Week 41 - The New Arrival

Okay, so here goes the long story of the birth of Elba Aden Trowbridge II:

Monday morning, July 12 I woke at 7:20 am with a contraction that felt different from any I'd felt before. I fell back asleep but about 20 minutes later the same thing happen. I thought this might be the beginning of something. The pain itself wasn't it, and looking back now; gosh, it was really nothing pain wise, but this contraction lasted a little longer (maybe 5 seconds total) than anything I'd felt so far, which had mostly felt like menstrual cramps. At this point almost daily Mitch has been asking me, "Are you going to have my baby today?" This morning I said, "maybe". I told him what was going on and we both agreed that we shouldn't jump the gun though and went to work.
It occurred to me to start writing down contraction times at about 10:30AM. They stayed the same until about 2PM although they were slightly becoming a little more painful. They stayed about 8-15 minutes apart until a little before 3:30PM. I had two contractions that were six minutes apart and started to wrap things up at work for the day. I told my boss finally that I was heading home before I got stuck at work. My boss is pretty great and was more stressed than I was I think throughout the day. She would come in for constant updates and at one point said something like, "I can't handle this, do you have any chocolate?" I told it would be okay and asked if she needed to go home or if she was alright. We have a good relationship. :) Maybe I'm nuts for even going in to work, but really the other option was to stay home and drive myself crazy.
Okay, so when I got home Mitch and Damie were there and I told them to get the last minute items ready and to get things by the door because I was pretty sure we were going to be leaving for the hospital today. From 3:30 to about 8PM I was having contractions still 5-10 minutes apart and getting more painful. Damie and went for a walk to CVS. I didn't need anything, but I hoped walking would help speed things up. I was definitely every 5 minutes by the time I got home and they were painful enough that I wasn't quite able to talk through it. I called my Dr. and was told to go to the hospital and get checked. We loaded the car and off we went, well....after we had to turn around once because Mitch forgot his wallet! Haha
Mitch and I went into triage at about 10:30PM and I was examined. I had already been thinking about what I might be able to have for pain. I still wanted to not have the epidural but I thought something to take the edge off might be nice. The nurse hooked me up to monitors and told me I was only 2cm. She said she had to get me to 3 to admit me and talk about pain management options with my doctor. Okay, I said. So, in she goes and apparently manually got me to 3cm. I was not expecting this, although I guess I'm not really sure what she meant or had in mind, and I certainly wasn't expecting that much pain from the 'stretching'(?) she was doing. She seemed to enjoy my pain. I didn't like her much after that. Or that I had to sit there for an hour while they tried to contact my doctor. That hour was horrible and what the nurse told me was now I was in active labor. Every contraction was increasingly more painful and difficult to get through. I really underestimated the pain. Mitch had to remind me to keep breathing. I kept wanting to hold my breath. They were coming so quickly too, every 1-3 minutes...the thought of doing this for hours was totally overwhelming to me. I talked to the nurse about pain management options, but in the back of my head I already knew that I would get an epidural as soon as possible. My desire going into this was to go natural all the way. This logically made sense to me and I was pretty passionate and adamant about sticking to what I wanted - until the reality of the pain hit me like a truck!
The epidural was fairly painless. I was so nervous I would move or jump too much. It felt odd, that is the only way to describe it. Not painful, just weird. The anesthesiologist said I did fine though. It kicked in right away, I got set up on the two belly monitors (one for contractions, the other for baby's heart rate). Janet (Mitch's mom) arrived and I greeted her with a smile! I got itchy and felt stoned, but that was a thousand times easier to deal with than the contractions. I could watch a contraction happening on the monitor and feel nothing. This was awesome; this kind of active labor I could do! It was 12:30AM.
The hospital staff told us all to rest and sleep if we could. What a joke! Mitch and Damie were out for the next 8 or so hours. Janet fitfully slept I think and often was up asking if I was okay. It was impossible for me to sleep. The automatic blood pressure cuff goes off every so often and then tons of people keep coming in and asking questions, introducing themselves, checking this or that. At some point they decided to break my water. Soon after they did Elba's heart rate starting dropping. They put me on oxygen and started me on a saline internal pump because they thought he was laying on the umbilical cord after the water broke. I also had to be switched over to internal monitors as well as had been given a catheter earlier. I had I think 4 different wires and tubes coming out of me! I often gushed the saline/amniotic fluid often so I was constantly being changed and checked for dry linen and towels.
