My labor and Delivery Story - Going Natural

Let me start by saying I know giving birth naturally is not the right choice for everyone or every situation; I honestly think women should choose the route that will stress them out the least. If the pain of labor is the most horrific sounding thing to you and you just can’t be settled about it, going natural probably won’t be the best choice for you. On the other hand, if you’re like me and huge needles and drugs are more frightening, then going natural might be worth it for you. The most important thing is that you have a healthy baby and you can look back on the experience somewhat fondly.

~ Day of Delivery ~

Friday July 1st
12:15am - My water broke in the bed. It came in small gushes whenever I moved. I quickly went to the bathroom, changed into my "hospital gown" and placed towels in the bed so I could sleep before heading to the hospital. I told Blair, “You’re not going to work tomorrow”.

12:30am - My plans to sleep were crushed as the contractions started coming on swift and hard. They were much more painful than I had anticipated for "early labor". Regardless, I decided to tough it out as long as possible before waking Blair.

1:20am - I couldn't take it alone any more. I was already finding it very difficult to talk. I woke Blair and he started timing the contractions. They were a minute long and about three minutes apart. I told Blair we needed to go to the hospital. He questioned me, reminding me of the fact that we wanted to labor at home as long as possible. I said that if we waited any longer I wouldn't be able to walk to the car, or to the hospital from the car. By this point, I wasn't in the mood to laugh or joke and the contractions were getting stronger all the time.

2:20am - We had managed to get in the car and were leaving our driveway for the hospital. Sitting in the passenger seat was very uncomfortable as I tried to take deep, slow breaths through each contraction.

2:35am - We arrived at the hospital. Blair walked beside me as I very slowly waddled into the building. I had a rolled towel between my legs as I was still leaking amniotic fluid, and I stopped at every contraction to lean my head on Blair's shoulder. As we walked passed the front desk, somebody offered me a wheel chair, but they were a few yards behind me and I was already walking forward. I didn't want any wasted time, so I waved them off and kept going. It was slightly distracting and oddly comforting having a destination to walk to during labor. I didn't want to be left in a chair to focus on the pain.

2:45am - We were taken to the "monitoring room". Or the room where they tell you if you're really in labor or tell you to go home. The nurse there told me to change into the hospital gown sitting on the bed and to give them a urine sample. I could hardly stand let alone get dressed and pee in a cup. She quickly got the hint from my body language that I was not going to comply. She had me lay on the bed/table and wrapped the monitoring bands around my stomach. This was extremely uncomfortable, but I wanted them to see what I was going through. My contractions showed up on the screen. The nurse continued asking me questions as if I could carry on a normal conversation, which I tried to, but it took too much energy and I'm sure my replies came across as snippy more than once. No doubt she was used to that.

3:15am - I was eager for them to check my cervix, since I was certain it would validate my pain and then the nurse would know I wasn't just another over-dramatic first-time mom. To my and Blair's disappointment, I was barely dilated to 2 centimeters! “Well” I thought, “Maybe I am being over dramatic...”

They kept us in that uncomfortable little room for a bit longer trying to inject the saline lock in to my arm, which resulted in two bruised and useless holes in my arm. The nurse said she'd have to let someone else try.

While in the monitoring room, someone delivered a “good luck” note from a friend who happened to be working at a desk in St. Vincents. It was good to know I had people rooting for me. :)

3:40am - We arrived at our labor and delivery room. Not long after we got there, they were shoving waiver forms and who knows what else on me to sign in-between contractions. Unfortunately, I wasn't always getting a break between contractions anymore. They were getting so strong and so close together that they were starting to camel-back, or come one right on top of the other.

Christine Barlow, my primary midwife, happened to have her shift while I was there. She looked very tired, but was pleasant as usual. She saw how much I was already struggling through the contractions. She smiled sympathetically and told me it was going to be a long, tiring day. She said that her shift would end at 7:00am but that Mary would take care of me from there. She then added, "Who knows... maybe you'll have the baby during my shift and I can deliver him. Stranger things have happened."

Another nurse tried to insert the saline lock into my arm, but couldn’t. They brought in the IV expert. After yet another failed attempt to find my vein, she finally got it in at around 4:30pm. It was a nuisance to drag the IV poll wherever I went, but, fortunately, I wasn’t doing too much moving.

