27-6-2008 - Birth Story, finally...

My mood while writing this blog: relieved it is done!

Julia-Lynn`s birthstory

At around dinnertime on May 13th, I started feeling intense pressure as if the baby was very, very low. An hour later I was having minor contrax, somewhat close together and regular, about every 6 minutes. Rob and I went back and forth on whether we should go to the hospital, which isn't that close to home. We finally decided to go and called my neighbor, who came to listen to a sleeping Emily's monitor.

We arrived at the hospital at around 8 PM and contrax were still weak and I was still only 3 cm. After an hour or so I was told that they were "keeping me" because of my history of fast labor and the need for GBS antibiotics. I'd get the IV of ABX overnight and have my waters broken in the AM, about 5:00. Rob went home to wait for his Mom to make the 3 hour drive to come and watch Emily. I waited until nearly midnight in triage for my ABX to arrive from the hospital pharmacy!

Rob returned at about 2 AM and I counted the hours until 6:30 when the caf would open so that I could have some coffee! At 5,a doc (resident) came in to break my water...and barely anything came! Weird! A bit later, my own OB came to try again. She was a bit more successful. Soon after that, contrax came fast and strong. At 6:30 Rob offered to get my coffee and I no longer wanted it! That's how I knew I was in REAL labor! I was asking Rob to massage my back with his knuckles, in the spot just above my tailbone. It helped a little bit, but things were going downhill fast in terms of pain. Shortly thereafter, I was in excruciating pain and was offered an epi, which I declined, and then nubain. I began to cry, saying "I didn't want it to be this way!" after having had Emily drug and epi-free, I had been so cocky and so sure I could do that again. But I was out of control and desperate. I agreed to the nubain. Almost immediately, it hit me and I fell back against my pillows in bliss. But I couldn't speak more than one word. I could still feel the contrax but they were far, far away as was I! I was about 6 CM then.

I think the nubain lasted for about an hour. Then I was out of control again, screaming "help me!" and Rob's name. I was offered an epi, again. I struggled with this and did not know what to do. But I knew I couldn't go on much longer. I was checked, and I was 8 CM. I knew it could have been 10 minutes or an hour, and I knew I could not hang on for an hour. I finally agreed to the epi. It was placed without incident, and I felt my body go cold and then numb, my mind just emptied and I fell back against the pillows and slept for one hour. After the hour, they awakened me and said "you're complete, time to push".

One of the oddest things about that night is that, even when I was having massive contrax one on top of the other, they didn't register on the monitor! And people kept trying to re-arrange the belts, which was making me very uncomfortable. AMH is a big teaching hospital, so new people kept coming into my room and saying "oh, we have to fix these belts" and I wanted to scream "NO!!! MINE DON'T SHOW, LEAVE ME ALONE!" but I could not speak because of the nubain, even after it wore off it was hard to speak and I was in so much pain I really could not communicate. So people kept harrassing me about the belts and they were hurting me!

So, when it was time to push, I couldn't feel much even though the epi had been turned down and staff couldn't tell me when to push becuase my contrax were not registering on the monitor! I WAS able to feel a tiny sensation at the top of my uterus at the beginning of each contrax, so I would tell THEM "I think one is starting" and then I tried to push "with my mind" rather than my body (I imagined a big poop!). Because I couldn't feel, I felt like nothing was happening but they said I was doing fine. Just when I was starting to think this was never going to work, I felt the baby almost in my vagina and the doc said "here she comes!" and then I was told to stop pushing for a moment, and then they said "ok, all you have to do is deliver the shoulders" and with one more push she was here! After 50 minutes of pushing, she came out crying, a nice healthy cry and then I cried and looked at beautiful Julia as she was taken to the warming table to be cleaned up. She was perfect! 7 lbs, 1 oz, 20" long, born at 11:51 AM. Exactly one pound and TWO inches more than Emily.

Finally after two years, three losses, and about 65 pee sticks, we had our beautiful baby girl!