Baby Marcus' Birth!

Everyone! Eleven days ago I had my beautiful baby boy! We named him Marcus and he weighed 7lbs 5oz. We are so overjoyed to have him! His sisters adore him as well.

I want to make this post entirely about his birth. It did not go how I hoped it would, and there's parts that I'm super disappointed with. I'm thinking maybe other mama's out there may be interested in my birth story and maybe some can learn from it.

I had a pretty basic birth plan. All I wanted was to labor at home as long as possible, go to the hospital and labor naturally there for as long as possible and try to avoid the epidural if possible, although I was totally open to it if I was in bad enough pain for a long period. I was planning on using the bath, birth ball, and various positions I learned in prenatal yoga classes to help get through the contractions. With the twins I was induced with several rounds of Cervidil and Pitocin so I was really wanting to see what a natural labor was like this time. I really wanted to labor without being hooked up to an IV or a bunch on monitors and whatnot, I wanted to just be free.

I chose to not have a doula. Not because it was too expensive or anything like that, but I'm just a little weird about people being in my space, and I figured I'd be more comfortable if it was just me and my husband going through labor.

Part 1 - Morning Contractions
I woke up Tuesday morning with some fairly uncomfortable contractions. Id been having false labor contractions for many weeks, but these were definitely more painful than anything I'd felt before. I wasn't sure if I was really going into labor though, because they were spaced do far apart, seemed like every 30-40 minutes. I decided to work from home just in case. Tuesday is the day my mom comes over to watch the kids while my husband and I work, so she was surprised to find me still home when she arrived. She watched the twins while I worked at my computer while sitting on a birth ball.

Part 2 - My Water Breaks!
At 11:00 I got up to use the bathroom and felt a very watery discharge, only a trickle though. I suspected that it was amniotic fluid, but was surprised by how little was coming out. As I returned to my computer, MORE came out, and soon it was a gush and there was no denying it, my water had definitely broke. Thank goodness I did not go into the office for work!

My mom was very excited by this time, and kept telling me to go to the hospital. But I insisted that I could labor at home for awhile. The problem was, I was still not really having many contractions, they were still 30-40 minutes apart, so I was a tad worried. I knew that once the amniotic sac is ruptured, babies should be delivered within a day or risk infection. I knew my doctor would want me to deliver within 24 hours, and if I was not in full blow labor in a reasonable amount of time, induction could happen.

I started pacing around the house and doing a bunch of hip circles on my birth ball. I was willing to do whatever it took to get labor going. To appease my mom who still insisted that I should go to the hospital, I called my doctor to find out how long I could stay at home. I asked if I could stay for five or six hours, which to me sounded totally within reason and my doctor agreed.

I called my dad to pick up the twins, and set up the house with all the things I wanted to have during early labor. I had my candles burning, my music was playing, and my essential oils were diffusing. I ordered my mom and I some yummy lunch and I was feeling very happy. My contractions were starting to come more frequently! I was getting hope!

Part 3 - What happened??
It was a slow ramp up, but by 4:00 I was getting contractions every 4-8 minutes, and they were getting rather painful. I started seeking relief by doing some of the techniques I learned in class. It seemed like things were working out so well! We decided that by 5:00 we would head to the hospital since that would be the 6 hour mark since my water broke. I was feeling like things were going exactly right. One thing I had read about and talked about with doulas/midwifes was having a glass of wine during early labor, so I figured about now would be the time for that! My husband suggested we watch a show on Netflix while we wait.

I don't know if it was the wine, or the fact that I stopped pacing around to watch the episode of Star Trek, or something else, but my contractions slowed way, way down. I was back to the 30-40 minute intervals I had that morning. I didn't really know what to do. Should we still go to the hospital? Should we try staying home another few hours to see if we can get things going again? I wanted to stay home, because I knew what could happen if we went to the hospital (induction), but my husband likes to listen to the doctor, and I wanted to be reasonable. So away we went to the hospital.

Part 4 - Hospital time

Here I am in triage, before I knew what was coming. I'm excited to meet my baby soon.

When we first arrive at the hospital, I'm still hopeful that I can go into labor naturally. It was about 5:30 when we arrived, and I figured surly there's plenty of time before my 24 hours are up. I get checked into triage, they offer me a hospital gown which I declined in favor of my pretty pusher gown. They then immediately hook me up to fetal/uterine monitors. Ugh, monitors, I hate these damn monitors, but I'm hopeful that it's just temporary. The nurses check to be sure I am indeed leaking amniotic fluid (affirmative!) and then check my cervix.

This is where things turned ugly. I was only dilated at 2 cm, which was the same as the day before. Essentially all the contractions I was having through the day did nothing to progress my dilatation. The nurses start talking about Pitocin, and I'm thinking "oh no no no no FFFF why did I come to the hospital?" Then my doctor comes in, and I plead "Can't we just wait a couple of hours? Can't I try doing more walking or something to get things going?" She disagreed, and was persistent that it was time for Pitocin since I already had time at home and it didn't work.

