It's been 5 months since I gave birth to Little Miss Tinker. I wanted to tell about my experience of birth, postpartum, and infancy. This section will be a look of how her birth went down! Let's start on October 8th, 2013.
Presently, (perhaps I have been reading too much Beatrix Potter) I am 11 days past my 40 week due date, I am getting a non-stress test to watch Bebe's heartbeat, contractions, and my heartbeat. Jeff is at school, so I am relaxing on a very uncomfortable bed alone. The nurse checks back multiple times because Bebe's heartbeat dips when I am in a certain position. She called the midwives and has asked me to wait (and stay plugged in) until she hears back. I am mildly concerned, not too much though. I already had an induction day set on the 11th, I was thinking if I got admitted early I could just get it over with and hold my baby! FINALLY, the midwives call back and say they want to admit me and that they would send someone with a wheelchair. When the person arrived it was a young man "driving" the wheelchair. My first wheelchair ride was... weird... having no control is a strange feeling, as is trusting a stranger. Oh how lovely are the hormones and weird thoughts that come with them. I arrived to labor and delivery... somewhat excited, since I was already almost 2 weeks late. They checked me in, simple enough, and put me in triage (a horrid place with REALLY small rooms, a fuzzy TV, and uncomfortable beds). A somewhat crabby nurse came in and strapped me up to another monitor (which I was already sick of by this point) and let me know she was going to set up the IV in my arm (just the part that the IV attaches to not the IV liquid). That was not fun, luckily she made it in the first time, then drew a ton of blood (which she let go bad, more on that later), and put a double IV in - it is one needle in your arm with two attachment valves. Throughout this whole thing I had called Jeff, at that point we only had one car - so he was going to have to ride the bus, and he was nervous! He called my mom and my coworker to let them know "it" was happening. I was left alone for about two hours, save the doctor who came into the wrong room and thought I was someone else. I even had to go ask where the bathroom was-laaame. Jeff arrived after a while and soon after we were moved into a real labor and delivery room - with a FABulous view!
It was so surreal and exciting. The nurse came in and introduced herself (I don't remember her name because I went through about 8 nurses because I was there so long!) and hooked me up to the monitor, she was nice enough to do the wireless ones and kept them on there with this weird stretchy blue and white striped tube top type thing (I was so thankful for this after labor started!). Once we were settled Jeff went and got everything we had packed out of the car...it was way too much! We ordered some food and the midwife came in (I also went through about 4 midwives). I had never met this midwife, but she was nice enough. She checked me out and found that I was about 2cm and 80% effaced. We decided to do some cervical ripening overnight. It was the little hormone stick in a nylon case - cant remember the name. The evening went by pretty fast, Jeff and I were just watching Disney movies - typical ;). Since everything in that room was SO uncomfortable we decided him going home was the best plan. He left at about 11pm to go home, take care of our dogs, and get some rest and was back at about 6am. Guess how much sleep I got that night... oh about 6 - 30minute increment horrid dozing fests. I swear to you they come and check in on you EVERY time you think you might be falling into a deep sleep and the bed was SO incredibly uncomfortable it was amazing, what is the purpose of that? (my midwife said "it is not supposed to be slept on it is a birthing tool" - then why the eff am I in here...) And on top of that I was uber crampy from the hormones...boooo. When Jeff arrived the next midwife (and third nurse) came in to introduce themselves and talk about inducing. The midwife then checked me and I was at 3cm and 90% effaced so we decided to start the induction at 11am. Jeff and I ordered and ate some breakfast in the room, then just hung out. Mind you at this time I had had approximately 4 contractions my entire pregnancy (all one after the other at about 40 weeks). At 1030 we ordered some more food since I would not be able to eat anything but "clear" foods after the induction started. We ate and induction ensued. All the induction is is Pitocin in an IV bag on a little movable stand so I could still walk around. It made me pretty crampy and the (4th and 5th and 6th) nurses came in every 30 minutes to turn it up. By this time every time a nurse left I became sadder and sadder. All but one were SO nice and the one who was not wasn't mean she was just not very chipper. Everything was kinda a blur until 8'oclock since I was so tired. I found that the extremely uncomfortable chair in the room was better then the unbearably uncomfortable bed. I know that between 1 & 8 my mom arrived, I watched the 10th Kingdom, I went on a walk around the hospital, aaaannnnnddd had about 19 cups of chicken broth, a lemon ice thing, and tried to eat some jello which was GROSS, and I was crampy. I remember one of the nurses saying "You don't look like a woman in labour" every time she came in and turned the pitocin up. I thought... you don't even know, I could be in active labor even as we speak...(HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA - if I only knew). The food thing was a little annoying as the midwife said I could try some easy to eat stuff like yogurt, but the nurse wouldn't let me... lame. Anywhoo... onward.
