40 hours of labor

A little over 2 weeks ago, we met our baby boy earth side. My birth experience was beautiful.

For those of you that don’t know, I had an accidental high risk pregnancy. What do I mean by that? Well, at 10 weeks pregnant, we did the NIPT genetic testing and everything came back normal. Well, the results of our 20 week ultrasound contradicted the results of the NIPT. Long story short, we had to go to a perinatologist (a high risk pregnancy doctor) who confirmed after an amnio that we were having a healthy baby boy. However, because we were having an IVF pregnancy (and some other stuff), they refused to discharge me (hence, the accidental high risk pregnancy).

My perinatologist performed a number of detailed ultrasounds which revealed that baby boy was going to be a big baby. So, at my 36 week appointment with my OBGYN, we made the decision to induce my labor at 39 weeks.

At 38 weeks, I hired a birthing coach that came to my home and walked me through what to expect at the birth. She was so incredibly informative and completely non-judgmental of the fact that I had a planned induction and planned on getting an epidural. The time she spent with me was such a wise investment and I highly suggest that every first time mom considering a natural birth hire a birth coach or at a minimum attend an in-person birthing class.

We checked into the hospital on a Saturday at 11:45pm in the evening. I was on edge (truth be told, I felt like a death row inmate). We had done the hospital tour months before, and were told to go to the outpatient wing of the hospital for planned inductions. However, when we got there, the building was closed and we were told by security to go to the ER. We ran over to the ER in a panic thinking that we were going to be late (which is laughable now in hindsight). When we got to the ER it was empty – we were practically the only people there. I did the intake and was promptly taken up to Labor and Delivery and met my first of five L&D nurses, Chelsea.

Chelsea was so kind and explained every inch of the process to me. She went over my birth plan and explained how the plan could change, which we were totally prepared for. She then explained the course of induction prescribed by my doctor.

We would start with Cervidil and check my cervix again in 12 hours. Chelsea cautioned me that the Cervidil could get intense and uncomfortable, but to try to tough through it. The first 6 hours on the Cervidil were a breeze. At around 3am, my doctor stopped in to say hello to us on his way out of the hospital after performing an emergency C-Section (my worst nightmare knowing how brutal the recovery could be). The next 6 hours, I finally understood what Chelsea was talking about with respect to the intensity of the Cervidil. Without being too graphic, it literally felt like my vagina was on fire and being tugged out of my body.

By 7am, Chelsea came into the room to announce that it was shift change time and I was introduced to Sheva, my second (and favorite) nurse.

I was counting the seconds until the Cervidil could be removed and finally at around 2pm, my doctor stepped in and removed it. To my absolute shock and horror, he announced that I made zero progress. Now, bear in mind that I had been contracting for about 4 weeks before I was induced and checked into the hospital about 70 percent effaced, with baby dropped low in the birthing position, but only a half centimeter dilated. After 12 agonizing hours with the Cervidil, I was at the same place.

The doctor let me take a 3 hour medication break, eat, get coffee, regroup, and try the second round of medication: 4 doses of Cytotec to be taken orally over the course of ANOTHER 6 hours with the goal of getting me to 3cm.

The sheer number of hours quoted was daunting.

I was tired, hungry, and terrified that if my body didn’t cooperate that I would be bullied into a C-Section. To boot, I was experiencing back labor. In short, I was completely demoralized. I managed to hold it together while my doctor was there but completely broke down crying with Sheva, my nurse. She literally held me, stoked my hair, told me to eat and get coffee and gave me the encouragement that I needed to keep going.

I did just as she had told me, but was still feeling a little down. My brother and Kaylee brought us our food and a little letter board for the birth announcement. I planned to start working on it while eating my lunch, but Sheva saw it and said, “Ohh, arts and crafts! I’ll be back.” And took the board, together with baby boy’s name and came back an hour later with this (the time was a placeholder and the nurses crafted the little bear hat):

Sheva was an absolute angel and got me through one of the hardest parts of my labor. The little craft that she and the other nurses made us also served as inspiration to hold on as the labor got progressively more difficult.

At 7pm on Sunday, there was another nurse shift change and we said goodbye to Sheva and hello to Madelyn.