4:30 - 6:00am - My contractions were continuing to rise in intensity and I was feeling slightly nauseous throughout. My lower back felt like it was being slowly twisted and broken. Blair almost never stopped giving me deep, hard lower back massages. I felt such sharp and intense pain in my lower abdomen during each contraction, that I found it difficult to breath at times. I hoped massaging that spot would help, but it only made it worse. I tried so many different positions, but nothing made any difference. I only noticed when a position made the pain worse. Sitting on the birthing ball, leaning my elbows on the bed, was the only thing that didn’t increase my pain.

I was trying not to think about how long this all would take, but rather trying to think of one contraction at a time - trying to look forward to the end of each contraction, (if there was an end). I think I would have felt more capable if the contractions were not coming one on top of the other, if I knew I had time to recover. I was already saying “I can’t”. Blair was telling me “yes you can!”, but we were both thinking the same thing - I was probably only dilated to a three by now and we’d be there all day long. How on earth could I endure this kind of labor for that long? I was feeling like a wimp.

6:00am - They finally took the saline lock out. It had been left in longer than the said “twenty minutes” because they had to use such a small needle and because the tube had a kink in it for the majority of the time it was in my arm.

6:10am - The staff were great when it came to to consulting my birth plan often and striving to stick to my wishes. They saw that I wanted to use the Jacuzzi tub and asked if I wanted to try that now. Desperate for some kind of relief, I said yes. They said it would take half an hour to clean and fill the tub. My eyes almost never left the clock during that wait.

6:50am - After a long forty-five minutes, they finally announced the tub was ready. If I wasn’t so desperate to feel relief from the contractions, I probably could not have made the long walk down the hall. I was determined to get in the tub, so off we went. Halfway down the hall, I had such a strong contraction I felt a slight urge to push. It felt just like I needed to have a bowel movement. When I mentioned this to the nurse who was walking with us, she looked slightly surprised but seemed to kind of dismiss it since none of us believed I could possibly be far enough along to heading into the pushing stage.

7:00am - We were in the small Jacuzzi room and I told the nurse I felt another urge to push. She said, “Well, if you think you need to push, we’ll have to go back to your bed to check your cervix.” There was NO way I was going to walk down that hall again. I asked them if they could check me right there, “I’ll get on the floor right here if I have to” I was saying. When the nurse saw how determined I was to stay put, she stammered a bit, “well, maybe we can arrange something...” At any rate, we all still believed I had a lot of laboring to do, so I got in the tub.
For the first time, I felt some relief. Blair and I just sighed, thinking, Finally! Thank goodness this warm water is making a difference! But right away, another contraction started and my body convulsed and pushed a grunt out of me. I was encouraged by the staff to relax and continue taking deep, smooth breaths. Never was it more difficult to “relax” than now. Although the edge was taken from the pain, my body was starting to take over more and more with each contraction as it was obviously pushing and I couldn’t help but grunt long and loud with each push.

7:25am - The nurses and midwives, seeing me push, started to take me a little more seriously. The midwife named Jabke said, “We don’t usually do this, but I’m going to check your cervix here in the tub.” To everyone’s surprise, I was dilated to nine centimeters! Blair’s reaction reflected my feelings; he had a huge grin and was saying things like, “Can you believe it? You’re practically done!” The staff in the room were saying they couldn’t believe I was walking down the hall at nine centimeters and that I was acting so calm and relaxed for how far along I was. I went from feeling like a wimp to feeling like Wonder Woman! I had been dilating so quickly in the past three hours that it was as if I were in transition the entire time.
After that, things were moving so quickly! They brought in a wheel chair and said “We’ve got to get you out of here. We don’t do water births!” I had mixed feelings about leaving the tub. I was excited to be nearing the end, but I remember saying to Blair, "But I just got here!" Regardless, I stood up, got in the chair, they threw a towel on my lap and they quickly wheeled me back to my room where the delivery equipment was already being set up. Then I remember thinking, This is more like it!

7:35 - Blair reminded me that I wanted to try pushing on my hands and knees. I tried a couple of contractions with my hands resting on the back of the raised bed while kneeling on the lower half of the bed, as suggested, but that didn’t feel right. I wanted to try squatting on the bed, so they started installing the squat bar (that name still makes me chuckle) onto the bed. My body was ready to go and it was taking them too long to install the squat bar, so I tried helping them click it in place. Christine laughed and said, “you don’t have to do that!” (I was glad Christine had decided to stay a little longer for my delivery.) Once the bar was in place and I took hold of it, I immediately knew squatting was the right position to be in. I could actually feel Paul’s head there and ready to come out.

