Kerry
03-31-2008, 04:56 PM
Leos Birth Story
My due date was April 7, but I assumed I would go sooner, based on a history of giving birth at 38 weeks, and the fact that I was already dilated to 3-4 cm at 36 weeks and contracting a lot, especially at work. I had been having regular contractions from about 30 weeks on, but my doctor was not particularly worried. My good friend Lisa was going to be my labor nurse when I did go into labor. She knew about my desire to have as natural a birth as possible, with no pain meds. I told her that if I asked for an epidural during labor, her job was to tell me why I didnt really want one.
On Thursday, March 13th, I was 36 weeks and 3 days gestation. Since I had passed the 36-week mark, I could safely deliver at my hospital should he decide to come a bit early. I was scheduled to work that night, and was also charge nurse. That afternoon before work, my contractions were more crampy, whereas normally they were just tight and a lot of pressure. I spent an hour or two before work sitting on the yoga ball while watching TV and eating dinner with MacGregor.
I went to work at 7pm. My contractions continued and became more regular. At around 9 pm I put myself on the fetal monitor, and I was contracting about every 8-10 minutes. They werent extremely painful, just crampy and uncomfortable, and I could easily walk and talk (and work) through them. I noticed when I went to the bathroom, I had a little bit of bloody mucous when I wiped, which was a new development. As I dislked checking my cervix at work (due to the germ factor) I resisted the urge to check myself. I had an appointment with my OB the following morning at 10 am, and I was planning on napping at the hospital for a couple hours before the appointment, so I just decided to wait it out, make it through my shift, and then see what Katie, my OB, said at my appointment.
At 11pm, another nurse came in for her shift and I asked if she could take over as charge for me. I explained that I thought I might be in early labor and I didnt want the responsibility of being in charge when I just wanted to concentrate on my own patients and getting through the shift. She agreed, and asked if I needed to clock out. I said that there didnt seem any point in it at this time. If I was indeed in labor, its not as if I would go home, and since I my contractions were not extremely intense, I had no difficulty continuing on with my shift. My patients were all stable and sleeping, so I wasnt working too hard. The other nurses, learning that I was possibly in early labor, insisted that I sit as much as possible, and if one of my patients rang their bell for something, another nurse would answer it. I spent much of my shift sitting on one of the labor balls at the nurses desk, which seemed to help the backache I had developed over the course of the evening.
Throughout the shift, the other nurses checked in with me, asking how I was doing and if I still felt I could continue my shift. I was told that if I wanted one of them to check my cervix, let them know. I was still doing fine, although my contractions were getting more frequent and a few of them were somewhat painful where I had to stop walking until it was over. At around 2 am, Dr. O, the OB who was on call that night for the practice I used, came in for a delivery. He saw me on the labor ball and jokingly asked if I was going to have a baby tonight. I replied back that I did think I might be in early labor. He asked how frequent the contractions were, and by that time they were about every 5-6 minutes. He asked if I needed him to check me, and I said that I thought I was okay until my appointment with Katie later that morning, and that the contractions werent really intense yet. He said to call him if I needed him for anything.
Around 4:30 am, I said I wanted to go lie down and try to catch a nap, and the other nurses seemed very relieved tha t I was doing that instead of walking around, helping my patients. I napped for an hour, and when I woke up, the crampiness of my contractions had gone away, and the contractions themselves had spaced out again to about every 8-10 minutes. I figured that it was a false alarm and that if I had been in early labor, the nap had stopped things. I finished off my shift and things did not pick up in intensity during that time.
My friend Lisa was scheduled to work that morning until 1 pm and when she came in, I told her about what had happened throughout the night. She asked if I wanted her to check my cervix and I said yes. I gave report on my patients, clocked out, and met Lisa in one of the labor rooms. She asked if I wanted to be put on the fetal monitor, and I said that I didnt feel it was necessary, and that the contractions had slowed down quite a bit and I figured I would be checked, go take a nap, and then go off to my appointment with Katie at 10. So Lisa checked my cervix, and announced that I was 5-6 cm with a bulging bag, and her hand came away with quite a bit of bloody show.