Now, I actually knew Madelyn. At 20 weeks, I was hospitalized because of bleeding resulting from my amnio and Madelyn was my nurse. She, of course, didn’t remember me, but I certainly remembered her and felt so happy to see her again. She administered the first dose of Cytotec and announced that I was cut off from food until baby arrived. At around 12am she checked my cervix, and once again, to my horror, I had only made a half centimeter of progress.

At this point, I was panicking. Madelyn got my doctor on the phone per my request. My doctor is a very experienced physician (and a very patient man). He let me vent and told me to stay the course and trust him. Reluctantly, I did, and took the second dose of the medication. At around 3am, Madelyn came back to the room with my next dose of the medication. She asked me if she could check me and I agreed. As I was attempting to flop over to get in position, I felt my water break.

Folks, I cannot describe the level of relief and empowerment that came with my water breaking. Madelyn confirmed that my water did indeed break and that I was 3cm dilated. The relief that washed over me was intense. For the first time in 24 hours I genuinely felt like I could do this.

After my water broke, the contractions started coming in about 1-2 minutes apart and the intensity picked up quickly. I was offered IV pain medications, which I took gladly. The IV meds really didn’t work for me and so after about 27 hours of back labor (iykyk), I called it and asked for the epidural.

The epidural was terrifying. Jeff was asked to leave the room. I was tired, very loopy from the IV meds, and shaking from the adrenaline. Madelyn held me through all of this and made me feel okay.

The epidural was wonderful. I have zero regrets about it. I 10 out of 10 recommend. I was able to sleep my way through the next several hours and before I knew it, another shift change. Madelyn was gone and Dama started up again at 7am.

Dama didn’t check my cervix as we were waiting for my doctor to get there. Although I had the epidural, I still felt intense pressure with every contraction. I knew instinctually that I was getting close. Finally, my doctor came to my room around 1pm and proudly announced that I was fully dilated. He instructed Dama to have me push for an hour while he saw patients and that he would be back. Dama convinced him to let me “birth down” the baby instead. For the next hour or so I played worship music and was moved about the birthing peanut while I birthed down the baby and the room was prepped for delivery.

I was so honed into what my body was doing that I completely tuned out everything. My doctor came in about an hour later and I started pushing.

Immediately, I knew something was wrong.

My doctor told the nurse that the baby wasn’t low enough and that I should have pushed for the hour like he said – but it was too late, we were in it.

My mom (who was in the room with me) like to say that I had the funniest delivery that she’s ever seen. I started out very calm and in the zone, asking the doctor to tell me what I could do better. Truthfully, I thought that in a few pushes it would be over – BOY WAS I WRONG.

Every time he told me to push harder a rage built up inside me and I exploded. All of it came out like word vomit – I complained about the temperature of the room, my lack of oxygen, and the fact that he was asking me to push with only a jar of jello in my belly after 24 hours of not eating.

Finally, he told me that I needed to make a decision: did I want an episiotomy and whether he could use the vacuum. I said no to both but after a few more minutes I consented to the episiotomy. I didn’t realize it at the time, but my epidural had run out and the L&D staff didn’t have on standby so I felt everything at that point, including the episiotomy. For a moment there it looked like we would need the vacuum, but I managed to scape together the last bit of energy to push him out.

Finally, after exactly 40 hours of labor, baby boy made his big debut at exactly 4:00pm.

Truth be told, I was in absolute shock when he was born. He let out a little cry but was born blue and white so they took him from me almost immediately. I lost a lot of blood in labor (my IV even popped out of my arm from pushing so hard). I was tired and out of it. I told Jeff to go over to Zac and see how he was doing. The NICU team was called down to examine him but ultimately determined that he was fine and put him on my chest for skin-to-skin. Within 30 minutes, his color was rosy pink.

After the birth, I could tell that Dama was a bit down and I told her that I was so grateful for all that she did for us and that she made all of the right decisions for me. We had a beautiful moment together and by 7pm, I had my last L&D shift change. Yami helped me with the last bit of my L&D experience and made sure that I made it to the recovery wing in one piece.

I’m so incredibly grateful for each of the 5 nurses that took care of me during my labor and for my doctor who made sure that baby boy made it earth side safely. Giving birth was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done and I’m so grateful for not only my amazing medical team but for my amazing husband and my mom who were the best support people for my labor.