8pm comes around and the fourth midwife (Nora) comes in along with her student midwife (Sarah) - who was my midwife pretty much, they had already introduced themselves and Sarah checks to see my progress. NOTHING! I was soooo discouraged and a little angry. My mom and Jeff were still there and the 10th Kingdom was still on (its 8 hours if you haven't seen it). I decided to take a doze on the chair since I was exhausted.
At 9:04pm I was just falling asleep when POP. My water broke. I woke up with a start, said "I think my water just broke", annnddd started crying. Jeff went to the bed and pushed the nurse button and said "Umm my wife's water just broke". Enter: a flurry of hospital staff. CONTRACTIONS = HELL. This is where I have to rely on Jeff and my mom for a little memory assistance...which I will update when I can!
What I remember:
Water broke. Go to the toilet. Say FUCK a lot. pain pain pain. Can't bring myself to move. (Initially hoped for water birth) Got in tub. Lost more fluid - it was thick and yellowish - gross. Hated tub. Got out. Tried rocking on ball. Nope. Tried kneeling on floor and rocking on ball. NOPE. Wanted to die. Was checked again and was at (what they thought at that point) 8cm and 100& effaced. Mom said I said "Why do people have children? This is insane!". Midwife Sarah, who has a fabulous yoga teacher voice - incredibly calming and helped me to focus, suggested leaning over the bed, then proceeded to rock my hips. That worked - well as well as working can do for a person in active labor. Jeff took over the hip rocking and I focused on breathing as since my water broke the contractions were about 90 seconds apart. NO PEOPLE contractions are not like cramps, although they are located in the same region they are so painful and not even remotely similar to period cramps AT ALL. Was asked multiple times if I wanted an epidural. Was TOLD by my mom to get an epidural several times, which made me mad and I told her to stop bossing me around. Another note people: Don't think you can just make decisions when in active labor, your brain literally goes into animal mode which does not bode well for the thinking and decision making parts of your brain. My response to every question I was asked was "I don't know" because I didn't and I could barely focus on continuing to breath let alone anything else. Since I was having such a hard time answering if I wanted an epidural Sarah suggested we check me again and make the decision after. I agreed. Mind you I HATE people all up in my business - it usually takes a few pauses on the midwives part and a lot of calm breathing on my part. Checked again found out I was at 6cm not 8 as initially thought. Said yes to epidural as going from 3cm to 6cm in 2 hours was plenty of pain to remember. The anesthesiologist was such a kind young man. He did his little safety schpeil... which I heard NONE of except the part when he said if you cant feel anything in your legs that's bad. Right no feeling at all = bad. I did not see the needle but Jeff said it was HUGE! They numb you first and it is pretty poky but... seriously... compared to contractions it's like a mosquito bite. So he numbed my back and inserted the epidural needle. He told me to tell him if I could feel it and I could a little on one side, so he did some more numbing and continued. You get hooked up to annooothher iv that is plugged into your back so at this point I have and iv in my arm, two sensors on my stomach, an iv in my spine, annnnnddd they give you a catheter when you get an epidural so... wires and plugs coming out of EVERYWHERE!