Part 5 - This Freaking Sucks
I am just devastated. Nine months of pregnancy, preparing for this labor and my one main wish, to go into labor naturally, is totally lost to me. I still get so upset thinking about it. I'm in tears sitting on the hospital bed. My poor husband wishes he could help but he too is powerless to alter the situation. I think now he would have let me stay home had he known this is what would have happened.

The nurse puts the heplock in my arm (she tries like, 4 times before getting it right and effs up two veins while trying) and I get fluids. They take me to the labor and delivery room. I'm so pissed. They start the Pitocin in my IV. God, why am I here, why am I connected to this stupid IV, this is not how things are supposed to go.

I'm so distraught, my plans are completely shot. Should I just go for the epidural now? I know from the twins that I cannot withstand the painful contractions that come from this synthetic hormone designed to force the uterus to start contacting. I hear my yoga teacher's words in my head "Even if you get an epidural, wait as long as possible". John is trying to encourage me as well, to keep doing as much of my plan as possible, even though things are going so awry.

Part 6 - A Pitocin Induced Labor
So I ask for a birth ball, John sets up my music and essential oil diffuser. I do the things I learned in yoga. I knew I would regret it if I didn't at least try all the tools I had at my disposal. Being induced just sucks. It SUCKS to be hooked to monitors and an IV, because you're not free to move as you wish. I am so limited, but I do what I can. My husband is very encouraging even though I'm tempted to not even try.

Here's the visual. I was barley able to reach the wall being hooked up to everything. I was trying to use it for counter pressure during a contraction. Check out the sexy hospital socks!

Contractions got frequent and strong really quickly. John helped me get through contractions by putting counter pressure on my back and hips. It's not long before I'm really, really in a lot of pain. I'm soon at the point you see in many birth videos, I'm verbally expressing my pain with something that was not really a scream or a moan but something else. After awhile of this, I decide that I've come as far as I can. I'm way farther down the rabbit hole than I was with the twins, the pain is so intense. I request the epidural.

Part 7 - Relief
Getting the epidural was an ordeal. I wanted to puke at every contraction, the pain was so bad. I had to endure many contractions while the anesthesiologist administered the epidural, which sucked because I had to hold still so he wouldn't put it in the wrong place.

Epidurals are sooooo lovely, I really do like them, It was so great when the contraction pain went away. It was great to be able to relax for a bit, I almost drifted to sleep even.

Part 8 - Transition
When the nurse checked my cervix again, I was already 7cm dilated, and I knew it would be no time at all before it would be time to push! By this time it was around 10:30, and I think about 3 hours since starting the Pitocin. Since I had the epidural, the only thing for me to do was relax in bed and wait. About an hour later I was feeling pressure of the baby and I was ready to push! Unfortunately, my doctor was not at the hospital yet so I had to wait for her. Since I was totally numb from the waist down, I didn't really care since I was comfortable. Finally around 12:00 she arrived to my room. The baby must have been right there in the birth canal, because she told me not to sneeze as she was prepping! It took only two pushed and he was out!

There is nothing in the world like your newborn being placed on your chest directly after birth. Oh my goodness, after 9 months of dreaming of your baby and finally holding him to your chest is the most amazing thing. We did it, me and him, and our new life had begun.

Here's us, right after birth.

There were a lot of good and bad things with this birth. On the positive side, I really enjoyed the early part of labor at home. Having my mom around was never part of my birth plan, but it was nice having her around. Another great thing was that my labor in the hospital was really quite short. The Pitocin was started around 7:30 and by 12:11am the next day he was born, so that's only 4 and a half hours. I also feel like I truly did my best in the bad situation. I tried my hardest to do all the things I could to facilitate a quick an easy labor before getting the epidural, and I got to a whole new level of labor than I did with the twins before tapping out.

Obviously, I'm deeply disappointed about getting the Pitocin induction again. I've heard that some women who would be able to withstand a natural labor, are not able to do so with an induction. It kills me, *kills me*, that I will likely never know how I'd be able to handle a natural labor since I'm not planning on any more kids.

I often wonder what steps I should have taken to avoid the situation I was in. I could have refused to go to the hospital perhaps. I'm sure things could have been different if I'd chosen a birth center or home birth instead. Maybe having a doula would have made a difference? Ugh, it sucks to think about in retrospect.

So that's mys birth story. Of course I'm overjoyed to have a healthy baby boy after all has been said and done, but I get upset every time I think of the things that happened. Maybe now that I've told the story and got it out of my system I'll be able to get past it and move on.

Check back in a couple of days, I'll be writing another post about how things have been going for these first few weeks of the baby coming home!