Around 5:30 or so I was starting to feel pressure in my bottom as well as some pain as the epidural was wearing off again. I asked to be checked and was found to be at 8cm! Oh boy, things were gonna get rolling here soon I thought. I know on average it takes a centimeter an hour however it can be a lot faster and often is. I asked for more epidural and they said no because they didn't want me too numb. An hour later I asked to be checked again because I was again having to moan through contractions, forcing myself to remember to breath. I was still at 8 - oh no! They also found that Elba was upside down. He was 'Sunny Side Up' looking up at the ceiling instead of the floor like he should. This makes sense, as I was also having some hip pain which was hurting more because I couldn't change positions. Elba also apparently only liked me to be on one side and his heart rate would drop when I tried to roll onto my right side. The on call doctor said that my doctor would be here at 7AM so I might actually have her here to deliver the baby. She was witness to a contraction and agreed to give me more epidural. About 7:30 my doctor came in and I made a joke about not being able to keep my appointment today with her at noon where we were going to talk about induction options since I was a week overdue.
She checked me and I was still at 8 - NOT good. Not only was he sunny side up, but he also had descended into the birth canal and wanted to come out, bumping my cervix with his head, causing a cervical lip basically of inflamed tissue that makes labor harder. She propped me into a position so that the baby might turn over the right way. I also agreed to start Pitocin. This was truly my choice. The doctor knew I didn't want pit originally and she said she'd wait all day...she said she was concerned though about the other small things but if I never got to 10 that didn't matter. She said the writing was already on the wall for a C-section. After another hour of nothing going on I agreed.
Mitch was able to come in with me but they did put up the big blue barrier so he couldn't see anything. I was shaking uncontrollable the entire time. My teeth were chattering. I tried to relax, to think of something else other than that I was being split open and my baby was being extracted from me. Mitch was holding my hand and whispering quietly to me that I was doing great and he was so proud of me. I just have to say that he was incredible the entire time. His support was amazing when I needed it and he reassured me the whole way. This process brought a whole different kind of intimacy between us that is so powerful.
Okay, back to the story! At 9:46AM July 13th Elba Aden Trowbridge II was born into this world weighing 9 lbs and was 22 inches long. Mitch was able to look over the curtain for a moment and see him laying on my chest. They showed me via mirror too, but it wasn't until he let loose that first cry that tears just started streaming down my face. My eyes are leaking now just recounting the story...what an intense emotional experience. The doctor told me at that point that she was glad we didn't even start pushing or anything because it wasn't possible that I would have been able to push him out because of his position. He was leading with his forehead also instead of tucking his chin like he should have. They wrapped him up and gave him to Mitch. It was hard for me to really see him very well and what I did see was sort of a big puffy red face that didn't resemble anything familiar. It sounds strange but it didn't really sink in that that was MY child...he looked so weird and strange. Maybe this is another thing that from having the cesarean and not releasing those hormones and all that would have been different.

Looking back, I wonder if the epidural might have caused the stall, or if I would have been in active labor for 10 hours if I hadn't taken it. But I also know that I really was thinking with each contraction that I didn't know how I'd get through the next one. I'm disappointed that I wasn't able to deliver vaginally, and hope that next time maybe things will be different. I know that often labor is a lot faster with a second birth also. I still feel the same about natural child birth (is that weird?) and I would like to try again...maybe next time with the professional help of a midwife, a tub to get in and out of, and maybe try to re-commit myself through education and practice. I don't have regrets about any of the decisions I made though, and I'm glad I got the epidural knowing know I couldn't have pushed him out. that would be an awful lot of pain to endure to then still have had to get the C section.

I'll wrap this entry up here, with just the birth story...but really there is so much more I want to write about. I'm finishing writing this on Elba's 5th day of life and have so much more to add than just the birth story, but for now...that is all you get (and mostly because he is starting to fuss in the swing and I know he is ready for a feeding; as I already said, he is the boss of me!)

I think my weight was right about 250 lbs going into the hospital.