One the epidural was complete I laid down a bit to try and get some rest. Wellll my sweet baby was not happy in any position I got in (her heart rate kept dipping). So every time I would start to doze the nurse, Jaime, would come in and make me turn over, when she came in to do so I let her know that if she ever had a baby she should get an epidural because it was "fabulous" (I probably told her that about 10 times...because it felt like I was telling a different person every time...oops). At about 1230am the midwife came in and checked me and I was fully dilated. I was SO tired that I asked if we could wait for me to start pushing, she was ever so receptive and said she would be back in 15 minutes and that we would start pushing then =/. 15 minutes it was and we started pushing. I had no idea what I was doing and I could barely feel my contractions because of the epidural. I was adamant that I did not want to be in stirrups so we tried a couple different positions: holding my legs...HA, having other people hold my legs...HA, using the birthing bar - much better, using the birthing bar with a sheet tied for me to yank - bingbingbingbing. I pushed for 3 hours. It felt like maybe 40 minutes. I only had to yell at the hubby twice: once for bringing me water (when I asked for it) - it was empty - I let him know and he said, "Oh, that means you drank it all" and I said something along the lines of, "Okay, well go fucking fill it up then"; and the last time because he was assisting in counting during my pushing and at one point he started counting down from 15 and then at 7 he started counting back up. I told him to shut it and let the nurse count ;). Both of these scenes made the midwives giggle and say that that is how they know I am doing all right. Jeff later told me he was scared that I was going to turn into a monster while giving birth and that he was pleasantly surprised that he did not have to deal with verbal or physical abuse.
So 3 hours of pushing, other then being exhausted, was not a big deal. You know what was a big deal... getting the baby's head and shoulders out. YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA. So as it is coming to that point the midwife said, "So the epidural won't cover this part so it is going to be uncomfortable"... which means this is going to be the most painful thing your ever feel in your life. Here she comes. At this point all I can do is scream (I didn't think I would be a screamer... but I was)...It was so painful literally like I was getting ripped in two. The midwife said "Ashley, I understand but you need to push this baby out now!" So I did... Jeff said I pushed out her head and once her shoulders were out they yanked her the rest of the way. At that point I was hemorrhaging and I remember my body shaking (pretty sure it was in shock), the midwife yelled for a pitocin shot and the baby was put on my stomach. I don't really remember much other then asking if she was okay. They didn't wait to cut the umbilical cord, which I wanted, but oh well. Jeff cut the cord, they then pulled on the other end to get the placenta out. After all that trauma the only thing I could ask was if it was going to hurt. It didn't it felt like passing a blood clot. Bebe was doing good, but I was in and out of consciousness so Jeff took over the skin to skin contact. I needed a few stitches and asked if the midwife could "apply some local anesthetic before stitching". She said I shouldn't be able to feel it...but I could and I guess I got a little to squirmy so they called the anesthesiologist back in to give me a block. It was awesome. Couldn't feel a thing.
The rest of the time in that room is a blur. I tried to nurse a bit and my colostrum came in. It was weird and awkward and I felt like an idiot for not knowing what I was doing.
They then brought us up to the Mother and Baby Suite. I had my own room which I was quite thankful for. When she was 4 hours old a woman came in and asked if I would like her to take photos of the baby, that was amazing! Other then that the rest of the time SUCKED. My goal was to get to the bathroom so I could get the catheter removed (I had to have a nurses assistance since I lost so much blood). The first nurse I let know that I would like to get up asap so I could get things moving...she didn't help me at all. So when the next nurse came in 6 hours later I was a little more adamant and she obliged. I was so worried about getting it out but it was easy peasy. There was no nursery at the hospital I was at and the nurses came in every hour. People will tell you to stay as long as you can in the hospital... in my situation, I was getting no additional help so I went home a day early. All sorts of things happened while I was there my mom, dad, sister, and an old coworker came to visit, I had like 500000 ivs including an iron one which was brown and burned, and I got about one hour of sleep. AWESOME. That didn't get much better after getting home. I was surprised at how little help I got from my family while I was at the hospital and the few days after going home. No-one even took a picture of Jeff, myself, and the baby. I have one photograph of me and the baby right after she was born and Jeff had to go home to take care of our dogs because there was a miscommunication of who would take care of them the night after she was born. That was the story of Bebe's birth! I mainly want people to be aware of what they are getting into. Having people be honest with you was so important to me and hopefully will help others in their birth experience.
