Birth Story
Jun. 13th, 2005 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ste_noniI sat down and wrote up Ellie's birth story last night. It's sort of long and I put in a lot of stuff that was important to me but I'm not sure it would be important to anyone else. Also, a brief TMI warning. After all, it is a story about birth.
I woke up at about 2:45 am on Saturday, June 4th. I went to the bathroom as usual and lay back down. A few seconds after lying down, I felt some abdominal pain. It honestly felt a lot like gas pain and, while I thought about contractions, I didn’t really believe it was anything but gas. About 10 minutes later, I felt a pain that started in my center lower back and moved forward towards my uterus. That was a contraction, I was pretty sure. But since I was still 11 days from my due date, I thought maybe they would go away. I tried to sleep until around 4. Finally, I got out my computer and browsed the internet for a while. Eventually, I sent Joe an e-mail telling him what was going on. Then I lay down again and fell back asleep.
Around 6am, the phone rang and I knew it was Joe. We talked for a few minutes. Basically, we knew there was no way he could get home in time. I was still not sure it was real, but Joe wanted to start looking for flights anyway. I told him I would e-mail him back if anything changed. I then went and woke up my mom. We walked the dogs, had breakfast, and finally packed the bags and car. My contractions were 4-5 minutes apart, only 35 seconds long, and not any big deal at all. I called my doula, Elly, who told me to just drink water and relax. I called my midwife who told me to take a hot bath. I did the bath, but it was too narrow in the tub to really be comfortable. Finally, around noon, my mom made me lunch and we watched The Bourne Supremacy. The contractions continued to be about 5 minutes apart, but now were more like 1 minute long. They still weren’t too uncomfortable, but they were getting stronger. I had my dog Sebastian sitting on my lap. He was warm and his weight felt good on my belly. Just as the movie was ending, I felt something just go. I looked down and my water had broken. It was 1:55 pm.
I decided to take a shower, walk the dogs, and then we would head to the airport. As I got undressed and tried to get in the shower, the contractions got noticeably harder. I called Elly again – she said to call her when we left for the hospital. I paged my midwife, Joe’s dad called, my friend Denise called (she was trying to help Joe get a fast flight home), and my dad called. My mom was loading the car and I was trying to shower, answer the phone, and deal with the increasingly painful contractions. I told my mom I thought she needed to walk the dogs. I couldn’t do it anymore. I just stood in the shower and tried to breathe/relax as each one came. Just was we were leaving the phone rang again. It was Joe. I talked to him for a few minutes, but I was having a hard time talking through the contractions. He told me he loved me and he was sorry he couldn’t be there. I told him I was pretty sure this was it and I’d send him more information via Denise when I had it. Finally, at 3 pm we left for the hospital.
UNC Hospital is 1 hour away from my house. As I sat in the car, my back started to hurt pretty badly. I put a book behind me and that helped. The contractions were still 4 minutes apart, but were now lasting longer and were much more difficult. I had to focus to breathe and relax through each one. My mom did a good job driving, but I was getting pretty impatient. I paged the midwife twice while we were on the road, but never heard back from her.
We arrived at the hospital at about 4 pm. My mom unloaded the car. We had all this stuff to help with labor – a ball, water, snacks, etc, plus my bag and her bag. Almost all of this turned out to be completely unnecessary, but I’ll get to that in a moment. They wheeled me upstairs and I gave them my ID card. They said my midwife had received the pages, but the number hadn’t come through clearly, so they called her. Then they wheeled me into the triage room. In the room, they had to hook me up to the baby monitor. Elly arrived about 10 minutes after I got there. She rubbed my back and helped me relax some. She said we needed to wake the baby so the nurses could get good readings on the monitor and then take it off. We spent about 50 minutes in that stupid room. My quads were cramping up and my back hurt pretty bad. I was sitting on the bed, straddling it, with my legs hanging over, leaning forward. It was the only position that felt bearable, and I couldn’t move around because of the stupid monitor. Elly helped by rubbing my back and belly and talking to me through each contraction. I was having a hard time relaxing, but each time she told me to relax, I could do it.
