A Birth Story: Finally

The above name Finally signifies two things: 1) that I am finally posting it after 3.5 months (I have some pregnant friends I figured might want to read it since I loved reading any and every birth story while I was pregnant) and 2) that he finally came after being in labor for so long.

I've had a little extra time today with the K-man eating around the clock and I found the e-mail I wrote to my brio birth teacher just 3 days after he was born, so I will just copy and paste to make it easy for me and the story will still feel fresh. Also, at one point my dad gave me a priesthood blessing and I must have been so out of it, I didn't really know what he said, but just felt confident. Marshall later on told me that after the words flowed of trial and hardship, he was thinking, "What in the world is about to happen?" Here it is:

Finally after being in labor off and on for a week (by that I mean hard contractions that would wake me up, get to 5 minutes apart then trickle back to 7-20 minutes apart) and practically no sleep- maybe 15 minutes to an hour here and there- the contractions picked up again on a Wednesday night. Hubby and I worked through them together and all night they were 5-7 minutes apart. At 5 am, we had our neighbor 'doula' come over and we worked through contractions throughout the house with her. She was awesome and knew just what to do to get me through them. They were coming about 4 minutes apart and our goal was to go to the hospital at 3 minutes apart.

Well after a few hours, they started spreading out again like they had been all week, so I figured it was a no go. We sent the 'doula' home, called the midwife and she said if they get to 4 minutes apart again to go in to the hospital. Otherwise, take a percocet and go to sleep because I had not slept all week and that's not good going into labor. Well, they got to 4 minutes apart again that next hour and we called my mom and said we don't know if this is it because I had been feeling the contractions like that all week. We went to the hospital at 9 am where they checked me and said I was at a 3 and 80% effaced. They said they'd monitor me for an hour and see if it was active labor.

An hour later I was 3+ and 95% effaced, so they called the midwife and she admitted me. My midwife came and broke my water to finally get things going after weeks of weird labor contractions (I had not wanted my water broken, but I felt that at this point if she didn't I would have just been in labor for even more days. I was glad that cytotec would not be administered after all since I was effaced so well. I had been worried because the midwife had told me she would induce me with this drug the next week since I would have been 42 weeks along. I had researched the drug known as cytotec and did NOT want to use it or even be induced at all.

I labored for hours through hard, constant contractions with hubby and moms at my side. They got really intense to the point where I scratched my husband in the face and I felt that maybe this was transition. The midwife checked me and I was at a 4- a 4! After being a 3+ almost 7 hours earlier! I was out of control and couldn't take it any longer. I told my husband that I wanted an epidural a few times and he was very good at ignoring me. After a few intense and mean contractions I said it again and then I said let's wait half an hour. Then I screamed it thinking there was no way I would continue to dilate if I was not relaxed and I was exhausted. I received the epi and loved labor after that. I asked my husband if he would still love me if I got it :).

I am glad I screamed that; contractions were so consistent before this, and after receiving the epidural I could rest and labor proceeded well until I was at a 10. They let me rest for an hour and a half after getting to a 10 before we began pushing at 2 am. I was so tired the only way I could push was take off all my clothes and coach and pep myself up with the hubs throwing ice and water all over me. I pushed for 3 hours and my midwife called back-up because obviously something was wrong when the head started crowing (baha, that would be a major problem if I gave birth to a crow), I meant crowning. He ended up being posterior and I could see little blisters on the top of his head from him rubbing the wrong part of my bone when they positioned the mirror. Since he was not in the right position at all to come out, I was yelling- just get him out! Do whatever you have to do! It was probably more of a weak sauce sentence, but from my exhausted body I felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs. I was pushing 1 min apart contractions which I could feel perfectly since the epidural had worn off. The back-up doctor was amazing- he knew right away the baby was posterior where the midwife did not. He started putting forceps in and despite all I had studied about how terrible forceps are, I was just relieved that the baby would finally be here but hoped he would be okay after that. The doctor didn't even ask and I didn't know it but he gave me an episiotomy. Later on he told me that I was one of three episiotomies he had performed that year. Well, at least I know he is not episiotomy happy. Um, shucks, I feel...special.

I pushed hard that last time and he was out. I was so delirious, but I do remember seeing his red body dangling and he was not crying. I knew something was wrong because they whisked him away and would not let my husband cut the chord like we had planned. I kept screaming why isn't he crying! (Probably when I say screaming, that's more of an emotion- I don't think I had energy for anything including opening my eyes at that point). Another man came in and I heard the word meconium and hubby say he was going with our son to the NICU. I guess they did not want him breathing until they cleared it out so it wouldn't go in his lungs. They said that he would remain there for probably 48 hours. I was like- no! After all that! Just wheel me over in a bed- I want to see him. I still had to get stitched up and I told my midwife I could feel it while she was stitching so they had to use some form of anesthesia so I couldn't. I ended up with a 3rd degree tear :( but signed up as part of a study for women with third degree tears or worse.

A little more than an hour later, they brought him back to me! That's it! He made a wonderful comeback going from an Apagar score of 2 at birth to an 8 in a couple hours. It was mostly his breathing that made it so low. But he is amazing and is so strong with a great recovery and story. And beautiful! My husband also sent a video of him so I could see what was going on when they whisked him away, and he wasn't crying in the video either even though his airway was clear at that point.

He was born Saturday June 11th at 5:34 am weighing 7 lbs 5 oz, and was 21.5 inches long. However, he lost his height down to 19.75 inches a few days later because he lost his ninja turtle shaped scalp. Recovery has been difficult, and this is not the fairy tale all natural birth we wanted, but a beautiful little boy is here! I also learned that just because your entire pregnancy goes perfectly does not mean your birth story will. And I am very glad that intervention is available in extreme circumstances and have vowed I will never have a child again :)