I was a bit shocked to find out I was so far dilated, without really being in active labor. We talked about what we thought Katie would want to do, and we both agreed that she would not want to send me home in this state, with being a multip with a history of fast labor. Katie was at the hospital for a C-section at 7:30, and Lisa said shed call her and let her know I was here, so we expected to see her around 8:30. In the meantime, I agreed to be put on the monitor. Lisa suggested I do some nipple stimulation to encourage contractions, which I did. After about 2 minutes of nipple stimulation, I started having contractions about every 3-4 minutes. The crampiness had returned, but the contractions still werent extremely intense and I could easily talk through them. I called MacGregor at that point and told him that I was most likely going to be having a baby and I suggested he come in. He said hed grab my stuff and head in.
Although I had stopped the nipple stimulation, the contractions continued every 3-5 minutes. At around 8:15 am, Katie showed up. She checked my cervix and agreed with Lisas assessment. She said We can let you labor all day, or we can rupture you and get things going. Either way, I imagine youre going to have a baby today and I would not feel comfortable letting you go home at this point. She left the decision up to me. Since I knew Lisa had to leave by 2pm, I told her to go ahead and rupture me. She did, and the fluid was clear. Just as she finished up, Mac got there. I told Lisa to go ahead and start a saline lock. She asked if I was sure I wanted one, she could just as easily give me Pitocin IM after delivery. I said it was fine, I didnt mind having a saline lock in, so she started one in my hand.
About 20 minutes after I was ruptured, my contractions really picked up in intensity, where I needed to concentrate through them. The fetal monitor was starting to really bother me, so I removed it, and told Lisa when she came into the room that I didnt want it on anymore right now. After about an hour and a half, I was in full-blown active labor. I started to feel like I needed to have a bowel movement, so I asked Lisa to check me again. She did, and with a sad expression, said that I was still 5-6 cm. Oh, crap! How could I not have changed on bit after an hour and a half of active labor? I started to wonder if the AROM was the wrong decision. I still really felt like I needed to poo, so I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet for a while, and was able to have a bowel movement, even though it hurt a lot to be sitting down during contractions.
When I came out of the bathroom, I said that I wanted to walk around, so I put a gown on and MacGregor and I walked the hallways for about 15 minutes. It was quite surreal to be walking the hallways as a patient and feeling the scrutiny and attention of my coworkers, who seemed amused to see me there. After a while, we went back into the room. My back and hips were really starting to hurt during contractions so at Lisas suggestion, I got into the shower. MacGregor held the shower head on my upper back at my instruction, in order to let the hot water run down my back and legs. After about fifteen minutes of that, I got out of the shower. At that point I wanted to use the labor ball, so they put it on the bed for me to lean over. I stood next to the bed and draped my upper body over the ball, and would rock back and forth during the contractions. At this point in labor, I started moaning deeply during the contractions. The vocalizations really seemed to help me cope with the pain better.
After a while of this, I said I needed to use the bathroom again. While I was in there, I checked my cervix, and was completely discouraged to discover that I was still about 6 cm. I came out of the bathroom and told Lisa and Mac that I wanted an epidural. They both kind of laughed and jokingly said Shut up, you do not. All I could think of is those women who get epidurals and then sleep soundly for 3 hours afterwards, and how badly I just wanted to take a nap. I tearfully said that I was just so tired and wanted to take a nap. They offered me encouraging words and said that I could nap when it was all over. By this time, I think it was around 10:30 or 11am.
I decided that I wanted to lie in bed, but was constantly flipping from side to side, trying to find a position that was less uncomfortable. By now, I was having horrible burning pain in my hips during contractions. I told MacGregor to get Sharon to come into the room. Sharon is a wonderful labor nurse who was also my mentor and trained me in L&D. She took doula training with Penny Simkin and knows a lot about non-medical coping techniques in labor. She came in and I told her I needed her to do the hip squeeze on me, so she did it and showed MacGregor how to do it. After about three contractions, I decided that it wasnt helping, and I was able to concentrate better through contractions if nobody touched me at all, and I told them to stop. I felt bad for Mac, because I knew he wanted to help me but didnt know how. Sharon helped me to focus with my vocalizations by moaning with me and helping me to remember to use a deeper, lower pitched moan that help to relax the muscles.