Then, at 4:50, the midwife arrived. I’m not sure why, but she was not in a good mood. She wanted to know why I hadn’t given a urine sample (no one told me to) and how I knew my water broke for real (as in, maybe I had just peed in my pants). I got up to go to the bathroom – I was too out of it to really answer her questions or think very much. I tried to pee, but I couldn’t and then a contraction came. My poor mom was left to explain why we thought it really was my water that broke. In the bathroom, I vented my frustration to Elly about the midwife’s tone and her questions. I had no urine in the cup, just bloody show. Elly was totally supportive and agreed with me. I sat back on the table in the triage room. While my mom and the midwife talked about why I hadn’t paged her properly and I tried to defend myself, Elly tried to help me relax. I looked at her and told her I didn’t think I could do this. I was thinking drugs, but I was afraid if I said it, I’d lose any resolve I had left. I just kept thinking that it had only been 2 hours since my water broke and I couldn’t do this for hours and hours.
The midwife said she would examine me with a speculum to see if amniotic fluid was pooling inside. She put that thing in me and I almost lost it. I could feel my body pushing against it. Then, the midwife said, “I see the baby waving at me. She’s at 9.5 cm.” [In my Bradley class, we talked about this very thing. That when you start to feel like you can’t do it, you are probably in transition and very close to the end. Of course, I knew this, but I didn’t even think about it until I heard the midwife say “9.5 cm.”]
At this point, everything about the midwife changed. While she pissed me off up until this point, she was extremely competent and professional from this moment on. They told me they would put me in a wheelchair, but I said there was no way I was going to be sitting in a wheelchair. They said I could walk if I wanted to. I said that was fine, so my mom grabbed one elbow, Elly grabbed the other and they practically dragged me around to the L&D room. About 10 feet from the door, I felt this huge contraction. I was positive I was about to really mess up the floor, but I didn’t care and even if I had cared, it was beyond my control anyway. [Looking back, this was the beginning of the “uncontrollable urge to push” but at the time, I just knew that something had changed in the contractions.]
They got me into the L&D room and I sat on the side of the bed. I had two more contractions just sitting there. Elly kept telling me to relax. Once she would say it, I could do it, but it was only because of her coaching that I was able to focus on anything. The midwife asked me how I wanted to push, but I had no ideas. I couldn’t even think of anything except that I didn’t want to be on my back. She suggested I kneel on the bed, facing away from everyone. They moved the back of the bed up into an almost sitting position. I held onto the top of the bed and kneeled, facing the wall. It sounds weird, but it was great. I couldn’t see anyone, but I think that helped me focus. Suddenly, I was hit by this huge contraction and urge to push. The urge to push was now truly uncontrollable. I bore down and pushed as hard as I could. It was sort of a relief, but I also think it was pure instinct. Elly told me when to breathe, when to push, and when to stop. We managed to get about 3 pushes per contraction in. I think maybe I had 2-3 contractions like this. I remember they gave me a pillow to lean on, but I pushed it out of the way because I couldn’t breathe. I think maybe I threw my glasses towards Elly because they were in my way. I have no idea how long it took, but I would relax between contractions (as much as possible) and then do three pushed per contraction. I suspect this lasted maybe 15 minutes or so.
In my Bradley class, they talk about the “ring of fire”. Obviously, this is not a medical term. It means the stretching of the perineum as the baby’s head and shoulders emerge. As I was pushing, I felt the baby moving down. It was a very strange feeling, but also a relief because I knew I was making progress. Suddenly, I felt as if I was about to split in two – from my clitoris to my rectum. I was sure that the baby had just torn her way through my body. And then it occurred to me that this was the “ring of fire” we had talked about in Bradley class. I remembered my teacher telling us that this meant you were just maybe 30 seconds or so from holding the baby and the thought energized me.
