Luca's Birth Story - Part I

Even though our lives are still upside down (and will be for months and months to come), I promised a birth story.  And here it is  (Part I of it) :)

I walked into the hospital on Thursday, August 5th at 6am.  I was nervous, excited, anxious.  Very nervous.  As some of you may be aware, I HATE hospitals (one of the main reasons I wanted to birth at home for as long as possible).  But I was 2 weeks and 2 days past my due date, and we were evicting our baby girl.

We arrived to Labor and Delivery and my room was all ready for me, as were my nurses and midwife.  I got into my cute hospital gown (Pretty Pushers - buy it on amazon).  Then they started up my IV and went through lots of questions.  My midwife came in and checked me - I was 4cm and 80% effaced.  We discussed the options for the induction, and after some discussion, decided that we'd start pitocin instead of breaking my water.

It didn't take much pitocin to get my body going.  It was started at about 8:00 a.m. Within a few hours of starting the pitocin drip, I was having regular, strong contractions about 2-3 minutes apart, lasting about 1-1.5 minutes each.  They only had to have the pitocin at level 10 (out of 25) the entire labor.

As every contraction came, I focused on the fact that our baby was coming to us and that every contraction was bringing me closer to seeing her.  I moved around a lot.  I sat on the birthing ball, I sat on a birthing stool, I leaned against the bed, I walked.  My biggest complaint was that I had horrible back labor.  We suspected that baby girl wasn't positioned well and that she may have had her hands up by her face.

I asked not to be checked until I requested it.  I finally requested it at about 6pm.  I was 6cm.  I was discouraged by the fact that I had only progressed 2 cm after 10 hours on pitocin.  My midwife told me that during each contraction, my bag of waters was bulging.  After checking baby's position to make sure she was in a good one, they broke my water.  They were surprised it was clear (it is more common for baby to have had the first bowel movement inside when a baby is that overdue), so that was good news.

Then my contractions sky rocketed.  The pain was rough - but it wasn't just contractions.  It was the horrific back labor that wouldn't give me a break.  My body was having non-stop back labor, even between contractions.  I tried every position possible - on my hands and knees, on the birthing ball, on the birthing stool, leaning over the bed, walking.  Nothing helped.

After a couple hours, I asked to be checked again.  Still 6cm.  Finally, I asked for some pain medication.  I thought that maybe I couldn't relax enough for my body to progress  They gave me a medicine that basically made me drunk.  And you know what - it didn't take the pain away.  It just allowed me to fall over asleep in between the contractions.  Ian and my doula giggled as I said funny things.  They gave me a suppository to help with the nausea I was having.  And I didn't even care that they had to stick that up my butt.  I even said "I'm sorry you have to do this as part of your job tonight - but I can't even lift my head so clearly I can't do it."  Everyone laughed.  I remember I kept saying "I don't like the way it makes me feel" in a very whiny voice.  And every time I heard something in the room (like Ian moving), I would lift my head and look around and wait for my eyes to focus on where the movement was coming from...but...I couldn't get them to focus.  They just kept moving around until I'd finally give up and put my head back down. 

The medicine lasted about 2 hours, and then I started feeling things even more...

Part II coming soon...