After a while, the contractions were getting so incredibly intense and unbearable, I was sure that I MUST be in transition. I asked to be checked again, and Lisa checked me and declared that I was 7-8 cm. Knowing my history of rapid second stage, she called Katie and told her to come on in. Sharon started getting things set up on the infant warmer. Lisa left the room for something, and then Sharon said she was going to get water and warm blankets and shed be right back. She came back a few minutes later and the next contraction I felt pushy. I told Sharon and she checked me and said I just had a lip of cervix. She told me to flip over onto my other side to help the lip reduce.
I had a couple more contractions and the need to push became more intense. Katie got there and said I could go ahead and start pushing, which I did. We had previously decided that MacGregor was going to do all of the baby catching and Katie was just going to verbally instruct him. He gloved up and she told him to put his hand inside and feel t he babys head, which he did. I pushed a few more times and Katie instructed him to apply pressure with his hand at my perineum, in order to support it and prevent tearing. However, he wasnt told to apply pressure above, and as I was crowning, I could feel a horrible burning pain. I yelled out Urethra! Urethra! trying to convey that I wanted someone to apply pressure to my peri-urethral area, as I was convinced I was tearing horribly above. Another push and Mac delivered the head, and while I pushed again, Katie instructed him on how to apply gentle pressure to the head down, then up, in order to deliver the shoulders and body. He was born at 12:10 pm.
Baby Leo was immediately placed on my belly as Katie took over and delivered the placenta a few minutes later. I had no tears so she didnt need to repair anything. My urethra was indeed intact, and Katie said my shouting Urethra! was her favorite part of the entire delivery.
Leo didnt have a very vigorous cry and his lungs sounded very gunky, so we gave him some blowby as he transitioned on my chest. I tried to put him to the breast but he wasnt interested in nursing. After a an hour or so, we noticed that his color was dusky and he didnt seem to be clearing any of the mucous from his lungs. We decided to let Mac take him to the nursery. While there, they put a pulse ox on him and discovered that he was only satting in the mid-40s. A quick call to the pediatrician and he had an order for a chest X-ray, a hood, and an IV. Thus began the 10-day adventure that took us to the NICU in Phoenix for RDS (respiratory distress syndrome). But that story will be saved for another day.
My due date was April 7, but I assumed I would go sooner, based on a history of giving birth at 38 weeks, and the fact that I was already dilated to 3-4 cm at 36 weeks and contracting a lot, especially at work. I had been having regular contractions from about 30 weeks on, but my doctor was not particularly worried. My good friend Lisa was going to be my labor nurse when I did go into labor. She knew about my desire to have as natural a birth as possible, with no pain meds. I told her that if I asked for an epidural during labor, her job was to tell me why I didnt really want one.
On Thursday, March 13th, I was 36 weeks and 3 days gestation. Since I had passed the 36-week mark, I could safely deliver at my hospital should he decide to come a bit early. I was scheduled to work that night, and was also charge nurse. That afternoon before work, my contractions were more crampy, whereas normally they were just tight and a lot of pressure. I spent an hour or two before work sitting on the yoga ball while watching TV and eating dinner with MacGregor.
I went to work at 7pm. My contractions continued and became more regular. At around 9 pm I put myself on the fetal monitor, and I was contracting about every 8-10 minutes. They werent extremely painful, just crampy and uncomfortable, and I could easily walk and talk (and work) through them. I noticed when I went to the bathroom, I had a little bit of bloody mucous when I wiped, which was a new development. As I dislked checking my cervix at work (due to the germ factor) I resisted the urge to check myself. I had an appointment with my OB the following morning at 10 am, and I was planning on napping at the hospital for a couple hours before the appointment, so I just decided to wait it out, make it through my shift, and then see what Katie, my OB, said at my appointment.
At 11pm, another nurse came in for her shift and I asked if she could take over as charge for me. I explained that I thought I might be in early labor and I didnt want the responsibility of being in charge when I just wanted to concentrate on my own patients and getting through the shift. She agreed, and asked if I needed to clock out. I said that there didnt seem any point in it at this time. If I was indeed in labor, its not as if I would go home, and since I my contractions were not extremely intense, I had no difficulty continuing on with my shift. My patients were all stable and sleeping, so I wasnt working too hard. The other nurses, learning that I was possibly in early labor, insisted that I sit as much as possible, and if one of my patients rang their bell for something, another nurse would answer it. I spent much of my shift sitting on one of the labor balls at the nurses desk, which seemed to help the backache I had developed over the course of the evening.