Then I heard the midwife say to stop pushing. I managed to remember that this was important, so I stopped. Elly was telling me to breathe or blow or something and I did my best to listen to her. [Somewhere in here, they asked me if I was hot and I said yes, so they took off my gown. I laugh now because I was completely naked on a bed about 4 feet off the ground and I was just so glad not to be hot anymore.] The midwife told me to not push so hard anymore but to “grunt the baby out” and I did my best to follow her instructions. She told me to reach down and feel the baby, but I couldn’t see the baby or feel her. Then the midwife said to reach down and pick up the baby and there she was. It was 5:29 and Ellie was born. I scooped her up and knelt down on the bed. She was purple and just making little noises. The nurses rubbed her off and told me to rub her too, which I think I did. I think the first thing I said was “She’s perfect” but I’m not positive because the whole thing is a bit hazy. I held her for a few minutes and just hugged her. Then, because she was still attached to the cord, they helped me turn around and sit down on the bed. They clamped the cord and my mom cut it. I held Ellie for a few more minutes and just looked at her. I was surprised she had such blue eyes, even though I knew this was normal. After a few minutes of holding her, the nurses went to dry her off and the midwife started to take care of me.
I delivered the placenta, which was no big deal after the baby. Then the midwife started to examine me. I was shaking so hard. I had no perineal tears but some internal vaginal tearing, so I needed some stitches. [I thank the midwife and Elly for helping me deliver Ellie with no tearing. I didn’t care at the time, but it has made my recovery much easier.] It seemed like the stitches took forever, but I think she did a good job because I’ve had almost no pain beyond what comes from pushing out a baby. They did some pushing on my uterus. It was uncomfortable, but again it didn’t compare to what had come before.
After the weighing (6lbs, 8 oz) and cleaning her up, the nurses brought Ellie back to me. I just looked at her for a long time. We took a bunch of pictures and I tried to nurse her. She seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. Lots of other stuff happened that evening, but most of it is a blur. I remember many specific moments, but telling it in a coherent fashion is impossible.
We left the hospital the next night. Joe came home the next afternoon after that. Ellie was almost exactly 48 hours old when she met her daddy for the first time.
There is a verse in the Bible that talks about Mary’s reaction after the birth of the baby Jesus. It says something along the lines of “and Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” There were no shepherds at Ellie’s birth, but this verse describes exactly how I felt. I spent that first night in the hospital, watching Ellie sleep and marveling at how perfectly beautiful she was.
I woke up at about 2:45 am on Saturday, June 4th. I went to the bathroom as usual and lay back down. A few seconds after lying down, I felt some abdominal pain. It honestly felt a lot like gas pain and, while I thought about contractions, I didn’t really believe it was anything but gas. About 10 minutes later, I felt a pain that started in my center lower back and moved forward towards my uterus. That was a contraction, I was pretty sure. But since I was still 11 days from my due date, I thought maybe they would go away. I tried to sleep until around 4. Finally, I got out my computer and browsed the internet for a while. Eventually, I sent Joe an e-mail telling him what was going on. Then I lay down again and fell back asleep.
Around 6am, the phone rang and I knew it was Joe. We talked for a few minutes. Basically, we knew there was no way he could get home in time. I was still not sure it was real, but Joe wanted to start looking for flights anyway. I told him I would e-mail him back if anything changed. I then went and woke up my mom. We walked the dogs, had breakfast, and finally packed the bags and car. My contractions were 4-5 minutes apart, only 35 seconds long, and not any big deal at all. I called my doula, Elly, who told me to just drink water and relax. I called my midwife who told me to take a hot bath. I did the bath, but it was too narrow in the tub to really be comfortable. Finally, around noon, my mom made me lunch and we watched The Bourne Supremacy. The contractions continued to be about 5 minutes apart, but now were more like 1 minute long. They still weren’t too uncomfortable, but they were getting stronger. I had my dog Sebastian sitting on my lap. He was warm and his weight felt good on my belly. Just as the movie was ending, I felt something just go. I looked down and my water had broken. It was 1:55 pm.
