It's a Boy!!! My Birth Story...

My baby boy was born on Saturday, January 16th at 8am and weighed in at 8 lbs, 5 oz and was 21.5 inches long!

First off, I am still undecided on how much to include in the blog in terms of baby details, so at the moment I am not going to include the baby's name. I know I am being paranoid, but I'm also pretty sure that almost all of my readers are friends of mine on facebook and already know some of the details.

I hope you understand and it won't take away from the birth story itself. So... here we go...

On Friday morning around 11:30 am I had a killer back ache that lasted a couple minutes. Because of the location of the backache it didn't even occur to me that this was my very first contraction. It felt just like low back pain which I've had a bit of lately anyhow. I took a shower and went to meet my Mom and sister for lunch. By the time I got home at 2pm I knew that the low back pain "spasms" that were about twenty minutes apart were actually back labor. I also knew from talking to my doula, that back labor happens when the baby isn't turned the correct way and it's spine is rubbing along your spine. The home "remedy" for this is doing a lot of hip movements while on all fours in an effort to turn the baby. Very attractive, let me tell you. At 3:30 or so I called my husband telling him that he should probably cancel his four o'clock appointment and come home around that time because I was in early labor. I also had the crazy idea to try and take a nap to gear up for the marathon of birthing.

And this is when it got crazy folks. About an hour after calling him my contractions (still in my back and not at all in my abdomen--not at all what I was expecting labor to feel like...) were about five minutes apart. That's when they tell you to head to the hospital!! Talk about zero to 60. I had planned on staying at home as long as possible, so I called my doula to inform her of the quick progression. She hit the road immediately to get down to my house. Of course, she was in Chesterfield and we are downtown and it's now the beginning of the Highway 4o rush hour.... and there was a big accident. She kept in contact with us, but during her drive down to our house my contractions got to be three minutes apart. From the sound of my voice/breathing, she knew I had better hit the road and get to the hospital because we were going to be dealing with rush hour traffic on our end as well. I rode in the back seat and was cussing up a storm when a contraction would come on. It was just so surreal how in between contractions you feel almost normal. In the car I was watching the clock and dreading for my three minutes of "off time" were up signaling another contraction.

So we got to the hospital at about 5:45, met the doula, got admitted, etc. At about 6 they did my first dilation check. I was at four centimeters. If they told me I was at 2 or something I would have probably freaked out, but my goal was between 5 and 6 centimeters without an epidural, so knowing I was at 4 gave me some hope. I could definitely handle another hour or so. I felt way more comfortable on the birthing ball, so that is where I labored for that hour. At 7pm I was at 6 centimeters and they called for the epidural. I guess I actually got it around 7:30.

** I should note that my goal of between five and six centimeters was a decision I made with my doula based on her experience. While most of the births she assists with are epidural free, she knew that wasn't something that I wanted. I had hoped to get to a point where the birth had enough momentum to keep it going without a lot of intervention in the form of pitocin, etc. **

Keep in mind-- I got to 6 centimeters without any abdomen pain. So strange and not at all what I was expecting. The back labor was very intense and definitely the worst pain I have ever experienced. Of course, I've never had any broken bones or surgery or anything, so I guess I don't have much to compare it to. But to be in full blown labor and not have any abdomen or groin pain at all?! Craziness.

So at 7:30 the anesthesiologist came in and administered the epidural. I've heard horror stories of this procedure as well. While it was excruciating having a contraction and having to remain completely still at the same time, the procedure itself didn't bother me at all.

At this point based on the progression of labor, my nurse was convinced that I would be pushing this baby out by 2am. When given that time estimate, I had a fleeting thought of "maybe I could have done it med free." I am sort of goal oriented and when the nurse mentioned a specific time, I had a little bit of regret about the epidural. That in itself is strange since I had never even really seriously considered going med free. Like I said, it was a fleeting thought, and as I wrap up this birth story you will see that in the end I knew I made the right call (for me personally) on the epidural.

By 11pm I was at 8 centimeters. Things seemed to be moving right along. Even though I couldn't feel much pain at this point, I was well aware that the baby was still not facing the right direction. During the entire birthing process I didn't spend one minute lying on my back. (Except for the pushing stage) After coming off the birthing ball and getting the pain meds, I was positioned on my side. The nurses and my doula would periodically roll me from one side to the other in the hopes of getting the baby to turn in the right direction. Oh-- an interesting note about epidurals. I guess the medicine travels through the body with gravity, so after lying on my right side for about 20 minutes or so the medicine would travel down to the lowest point-- the right side-- leaving my left side open to feeling the pain. Then I would get rolled to the opposite side, wait about 10 minutes for things to equalize and then 20 minutes after that my right side would start feeling the contractions. It wasn't exactly as pain free as I had hoped, but certainly better than nothing.

Being at 8 cm at 11pm, I was very excited and geared up for my next progress check at 1 am. That is, until I actually got it. Two hours later and I was still at 8 cm. It appeared that the nurse's estimate of a 2am birth just flew out the window. The baby still had not turned as much as it needed to and was wedged against a pelvis bone. At this point they decided that I needed some pitocin. I had pretty much sworn it off, but we made the decision that something had to be done to get this baby to turn. If I wasn't already at 8 cm I would have probably refused it, but after talking to my doula we just decided that something had to change.

Although I can't remember the specific milliliters, I ended up only needing a small amount to ramp up the contractions. After that it was just several hours more of being rolled from side to side and waiting. Around 3 am I started to have a mental breakdown. It wasn't about pain, but more about my mental state. I guess I had that 2 am thing in my mind and really had just had enough of all of it. I was exhausted mentally and wanted to see this baby!!

Fast forward to 6am. A light at the end of the tunnel! The baby had turned and was continuing on it's path. At 7 am I started pushing. I pushed for a full hour (although I was so excited it really only felt like 10 minutes or so.) At eight o'clock on the dot my baby boy came into the world!

I had asked for the doctor to show the sex to my husband so I could hear the gender from him rather than from the doctor, but I beat them all to the punch when I looked down and announced, ?"Oh my god, it's a boy!!"

The cord was wrapped around his neck so my husband was not able to do the whole cord cutting thing, nor were we able to donate the cord blood as we had planned. It wasn't wrapped too tightly, so there wasn't any real risk to the baby, but it was still enough to freak a brand new mother out! The baby was immediately deposited on my chest as the doctor did all of the necessary "repairs." In the end I wound up with a second degree tear. Not something to scoff at, but really not that bad either considering the size of the baby.

I held my new baby boy for a while before they took him off to the side to clean him up a bit. A few minutes later then returned him to me and we tried out breast feeding. The first go round didn't go that well. He was more interested in staring at me than in eating, which was fine with me. We tried again successfully a half an hour later and I swear that boy has been eating ever since!

So there you have it. My birth story. All in all, things went pretty much to plan but just took way longer than I expected. If/when we decide to have another baby I will probably hope to stick to my plan of getting at least half way dilated before getting an epidural. It just seemed like the right decision for me and worked out well in the end.

We couldn't be more thrilled with our new baby boy and are having an awesome time having him home and getting to know him. Life has most definitely changed for the better. I can't wait to keep you all updated on what else has been going on the last couple of weeks and what is coming up with us in the future. My next blog will be about the roller coaster of a hormonal shift during the first week and a half or so after having this little bundle of joy. I swear, I have never been on such a wild emotional ride as that first week home. The joys of motherhood!!!