Throughout the shift, the other nurses checked in with me, asking how I was doing and if I still felt I could continue my shift. I was told that if I wanted one of them to check my cervix, let them know. I was still doing fine, although my contractions were getting more frequent and a few of them were somewhat painful where I had to stop walking until it was over. At around 2 am, Dr. O, the OB who was on call that night for the practice I used, came in for a delivery. He saw me on the labor ball and jokingly asked if I was going to have a baby tonight. I replied back that I did think I might be in early labor. He asked how frequent the contractions were, and by that time they were about every 5-6 minutes. He asked if I needed him to check me, and I said that I thought I was okay until my appointment with Katie later that morning, and that the contractions werent really intense yet. He said to call him if I needed him for anything.
Around 4:30 am, I said I wanted to go lie down and try to catch a nap, and the other nurses seemed very relieved tha t I was doing that instead of walking around, helping my patients. I napped for an hour, and when I woke up, the crampiness of my contractions had gone away, and the contractions themselves had spaced out again to about every 8-10 minutes. I figured that it was a false alarm and that if I had been in early labor, the nap had stopped things. I finished off my shift and things did not pick up in intensity during that time.
My friend Lisa was scheduled to work that morning until 1 pm and when she came in, I told her about what had happened throughout the night. She asked if I wanted her to check my cervix and I said yes. I gave report on my patients, clocked out, and met Lisa in one of the labor rooms. She asked if I wanted to be put on the fetal monitor, and I said that I didnt feel it was necessary, and that the contractions had slowed down quite a bit and I figured I would be checked, go take a nap, and then go off to my appointment with Katie at 10. So Lisa checked my cervix, and announced that I was 5-6 cm with a bulging bag, and her hand came away with quite a bit of bloody show.
I was a bit shocked to find out I was so far dilated, without really being in active labor. We talked about what we thought Katie would want to do, and we both agreed that she would not want to send me home in this state, with being a multip with a history of fast labor. Katie was at the hospital for a C-section at 7:30, and Lisa said shed call her and let her know I was here, so we expected to see her around 8:30. In the meantime, I agreed to be put on the monitor. Lisa suggested I do some nipple stimulation to encourage contractions, which I did. After about 2 minutes of nipple stimulation, I started having contractions about every 3-4 minutes. The crampiness had returned, but the contractions still werent extremely intense and I could easily talk through them. I called MacGregor at that point and told him that I was most likely going to be having a baby and I suggested he come in. He said hed grab my stuff and head in.
Although I had stopped the nipple stimulation, the contractions continued every 3-5 minutes. At around 8:15 am, Katie showed up. She checked my cervix and agreed with Lisas assessment. She said We can let you labor all day, or we can rupture you and get things going. Either way, I imagine youre going to have a baby today and I would not feel comfortable letting you go home at this point. She left the decision up to me. Since I knew Lisa had to leave by 2pm, I told her to go ahead and rupture me. She did, and the fluid was clear. Just as she finished up, Mac got there. I told Lisa to go ahead and start a saline lock. She asked if I was sure I wanted one, she could just as easily give me Pitocin IM after delivery. I said it was fine, I didnt mind having a saline lock in, so she started one in my hand.
About 20 minutes after I was ruptured, my contractions really picked up in intensity, where I needed to concentrate through them. The fetal monitor was starting to really bother me, so I removed it, and told Lisa when she came into the room that I didnt want it on anymore right now. After about an hour and a half, I was in full-blown active labor. I started to feel like I needed to have a bowel movement, so I asked Lisa to check me again. She did, and with a sad expression, said that I was still 5-6 cm. Oh, crap! How could I not have changed on bit after an hour and a half of active labor? I started to wonder if the AROM was the wrong decision. I still really felt like I needed to poo, so I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet for a while, and was able to have a bowel movement, even though it hurt a lot to be sitting down during contractions.