I decided to take a shower, walk the dogs, and then we would head to the airport. As I got undressed and tried to get in the shower, the contractions got noticeably harder. I called Elly again – she said to call her when we left for the hospital. I paged my midwife, Joe’s dad called, my friend Denise called (she was trying to help Joe get a fast flight home), and my dad called. My mom was loading the car and I was trying to shower, answer the phone, and deal with the increasingly painful contractions. I told my mom I thought she needed to walk the dogs. I couldn’t do it anymore. I just stood in the shower and tried to breathe/relax as each one came. Just was we were leaving the phone rang again. It was Joe. I talked to him for a few minutes, but I was having a hard time talking through the contractions. He told me he loved me and he was sorry he couldn’t be there. I told him I was pretty sure this was it and I’d send him more information via Denise when I had it. Finally, at 3 pm we left for the hospital.
UNC Hospital is 1 hour away from my house. As I sat in the car, my back started to hurt pretty badly. I put a book behind me and that helped. The contractions were still 4 minutes apart, but were now lasting longer and were much more difficult. I had to focus to breathe and relax through each one. My mom did a good job driving, but I was getting pretty impatient. I paged the midwife twice while we were on the road, but never heard back from her.
We arrived at the hospital at about 4 pm. My mom unloaded the car. We had all this stuff to help with labor – a ball, water, snacks, etc, plus my bag and her bag. Almost all of this turned out to be completely unnecessary, but I’ll get to that in a moment. They wheeled me upstairs and I gave them my ID card. They said my midwife had received the pages, but the number hadn’t come through clearly, so they called her. Then they wheeled me into the triage room. In the room, they had to hook me up to the baby monitor. Elly arrived about 10 minutes after I got there. She rubbed my back and helped me relax some. She said we needed to wake the baby so the nurses could get good readings on the monitor and then take it off. We spent about 50 minutes in that stupid room. My quads were cramping up and my back hurt pretty bad. I was sitting on the bed, straddling it, with my legs hanging over, leaning forward. It was the only position that felt bearable, and I couldn’t move around because of the stupid monitor. Elly helped by rubbing my back and belly and talking to me through each contraction. I was having a hard time relaxing, but each time she told me to relax, I could do it.
Then, at 4:50, the midwife arrived. I’m not sure why, but she was not in a good mood. She wanted to know why I hadn’t given a urine sample (no one told me to) and how I knew my water broke for real (as in, maybe I had just peed in my pants). I got up to go to the bathroom – I was too out of it to really answer her questions or think very much. I tried to pee, but I couldn’t and then a contraction came. My poor mom was left to explain why we thought it really was my water that broke. In the bathroom, I vented my frustration to Elly about the midwife’s tone and her questions. I had no urine in the cup, just bloody show. Elly was totally supportive and agreed with me. I sat back on the table in the triage room. While my mom and the midwife talked about why I hadn’t paged her properly and I tried to defend myself, Elly tried to help me relax. I looked at her and told her I didn’t think I could do this. I was thinking drugs, but I was afraid if I said it, I’d lose any resolve I had left. I just kept thinking that it had only been 2 hours since my water broke and I couldn’t do this for hours and hours.
The midwife said she would examine me with a speculum to see if amniotic fluid was pooling inside. She put that thing in me and I almost lost it. I could feel my body pushing against it. Then, the midwife said, “I see the baby waving at me. She’s at 9.5 cm.” [In my Bradley class, we talked about this very thing. That when you start to feel like you can’t do it, you are probably in transition and very close to the end. Of course, I knew this, but I didn’t even think about it until I heard the midwife say “9.5 cm.”]
At this point, everything about the midwife changed. While she pissed me off up until this point, she was extremely competent and professional from this moment on. They told me they would put me in a wheelchair, but I said there was no way I was going to be sitting in a wheelchair. They said I could walk if I wanted to. I said that was fine, so my mom grabbed one elbow, Elly grabbed the other and they practically dragged me around to the L&D room. About 10 feet from the door, I felt this huge contraction. I was positive I was about to really mess up the floor, but I didn’t care and even if I had cared, it was beyond my control anyway. [Looking back, this was the beginning of the “uncontrollable urge to push” but at the time, I just knew that something had changed in the contractions.]