The strength of my body during each contraction was unbelievable! It was similar to dry heaving, only with much more intense strength and all the energy was being pushed down instead of up. Everything was being squeezed out of me: my voice, the air from my lungs, my stool, even my eyes and ears felt the pressure! The midwife Mary kept saying, “Don’t push yet. Just breath through the contractions.” I looked at Blair as if to say, “What!? How in the world am I supposed to just breath and keep this from happening?” It was obvious to Blair I had no control over these convulsive pushes and he just shook his head and quietly encouraged me to do what I needed to do.

7:45 - Christine checked my cervix one last time, and gave the okay to push. By this time the contractions were so close together, I couldn’t distinguish one from another. My body was in an almost constant state of bearing down and squeezing. I kept thinking, when will I get a chance to breath? I need a break! My only option was to get through this “pushing stage” as quickly as possible so I could rest and breath again! So I helped the contractions by actively pushing. I remembered learning in my birthing class to push only at the peak of a contraction. I had no idea when or where those “peaks” were for me so I just pushed whenever I felt like I could.

My lower back pain was unbearable. It felt to me like Blair was massaging my back the same as he had been throughout labor, but it wasn’t until later he told me he was using all his strength while gripping the squat bar to dig his fists into my back - way harder than anything he was doing previously. Sometimes it felt good, but if it was a centimeter off, it felt awful. I finally shooed him off my back since I could no longer instruct him on how to do it just right.

7:50am - Christine said she could see the head. This was encouraging, but I knew that for first-time moms, this was a two-steps-forward-one-step-back type of process. Even as I heard everyone, including Blair, say “There’s more of the head! Wow! He’s really coming out!” I was thinking, Yeah, I’m sure there’s a dime size of head that’s growing and shrinking slightly. They’re trying to be encouraging, but I’ll be pushing for a while still. Christine asked if I wanted to reach down and feel his head, but I couldn’t let go of the bar and I didn’t want anything to slow the process down. Plus, I was certain I’d be disappointed in how little head there was to feel.
During this time is when I felt the “ring of fire” moms talk about. I couldn’t decide which was more painful, my back and stomach from the contractions, my brain and lungs form a lack of oxygen, or the pressure and stretching I felt as Paul’s head was crowning. I tried to ignore the increasing sting each time I pushed, because I knew pushing was the only way to get it over with. My back felt like it was literally broken now. I thought for sure I was seriously damaging something as I sat there pushing. I just had to remove myself from the situation - remove myself from my body and let it happen the way it was supposed to. If I didn’t do that, I think I would have started screaming and gone completely mad!

8:06am - Before I realized how far along things were, his head came out with a big gush of fluid. The relief I felt was amazing! One more stingy push and out came the rest of his body with another gush of fluid. The pain was instantly gone. They immediately placed our new baby on my chest and I could still feel the umbilical cord that connected us both. Blair and I were in tears. He was laughing and crying while saying, “You did it! He’s here!” All I could say over and over was, “baby” in a complete stupor of shock.

Seeing a birth from that angle - watching a baby come out of me was indescribable. I couldn’t wrap my brain around the situation fast enough. Eight hours ago I was going to bed on a seemingly normal night, now I had a baby in my arms! It was the most unreal yet real experience of my life. In one instant, I went from the most extreme physical and emotional exhaustion and pain I have ever endured, to the most joyful high I can imagine. Whenever I think about that moment that Paul was born, I’m reminded of the words of Alma the younger:

“And oh, what joy and what marvelous light I did behold; yea, my soul was filled with joy as exceeding as was my pain! Yea, I say unto you,... that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter as were my pains. Yea, and again I say unto you,... that on the other hand, there can be nothing so exquisite and sweet as was my joy.”

Like I said in the beginning, having a baby without any pain medications is not the right choice for everyone, but I’m so glad I decided to stick it out and that Blair was so supportive of my decision. This experience would not have been the same if I had done it any other way. My self confidence has sky-rocketed and my relationship with Blair has increased a whole truckload. You learn so much about a person while struggling through something together and it’s through those really really tough times that a deep and unique connection is formed. I love and trust my sweet husband so much! I love knowing that we made such a huge sacrifice to bring Paul here. Would I have done it naturally if I knew how hard it was going to be? Maybe not. Will I do it naturally again? Yes, because now I know I can do it! I’m stronger than Wonder Woman!