When I came out of the bathroom, I said that I wanted to walk around, so I put a gown on and MacGregor and I walked the hallways for about 15 minutes. It was quite surreal to be walking the hallways as a patient and feeling the scrutiny and attention of my coworkers, who seemed amused to see me there. After a while, we went back into the room. My back and hips were really starting to hurt during contractions so at Lisas suggestion, I got into the shower. MacGregor held the shower head on my upper back at my instruction, in order to let the hot water run down my back and legs. After about fifteen minutes of that, I got out of the shower. At that point I wanted to use the labor ball, so they put it on the bed for me to lean over. I stood next to the bed and draped my upper body over the ball, and would rock back and forth during the contractions. At this point in labor, I started moaning deeply during the contractions. The vocalizations really seemed to help me cope with the pain better.
After a while of this, I said I needed to use the bathroom again. While I was in there, I checked my cervix, and was completely discouraged to discover that I was still about 6 cm. I came out of the bathroom and told Lisa and Mac that I wanted an epidural. They both kind of laughed and jokingly said Shut up, you do not. All I could think of is those women who get epidurals and then sleep soundly for 3 hours afterwards, and how badly I just wanted to take a nap. I tearfully said that I was just so tired and wanted to take a nap. They offered me encouraging words and said that I could nap when it was all over. By this time, I think it was around 10:30 or 11am.
I decided that I wanted to lie in bed, but was constantly flipping from side to side, trying to find a position that was less uncomfortable. By now, I was having horrible burning pain in my hips during contractions. I told MacGregor to get Sharon to come into the room. Sharon is a wonderful labor nurse who was also my mentor and trained me in L&D. She took doula training with Penny Simkin and knows a lot about non-medical coping techniques in labor. She came in and I told her I needed her to do the hip squeeze on me, so she did it and showed MacGregor how to do it. After about three contractions, I decided that it wasnt helping, and I was able to concentrate better through contractions if nobody touched me at all, and I told them to stop. I felt bad for Mac, because I knew he wanted to help me but didnt know how. Sharon helped me to focus with my vocalizations by moaning with me and helping me to remember to use a deeper, lower pitched moan that help to relax the muscles.
After a while, the contractions were getting so incredibly intense and unbearable, I was sure that I MUST be in transition. I asked to be checked again, and Lisa checked me and declared that I was 7-8 cm. Knowing my history of rapid second stage, she called Katie and told her to come on in. Sharon started getting things set up on the infant warmer. Lisa left the room for something, and then Sharon said she was going to get water and warm blankets and shed be right back. She came back a few minutes later and the next contraction I felt pushy. I told Sharon and she checked me and said I just had a lip of cervix. She told me to flip over onto my other side to help the lip reduce.
I had a couple more contractions and the need to push became more intense. Katie got there and said I could go ahead and start pushing, which I did. We had previously decided that MacGregor was going to do all of the baby catching and Katie was just going to verbally instruct him. He gloved up and she told him to put his hand inside and feel t he babys head, which he did. I pushed a few more times and Katie instructed him to apply pressure with his hand at my perineum, in order to support it and prevent tearing. However, he wasnt told to apply pressure above, and as I was crowning, I could feel a horrible burning pain. I yelled out Urethra! Urethra! trying to convey that I wanted someone to apply pressure to my peri-urethral area, as I was convinced I was tearing horribly above. Another push and Mac delivered the head, and while I pushed again, Katie instructed him on how to apply gentle pressure to the head down, then up, in order to deliver the shoulders and body. He was born at 12:10 pm.
Baby Leo was immediately placed on my belly as Katie took over and delivered the placenta a few minutes later. I had no tears so she didnt need to repair anything. My urethra was indeed intact, and Katie said my shouting Urethra! was her favorite part of the entire delivery.
Leo didnt have a very vigorous cry and his lungs sounded very gunky, so we gave him some blowby as he transitioned on my chest. I tried to put him to the breast but he wasnt interested in nursing. After a an hour or so, we noticed that his color was dusky and he didnt seem to be clearing any of the mucous from his lungs. We decided to let Mac take him to the nursery. While there, they put a pulse ox on him and discovered that he was only satting in the mid-40s. A quick call to the pediatrician and he had an order for a chest X-ray, a hood, and an IV. Thus began the 10-day adventure that took us to the NICU in Phoenix for RDS (respiratory distress syndrome). But that story will be saved for another day.