They got me into the L&D room and I sat on the side of the bed. I had two more contractions just sitting there. Elly kept telling me to relax. Once she would say it, I could do it, but it was only because of her coaching that I was able to focus on anything. The midwife asked me how I wanted to push, but I had no ideas. I couldn’t even think of anything except that I didn’t want to be on my back. She suggested I kneel on the bed, facing away from everyone. They moved the back of the bed up into an almost sitting position. I held onto the top of the bed and kneeled, facing the wall. It sounds weird, but it was great. I couldn’t see anyone, but I think that helped me focus. Suddenly, I was hit by this huge contraction and urge to push. The urge to push was now truly uncontrollable. I bore down and pushed as hard as I could. It was sort of a relief, but I also think it was pure instinct. Elly told me when to breathe, when to push, and when to stop. We managed to get about 3 pushes per contraction in. I think maybe I had 2-3 contractions like this. I remember they gave me a pillow to lean on, but I pushed it out of the way because I couldn’t breathe. I think maybe I threw my glasses towards Elly because they were in my way. I have no idea how long it took, but I would relax between contractions (as much as possible) and then do three pushed per contraction. I suspect this lasted maybe 15 minutes or so.
In my Bradley class, they talk about the “ring of fire”. Obviously, this is not a medical term. It means the stretching of the perineum as the baby’s head and shoulders emerge. As I was pushing, I felt the baby moving down. It was a very strange feeling, but also a relief because I knew I was making progress. Suddenly, I felt as if I was about to split in two – from my clitoris to my rectum. I was sure that the baby had just torn her way through my body. And then it occurred to me that this was the “ring of fire” we had talked about in Bradley class. I remembered my teacher telling us that this meant you were just maybe 30 seconds or so from holding the baby and the thought energized me.
Then I heard the midwife say to stop pushing. I managed to remember that this was important, so I stopped. Elly was telling me to breathe or blow or something and I did my best to listen to her. [Somewhere in here, they asked me if I was hot and I said yes, so they took off my gown. I laugh now because I was completely naked on a bed about 4 feet off the ground and I was just so glad not to be hot anymore.] The midwife told me to not push so hard anymore but to “grunt the baby out” and I did my best to follow her instructions. She told me to reach down and feel the baby, but I couldn’t see the baby or feel her. Then the midwife said to reach down and pick up the baby and there she was. It was 5:29 and Ellie was born. I scooped her up and knelt down on the bed. She was purple and just making little noises. The nurses rubbed her off and told me to rub her too, which I think I did. I think the first thing I said was “She’s perfect” but I’m not positive because the whole thing is a bit hazy. I held her for a few minutes and just hugged her. Then, because she was still attached to the cord, they helped me turn around and sit down on the bed. They clamped the cord and my mom cut it. I held Ellie for a few more minutes and just looked at her. I was surprised she had such blue eyes, even though I knew this was normal. After a few minutes of holding her, the nurses went to dry her off and the midwife started to take care of me.
I delivered the placenta, which was no big deal after the baby. Then the midwife started to examine me. I was shaking so hard. I had no perineal tears but some internal vaginal tearing, so I needed some stitches. [I thank the midwife and Elly for helping me deliver Ellie with no tearing. I didn’t care at the time, but it has made my recovery much easier.] It seemed like the stitches took forever, but I think she did a good job because I’ve had almost no pain beyond what comes from pushing out a baby. They did some pushing on my uterus. It was uncomfortable, but again it didn’t compare to what had come before.
After the weighing (6lbs, 8 oz) and cleaning her up, the nurses brought Ellie back to me. I just looked at her for a long time. We took a bunch of pictures and I tried to nurse her. She seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. Lots of other stuff happened that evening, but most of it is a blur. I remember many specific moments, but telling it in a coherent fashion is impossible.
We left the hospital the next night. Joe came home the next afternoon after that. Ellie was almost exactly 48 hours old when she met her daddy for the first time.
There is a verse in the Bible that talks about Mary’s reaction after the birth of the baby Jesus. It says something along the lines of “and Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.” There were no shepherds at Ellie’s birth, but this verse describes exactly how I felt. I spent that first night in the hospital, watching Ellie sleep and marveling at how perfectly beautiful she was.
