My Birth Story: Trust Your Intuition
September 6 was his due date. With all of the pressure I was feeling and all of the contractions I was having honestly thought he was going to be early. The week before, I went to my OB appointment and was surprised to hear that I wasn’t even a little dilated, but a lot could change in a week. September 6 came in. My contractions were still inconsistent and fairly far apart. Between 15 minutes and an hour between contractionin. My contractions were still inconsistent and fairly far apart. Between 15 minutes and an hour between contractions, but first babies are usually late, so nothing is wrong, right? Not always…
My contractions were mild and bearable, but somethings felt a little off. Call it a mothers intuition. Was it in my head, or do his kicks seem slightly less strong? Maybe I am just being paranoid having been born with the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck…
It was already pretty late so I slept on it and the next day paid close attention to the kick counts. He was reaching all 10 kicks in the allotted time, but I could swear it was slower than normal, and not as strong. Normally I would count 10 kicks in less than 5 minutes but this time it was taking almost 10. Am I thinking too much about it? I called a friend to talk to her about it and she said, trust your intuition and don’t gaslight yourself. If you go in, and nothing is wrong, they’ll just send you home. No big deal. But what if something IS wrong?
It was prominent enough on my mind that I called my doctor. She told me everything seemed normal at the last appointment but if something is bothering me, I could go to triage and they will check everything out, so I did. Evening of the 7th I went to triage, they hooked me up, and they monitored my baby’s heart rate, kick count, checked my water and did an ultrasound. Based on all their tests, they said everything was normal and fine. We had an appointment with my OB the very next morning so we said ok… let’s see her in the morning and go from there. The rest of the night, I was neurotic about feeling and monitoring his kicks as well as my contractions. I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was off.
Morning of the 8th, 2 days late, I went to see my OB. She did an ultrasound. His heart was beating strong but he wasn’t really active which I thought was strange. Every single time I had gone in to an appointment he was so active the nurses would comment on it, but this time, nothing, like he was sleeping. She jostled him and got minimal movements. This did nothing to quel my concerns. I had a decision to make. Do I induce now or wait and see. Our biggest concern with inducing was that there was no turning back and if something went south, a c-section could be inevitable. With my partner having to go back to Europe for work in a few weeks, the idea of taking care of a newborn while not being able to lift anything or having a hard time moving seemed really daunting and we wanted to try and avoid it if possible but something was nagging at me.
Doctor seemed casual about it. All seemed normal but it was our choice. After discussing it with my partner, I decided that if I sat on it even longer it would stress me out so much that it wouldn’t be healthy for any body and to induce.
At this point, after 48 hours of contractions, I was only 1 cm dilated but just enough to put in the balloon. We made our way to the hospital, checked in. Once they got me into the room, hooked me up to all of the fluids, including pitocin, and the waiting game began. We got in at 1030am, it took until about 7 pm before I had dilated enough for the balloon to come loose, 4cm. They upped the pitocin, broke my water and that’s when things started going south.
As my contractions were getting stronger, my baby’s heart patterns were doing things that concerned the nurses. The first time they flooded my room, they pumped my uterus with some saline to recreated the environment prior to my water being broken which seemed to work for a little bit. Despite all my contractions, I wasn’t dilating very much or very quickly. We learned that it was because the baby’s head was coming at the cervix at an angle rather than straight on. Finally, hours later, I had dilated to 5cm and they ordered the epidural. The contractions were getting gnarly to say the least. Took about 45 minutes to an hour for the anesthesiologist to get in there (TIP: if you want an epidural, order it earlier than you think you need it because chances are, by the time they get there, you’ll be screaming for it). By the time mine got into the room, I was shaking and throwing up I was in so much pain, and I have a hell of a pain tolerance. The nurse was frantically moving the monitor around to keep tabs on baby as his heart rate seemed to be dropping but at this point we weren’t sure if it was his heart or him moving away from the monitor. An epidural really is all it is cracked up to be. As soon as the drugs flowed through my system, everything from the waist down was numb.
Now this is something I did not know… Epidural works on gravity, which is why they have to move you from side to side every hour, which led to the next issue. My baby’s heart rate would drop every time I lay on my left side. He didn’t like it over there so I had to stay on my right. This meant that all of the epidural would drain to my right side leaving my left side vulnerable to all sensations, and boy did that suck. I felt EVERY CONTRACTION. Basically, other than rendering my legs immobile, the epidural was useless.
Not only did my baby not like me being on my left side, but turns out he did not like my contractions either… we couldn’t catch a break. Any time I would have a big contraction, his heart would drop low and jump back up rather than spiking up, which is what the doctors like to see. They turned off the pitocin to see if his heart would regulate, which it did for a little while until a big contraction. We were faced with another crossroads. Do we continue to let my body do what it’s doing or have a c-section. The decision was less ours and more on the doctor based on the baby’s patterns. We said to continue to monitor for as long as it’s safe, hoping that he would regulate and we could have him naturally but alas… fate was not on our side.
Not long after we were presented with those options, my contractions got so painful that I threw up and it sent everything in a tail spin. Baby’s heart rate plummeted to 69/70 and once again all the nurses were at my bedside frantically trying to get the heart rate back up. Once they got me on all fours, his heart rate went back up to 150 and everyone let out a sigh of relief. Decision was made. They gave me a drug that stopped my contractions all together and 45 minutes later I was on the operating table after 24 hours of labor.
I’m not going to lie, it was a really scary feeling. Lying awake on the table in a cold operating room. My whole body was numb and the loss of all body autonomy. What if I tense up while they are operating or move without realizing it? So many thoughts rushing through my head. Luckily my partner was there to reassure me, holding my forearm. Once everything was prepped 5 minutes later I heard the strong cries of a baby and they closed me up. Then the shakes happen. I was shivering so uncontrollably I felt like I was convulsing. I was so scared I would drop the baby when they put him on me. The doctor told us that there was no way he was coming out naturally: the umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck twice.
The whole rest of the day was rough. Because of all the liquids and drugs that was pumped into my body, I was so sick I could barely keep ice cubes down but my baby was strong and healthy so it was all ok. I may be biased but he is the most beautiful baby I’ve ever laid eyes on!
My OB came in later that day, or maybe the day after, it was all a blur, and validated my concerns by saying it was a good thing I decided to go in when I did. If I had labored at home without being able to monitor the baby, who knows what would have happened. So I will leave my story with this. Trust your intuition! Sometimes, even over the doctors opinion! You are much more in tuned with your body and your baby than anyone else and if something feels off, get it checked. Don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise or make you feel like you are crazy, even if that person is you!
