Eviction Notice: A Birth Story (Part 1)

My sweet boy is a week old today! That just completely blows my mind!!! Each day that goes by, my brain shrinks a little more and a little more, so I want to get my birth story down before it gets all muddled and weird. Thank goodness that with each day that goes by, my heart grows by leaps and bounds. I just love this little guy.

When I envisioned my "ideal" delivery day, it came with so many special people and so many variables, that I was certain that it wouldn't actually come true. Of course, I wanted my doctor to deliver me. And being that I work in L&D, I had a labor nurse, charge nurse, nursery nurse, and anesthetist that I really wanted. I wanted to bring snacks and goodies for the unit. I wanted my baby to be bathed at the bedside and stay with me, and I wanted to stay in the labor unit for the duration of my admission. Most of all, I wanted a vaginal delivery with that super special moment where we finally learned whether this baby was a boy or a girl. So many ideals. I was certain I had set myself up for failure-- I mean, the nurse curse is real and I was waiting for the hammer to drop. Are you tired of hearing this yet? I mean, lets get to the question everyone wants to know: How'd you get that big boy out? Lets start from the beginning....

Room 281 - It's showtime!

First off, I was induced. We had lots of reasons for choosing this route and that's that. So we arrived at the hospital at an early 5:30 am, where my dear friend/labor nurse Carin was waiting for us. We did all the admit nonsense: paperwork, consent forms, lab work and an IV. I was already contracting some and the baby looked perfectly healthy on the monitor, so at about 6:30am or so, my pitocin was started. This all sounds pretty routine, but I was a nervous wreck. I was not happy being on "the other side." I kept telling Carin to ignore my elevated blood pressures, as I was sure they were high because I just couldn't relax.

The contractions came and they really weren't as bad as I anticipated. Carin let me be up and moving around the room, which certainly helped, but even when I was in the bed, all I felt was pressure with them. So far, so good.

Our last photo as a family of two!

Dr. Canterbury dropped in around 10 that morning and checked my cervix and broke my water. I was 4cm dilated and doing just fine. I told her to ignore my elevated blood pressures also, but she didn't listen to me and when she saw my swollen ankles (I'd gained 6lbs in a week! After not gaining any weight since 28 weeks!! Maybe there was something going on...), she ordered some additional lab work to check for Pregnancy Induced Hypertension. In the meantime, I was still pretty comfortable. I was contracting regularly, but even with my water broken, all I felt was pressure. I continued to move around the room but was also fine sitting in bed. I had really imagined the contractions to be much more painful than they ended up being. My PIH lab work came back a little wonky and Dr. Canterbury suggested I go ahead and get an epidural to help keep my blood pressures a little lower. I still like to think everything was purely anxiety induced, but on paper, I definitely met all the PIH qualifications. So I guess it's a pretty good thing we were there to have a baby before I got any sicker.

Carin called anesthesia for my epidural to be placed and my "favorite" CRNA came in from home to get me all set up. By this point in time I was 5cm dilated and it was around noon. Again, I was anticipating the epidural to be somewhat uncomfortable, but honestly, I hardly felt anything and was completely shocked when Dirk told me he was all finished. I definitely wanted an epidural for labor and wouldn't change my mind now, but definitely didn't like the creepy crawly heavy leg feeling. (Can you tell I have a few control issues?!)

Fast forward 2 hours and I'm still 5cm dilated. By this point in time (I can't remember exactly, but I think it was around 2pm), I'm getting frustrated and my L&D nurse brain is on fire with thoughts of labor curves, c-sections, shoulder dystocias, pushing for 3 hours, vacuums, forceps, arrest of dilation, arrest of descent... I was a bundle of nerves once again. I'd been there since dark thirty and only made ONE centimeter's worth of progress??? I was sure that I was doomed. Carin kept trying to be encouraging and I rolled my eyes at her. We initiated all the superstitious labor tricks and crossed our fingers that my uterus and this baby would start to cooperate soon.

To Be Continued.