Presently, (perhaps I have been reading too much Beatrix Potter) I am 11 days past my 40 week due date, I am getting a non-stress test to watch Bebe's heartbeat, contractions, and my heartbeat. Jeff is at school, so I am relaxing on a very uncomfortable bed alone. The nurse checks back multiple times because Bebe's heartbeat dips when I am in a certain position. She called the midwives and has asked me to wait (and stay plugged in) until she hears back. I am mildly concerned, not too much though. I already had an induction day set on the 11th, I was thinking if I got admitted early I could just get it over with and hold my baby! FINALLY, the midwives call back and say they want to admit me and that they would send someone with a wheelchair. When the person arrived it was a young man "driving" the wheelchair. My first wheelchair ride was... weird... having no control is a strange feeling, as is trusting a stranger. Oh how lovely are the hormones and weird thoughts that come with them. I arrived to labor and delivery... somewhat excited, since I was already almost 2 weeks late. They checked me in, simple enough, and put me in triage (a horrid place with REALLY small rooms, a fuzzy TV, and uncomfortable beds). A somewhat crabby nurse came in and strapped me up to another monitor (which I was already sick of by this point) and let me know she was going to set up the IV in my arm (just the part that the IV attaches to not the IV liquid). That was not fun, luckily she made it in the first time, then drew a ton of blood (which she let go bad, more on that later), and put a double IV in - it is one needle in your arm with two attachment valves. Throughout this whole thing I had called Jeff, at that point we only had one car - so he was going to have to ride the bus, and he was nervous! He called my mom and my coworker to let them know "it" was happening. I was left alone for about two hours, save the doctor who came into the wrong room and thought I was someone else. I even had to go ask where the bathroom was-laaame. Jeff arrived after a while and soon after we were moved into a real labor and delivery room - with a FABulous view!
It was so surreal and exciting. The nurse came in and introduced herself (I don't remember her name because I went through about 8 nurses because I was there so long!) and hooked me up to the monitor, she was nice enough to do the wireless ones and kept them on there with this weird stretchy blue and white striped tube top type thing (I was so thankful for this after labor started!). Once we were settled Jeff went and got everything we had packed out of the car...it was way too much! We ordered some food and the midwife came in (I also went through about 4 midwives). I had never met this midwife, but she was nice enough. She checked me out and found that I was about 2cm and 80% effaced. We decided to do some cervical ripening overnight. It was the little hormone stick in a nylon case - cant remember the name. The evening went by pretty fast, Jeff and I were just watching Disney movies - typical ;). Since everything in that room was SO uncomfortable we decided him going home was the best plan. He left at about 11pm to go home, take care of our dogs, and get some rest and was back at about 6am. Guess how much sleep I got that night... oh about 6 - 30minute increment horrid dozing fests. I swear to you they come and check in on you EVERY time you think you might be falling into a deep sleep and the bed was SO incredibly uncomfortable it was amazing, what is the purpose of that? (my midwife said "it is not supposed to be slept on it is a birthing tool" - then why the eff am I in here...) And on top of that I was uber crampy from the hormones...boooo. When Jeff arrived the next midwife (and third nurse) came in to introduce themselves and talk about inducing. The midwife then checked me and I was at 3cm and 90% effaced so we decided to start the induction at 11am. Jeff and I ordered and ate some breakfast in the room, then just hung out. Mind you at this time I had had approximately 4 contractions my entire pregnancy (all one after the other at about 40 weeks). At 1030 we ordered some more food since I would not be able to eat anything but "clear" foods after the induction started. We ate and induction ensued. All the induction is is Pitocin in an IV bag on a little movable stand so I could still walk around. It made me pretty crampy and the (4th and 5th and 6th) nurses came in every 30 minutes to turn it up. By this time every time a nurse left I became sadder and sadder. All but one were SO nice and the one who was not wasn't mean she was just not very chipper. Everything was kinda a blur until 8'oclock since I was so tired. I found that the extremely uncomfortable chair in the room was better then the unbearably uncomfortable bed. I know that between 1 & 8 my mom arrived, I watched the 10th Kingdom, I went on a walk around the hospital, aaaannnnnddd had about 19 cups of chicken broth, a lemon ice thing, and tried to eat some jello which was GROSS, and I was crampy. I remember one of the nurses saying "You don't look like a woman in labour" every time she came in and turned the pitocin up. I thought... you don't even know, I could be in active labor even as we speak...(HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHA - if I only knew). The food thing was a little annoying as the midwife said I could try some easy to eat stuff like yogurt, but the nurse wouldn't let me... lame. Anywhoo... onward.
