spent a few minutes together, they moved him to the warming table, and spent some time suctioning him out (he had some fluid in his lungs, I think), and spent a lot of time sewing me up (2nd degree tear - I am surprised how fast it seems to be healing). Finally, they returned him to me, we tried breastfeeding and hanging out with him, until they moved him to the transition nursery, while I waited to be moved to the recovery room, and Mark went out to make some calls.

Both my and Benjamin's temperatures were running a little high, so we both had our vitals taken a lot during the next 24 hours, and I was kept on an IV. Everyone checked out okay, though, so we were able to proceed normally. We were discharged from the hospital on Sunday morning (although told we didn't need to leave until 11 PM - so we left at 10 PM! - we wanted to glean all the wisdom we could from the baby nurses!).

So that's Benjamin's birth story! Below are some pictures: