Every Mom Has a Story
It is true. Every mother, regardless of what she says, had an idea of how pregnancy, labor and ultimately delivery would go. Some may have a strict birth plan with loads of research done prior, while others were open to anything and wanted to make decisions in the heat of the action. At the end of it all, every mom had her baby(s) and they all have a story to tell that will forever be a part of who they are.My Story
I never knew I could get pregnant (or that easily), but that isn't to say I didn't dream of a baby of my own. You see, Robby was a surprise that was never supposed to have happened. So when it did happen, I was careful. I had put a lot of thought into how I would be as a mom, but didn't bat an eye at the idea of having "options" while in labor. I thought, "you have contractions, it hurts, you go to the hospital, they take care of you and deliver your baby...voila!". What more was there to it?Upon getting pregnant, I became very conscience about my health and put a lot of thought into everything I did. There wasn't a decision I made lightly. I wasn't a granola, tree huggin' gal who cringed at the the thought of a medicated birth. I was the opposite of that. I was very casual with pregnancy and thought of the hospital as the only logical venue to deliver. Who wouldn't think otherwise? I didn't read every best seller about pregnancy, in fact I did my own research and read controversial books like 'Bringing up Bebe'. I seldom took any of it to heart, and absorbed all this new information with a grain of salt. During my research I began to see several contradictions to what I wanted in birth and what the medicated hospital births had to offer, but I wasn't about to sign up for a midwife.
In the beginning, I had a severe morning sickness that lasted my entire first trimester and I lost a great deal of weight. I tried to eat what every doctor said I should eat and take those awful horse pills called prenatal vitamins. I thought of how women around the world could possible do this every day and for as long as our existence. How can it be THIS hard when we have been having babies for, like, forever? I was desperate for relief so I took a step back and began listening to my body. It wasn't a conscience decision nor was it wasn't something I did because I read it somewhere, but it was my only hope to helping myself feel better during that first trimester. I did what my body told me to do. I slept, ate rice, bland pasta and a ton of carbs and whole grains. It was the only way to fight off the feeling that I had to throw up. If my body craved a certain thing, I ate it, despite critics. After a while I began noticing that I wasn't as nauseated and that I was craving things like spinach, nutrient rich foods, milk and basically the food that my body needed to nourish the little being growing within me. I still felt awful taking the prenatal vitamins so I made a decision that most women would criticize and doctors here would advice against (and I can't say I advice it to other women). I stopped taking prenatal vitamins. I ate the food my body craved, and tried to eat food rich in the nutrients that I would otherwise be getting in my vitamins, and both went hand in hand.
So now, let's go into the birth plan. I had some fellow navy spouses who had children and most had your typical hospital with an epidural and vaginal birth and swore by it. Some had their stories of how induction caused for a long and painful delivery despite the drugs, and they tore pretty bad. They talked of how rough the first weeks were when they got home and how they battled with depression later on. I figured that was pretty normal, and to tell the truth, amongst family and friends, it is.
But, there was this one girl, mother of 2 and pregnant with her third, who gently told me of her home birth. My thoughts... CRAZY! Why would anyone do such a thing!? Jeopardize your baby's health, your health and go through all that pain. Who would WANT that?! She saw my reaction as I politely disregarded her advice and dropped the subject and we began talking about cloth diapers (more to come on that in a later post).
*The labor down technique is basically allowing the baby to go down the birth canal with the contractions vice directed pushing. It also allows the area to slowly stretch.
I also read that once you have an epidural, you statistically have a longer recovery and are in the hospital longer after delivery. I wanted to go home as soon as I could, so as much as it pained me to say, I wanted to keep my options open and decide in the heat of the moment if I could handle labor with no epidural. I relied on the idea that I could have a cocktail of pain medication in my IV to take the edge off.
Laboring Down
The night came that labor started and I honestly had no idea. I kept questioning if I was in labor or not. It was so subtle and not painful that I couldn't tell if it was my wanting to be in labor or actual labor. So I timed it...from 10pm until noon the next day I had contractions 10, 7, 5, then 3 minutes apart. At noon, I knew this had to be the real deal, but still no pain and I was happy. So I made my way close to the hospital but stopped for some lunch and shopping. The contractions were consistently 4-2 minutes apart. It didn't hurt, I didn't feel pressure and I didn't feel anything going on "down there". My water was in tact still, but I knew that after 18 hours had past and the fact the contractions were so close, I needed to go ahead and go to the hospital, or I was having a baby on my own.I'm in labor, TOAST! |
My parents and I walking toward L&D at Naval Medical Center Portsmouth |
This can't be labor?! |
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I was told that it was too late for medication, and the tears were flowing |
They put the IV in and rushed me the the bed where an anesthesiologist was already on his way. They checked me and I was transitioning. Labor had been a walk in the park until that dreaded 7cm mark. The nurse sympathized with me and broke the news to me that it was too late for my IV cocktail. I cried, but knew that an epidural was on it's way. The man of the year entered the room and I cried with pain and joy that he was there. I didn't care how big that needle was. I was ready for that pain block. I leaned over and felt him poke at my back. My contractions were one after another and I was nervous that there wouldn't be enough time in between contractions for him to get the catheter in my back. He assured me that he had done this many times and he'd be in and out. An hour passed by and he had attempted 4 times for an epidural and had inserted 4 needles in my back each time. We both knew, it wasn't working. He then tried one last time and said "got it". <Insert joyful music here> He informed me that within minutes the numbing would start and at that time family came back into the room. I was happy and excited that they were back and that I would be relived soon. Fast forward an hour...It was now nearing 10pm and I had been laboring for 24 hours by now. I was exhausted and wanted to catch a nap before game time, but I couldn't sleep. The pain was still there. I felt my legs, I felt the contractions worsening, and so the nurse rotated me from side to side, hoping that the medicine would ease into the catheter that was between my vertebrates. It didn't work and I was dying. I was literally dying. I could barely open my eyes. My energy, my strength and my hopes for even slight relief were gone. I had nothing left. I was 9.5 cm and my water was manually broken which only intensified the back laboring contractions. I looked at my mom and asked her to tell them to c-section me. I used every ounce of strength I had, and I used it to beg. The anesthesiologist came back and tried to adjust the epidural. It didn't work. He did the hot/cold test to see where/if I was numb. I felt everything. The epidural didn't work. It was later discovered that my slight scoliosis caused there to be such a small gap between my vertebrates that I was simply not a good candidate for an epidural. By this point, I was fully dilated and my nurse, an angel, asked me if I still wished to labor down. I didn't feel an urge to push, I had no strength, so I said yes. In reality, I said yes to making this torture last longer, but it was something my body was telling me to do. I wasn't ready to push. Two hours passed and at 2am, the nurse, a training doctor and a head doctor said it was time... PUSH! I still didn't feel an urge. I felt pain and overwhelming contractions, but not the strong urge I had heard about.
The hospital I delivered at was amazingly pro-mom when it came to births which are a rarity in our country. They promoted natural, uninterrupted births if at all possible and support those crazy moms who come in wanting to do it on their own. They support moms, like me, who didn't think they could do it on their own, but they supported me by giving me confidence that my body knew what it was doing despite the lack of intervention. They had no nursery for newborns. Babies were kept with their mothers from birth until discharge. The hospital acknowledged the fact that it was vital for bonding between mother and baby to keep them close. This would encourage successful nursing, less risk of postpartum depression and promote healing. They encouraged skin to skin contact and nursing immediately after the birth. I am talking about from womb to the breast in a few seconds and that is where they stayed for an hour, after which they would do the measurements, bath and vaccines. I didn't realize it until after we had Robby, that this hospital was on to something that many hospitals have forgotten or disregarded as not important.
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