8pm comes around and the fourth midwife (Nora) comes in along with her student midwife (Sarah) - who was my midwife pretty much, they had already introduced themselves and Sarah checks to see my progress. NOTHING! I was soooo discouraged and a little angry. My mom and Jeff were still there and the 10th Kingdom was still on (its 8 hours if you haven't seen it). I decided to take a doze on the chair since I was exhausted.
At 9:04pm I was just falling asleep when POP. My water broke. I woke up with a start, said "I think my water just broke", annnddd started crying. Jeff went to the bed and pushed the nurse button and said "Umm my wife's water just broke". Enter: a flurry of hospital staff. CONTRACTIONS = HELL. This is where I have to rely on Jeff and my mom for a little memory assistance...which I will update when I can!
What I remember:
Water broke. Go to the toilet. Say FUCK a lot. pain pain pain. Can't bring myself to move. (Initially hoped for water birth) Got in tub. Lost more fluid - it was thick and yellowish - gross. Hated tub. Got out. Tried rocking on ball. Nope. Tried kneeling on floor and rocking on ball. NOPE. Wanted to die. Was checked again and was at (what they thought at that point) 8cm and 100& effaced. Mom said I said "Why do people have children? This is insane!". Midwife Sarah, who has a fabulous yoga teacher voice - incredibly calming and helped me to focus, suggested leaning over the bed, then proceeded to rock my hips. That worked - well as well as working can do for a person in active labor. Jeff took over the hip rocking and I focused on breathing as since my water broke the contractions were about 90 seconds apart. NO PEOPLE contractions are not like cramps, although they are located in the same region they are so painful and not even remotely similar to period cramps AT ALL. Was asked multiple times if I wanted an epidural. Was TOLD by my mom to get an epidural several times, which made me mad and I told her to stop bossing me around. Another note people: Don't think you can just make decisions when in active labor, your brain literally goes into animal mode which does not bode well for the thinking and decision making parts of your brain. My response to every question I was asked was "I don't know" because I didn't and I could barely focus on continuing to breath let alone anything else. Since I was having such a hard time answering if I wanted an epidural Sarah suggested we check me again and make the decision after. I agreed. Mind you I HATE people all up in my business - it usually takes a few pauses on the midwives part and a lot of calm breathing on my part. Checked again found out I was at 6cm not 8 as initially thought. Said yes to epidural as going from 3cm to 6cm in 2 hours was plenty of pain to remember. The anesthesiologist was such a kind young man. He did his little safety schpeil... which I heard NONE of except the part when he said if you cant feel anything in your legs that's bad. Right no feeling at all = bad. I did not see the needle but Jeff said it was HUGE! They numb you first and it is pretty poky but... seriously... compared to contractions it's like a mosquito bite. So he numbed my back and inserted the epidural needle. He told me to tell him if I could feel it and I could a little on one side, so he did some more numbing and continued. You get hooked up to annooothher iv that is plugged into your back so at this point I have and iv in my arm, two sensors on my stomach, an iv in my spine, annnnnddd they give you a catheter when you get an epidural so... wires and plugs coming out of EVERYWHERE!
One the epidural was complete I laid down a bit to try and get some rest. Wellll my sweet baby was not happy in any position I got in (her heart rate kept dipping). So every time I would start to doze the nurse, Jaime, would come in and make me turn over, when she came in to do so I let her know that if she ever had a baby she should get an epidural because it was "fabulous" (I probably told her that about 10 times...because it felt like I was telling a different person every time...oops). At about 1230am the midwife came in and checked me and I was fully dilated. I was SO tired that I asked if we could wait for me to start pushing, she was ever so receptive and said she would be back in 15 minutes and that we would start pushing then =/. 15 minutes it was and we started pushing. I had no idea what I was doing and I could barely feel my contractions because of the epidural. I was adamant that I did not want to be in stirrups so we tried a couple different positions: holding my legs...HA, having other people hold my legs...HA, using the birthing bar - much better, using the birthing bar with a sheet tied for me to yank - bingbingbingbing. I pushed for 3 hours. It felt like maybe 40 minutes. I only had to yell at the hubby twice: once for bringing me water (when I asked for it) - it was empty - I let him know and he said, "Oh, that means you drank it all" and I said something along the lines of, "Okay, well go fucking fill it up then"; and the last time because he was assisting in counting during my pushing and at one point he started counting down from 15 and then at 7 he started counting back up. I told him to shut it and let the nurse count ;). Both of these scenes made the midwives giggle and say that that is how they know I am doing all right. Jeff later told me he was scared that I was going to turn into a monster while giving birth and that he was pleasantly surprised that he did not have to deal with verbal or physical abuse.
So 3 hours of pushing, other then being exhausted, was not a big deal. You know what was a big deal... getting the baby's head and shoulders out. YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAA. So as it is coming to that point the midwife said, "So the epidural won't cover this part so it is going to be uncomfortable"... which means this is going to be the most painful thing your ever feel in your life. Here she comes. At this point all I can do is scream (I didn't think I would be a screamer... but I was)...It was so painful literally like I was getting ripped in two. The midwife said "Ashley, I understand but you need to push this baby out now!" So I did... Jeff said I pushed out her head and once her shoulders were out they yanked her the rest of the way. At that point I was hemorrhaging and I remember my body shaking (pretty sure it was in shock), the midwife yelled for a pitocin shot and the baby was put on my stomach. I don't really remember much other then asking if she was okay. They didn't wait to cut the umbilical cord, which I wanted, but oh well. Jeff cut the cord, they then pulled on the other end to get the placenta out. After all that trauma the only thing I could ask was if it was going to hurt. It didn't it felt like passing a blood clot. Bebe was doing good, but I was in and out of consciousness so Jeff took over the skin to skin contact. I needed a few stitches and asked if the midwife could "apply some local anesthetic before stitching". She said I shouldn't be able to feel it...but I could and I guess I got a little to squirmy so they called the anesthesiologist back in to give me a block. It was awesome. Couldn't feel a thing.
The rest of the time in that room is a blur. I tried to nurse a bit and my colostrum came in. It was weird and awkward and I felt like an idiot for not knowing what I was doing.
They then brought us up to the Mother and Baby Suite. I had my own room which I was quite thankful for. When she was 4 hours old a woman came in and asked if I would like her to take photos of the baby, that was amazing! Other then that the rest of the time SUCKED. My goal was to get to the bathroom so I could get the catheter removed (I had to have a nurses assistance since I lost so much blood). The first nurse I let know that I would like to get up asap so I could get things moving...she didn't help me at all. So when the next nurse came in 6 hours later I was a little more adamant and she obliged. I was so worried about getting it out but it was easy peasy. There was no nursery at the hospital I was at and the nurses came in every hour. People will tell you to stay as long as you can in the hospital... in my situation, I was getting no additional help so I went home a day early. All sorts of things happened while I was there my mom, dad, sister, and an old coworker came to visit, I had like 500000 ivs including an iron one which was brown and burned, and I got about one hour of sleep. AWESOME. That didn't get much better after getting home. I was surprised at how little help I got from my family while I was at the hospital and the few days after going home. No-one even took a picture of Jeff, myself, and the baby. I have one photograph of me and the baby right after she was born and Jeff had to go home to take care of our dogs because there was a miscommunication of who would take care of them the night after she was born. That was the story of Bebe's birth! I mainly want people to be aware of what they are getting into. Having people be honest with you was so important to me and hopefully will help others in their birth experience.
