This is not the birth story I’d hoped for, but it was perfect in its own way.
On Tuesday, March 26, I had an appointment to see my OB. She
checked me over and said that things still didn't look like they were advancing.
She told me that we would see each other in a week if nothing happened sooner.
It was then that I mentioned something that had been bothering me all morning:
I had barely felt any movement that day. At almost noon, and especially after
sitting still in the waiting room for a while, this was starting to become a
concern. I also had woken with the vague sense that the baby hadn't moved all
night either, though whether or not this is true, I have no idea. My doctor
also seemed a bit concerned, so she told me to go have lunch and come back in
an hour for fetal monitoring.
When I got back to the clinic, they strapped some monitors
around me and gave me a button to press every time the baby moved. We could
hear his heart beating on the monitor. The doctor told me she was going to
lunch and she’d be back to check on the results in 45 minutes. For the first 15
or 20 minutes, we were relaxed, listening to the baby’s heart, chatting and
laughing. After a while, my lower back started to hurt. I was really
uncomfortable lying on the exam table. I didn't want to mess up the test, but
eventually caved and asked Cris to help me find a more comfortable position.
Nothing helped. Deep down, I knew that the only thing that would help was to
get up and walk around.
The pain subsided after a minute, but came back even
stronger. By the third time, I started to ask myself: are these contractions?
I’d had a couple of mild contractions earlier on, but they didn't really feel
anything like this. From everything I’d heard, I guess I was expecting labor to
start slowly, but these were the first contractions I’d had all day. My doctor
had just told me that she didn't think I’d be ready at least for another week.
The doctor came back and confirmed my suspicions. I was 2 cm
dilated. She told me we should plan to get to the hospital around 8 pm. That was
at about 2 or 2:30. As we were talking, she and I both noticed that the
contractions were already getting closer together. Based on that and how
intense they were, she said to keep an eye on things and go to the hospital
sooner if we needed to.
At home, we packed for the hospital…. Well, Cris packed; I
sort of stumbled around helping, telling him where to find things, moaning. I
took a shower. That helped a bit. I timed my contractions for a while: 40
seconds long, every two and a half minutes. We were all packed and ready a
little before 7 pm. I decided that it was time to go.
When we got to the hospital, I was 6 cm dilated. The room
they brought us to was super cozy. It already had a little bassinet in the
corner. There was something really uplifting about seeing my baby’s little bed
when I walked in the door.
My doctor was attending another birth, so the nurses called
her with updates on my progress. Since I was still a little sick with the flu,
she told the nurses to give me IV fluids. Now, lying down is really not a great
position to be in for labor. It’s much more comfortable to be up, moving
around, changing positions than stuck on your back. However, lying on your back
is a favorite position for putting in an IV. Unfortunately, I have the world’s
most invisible veins. This results in a lot of misses when it comes to drawing
blood or inserting IVs. Normally being stuck with a needle multiple times or
having it wiggled around in my arm is enough to piss me off. On this occasion,
I was perfectly willing to tolerate as many sticks and jabs as it took, if only
they would just hurry the hell up. With each contraction, I felt more trapped
and agitated. All I could do was breathe and try to tune it all out.
Cris, the doctor and the nurses alternated rubbing my back
during contractions and cheering me on. Time became a meaningless concept, as
it seemed to stretch on forever and fly by all at the same time. I tried to
stay focused on what I had to do and breathe.
At 8 cm dilated, the doctor came back in and checked my
progress. The baby should have been pretty far into my pelvis at this point. He
hadn't moved since that afternoon when I was in her office. We decided to try
breaking open the amniotic sac, figuring that maybe there was a lot of liquid
and not enough weight on the baby to help him move down. When my water was
broken, I tried to push the baby down. It was like trying to push a house off
its foundation. The doctor asked me what I wanted to do, and I told her that as
long as the baby was still okay, I’d like to wait a bit longer and try some
different positions. At this point, I was pretty sure I knew where this was
going, but I wasn't ready to give up yet.
She got out her little doppler wand to check on how he was
doing. He was not okay. Every time we’d heard his heartbeat, it was like a
little hummingbird heart. This sounded more like someone with hypothermia. I
felt my breath catch in my chest and then several things happened
simultaneously. “Vámonos,” I said in a surprisingly level voice. The doctor got
out her phone and started calling people to come in for the surgery while
reaching back in to try and change the baby’s position. Cristhian was frozen in
place, ready to pounce the moment someone said “go”.
Fifteen minutes later, I was in the operating room down the
hall. Everyone was prepping for surgery. They shaved my bikini line, put in a
spinal block and painted me with disinfectant. As one of the nurses was swabbing
my abdomen and legs, the spinal block started to kick in and it felt like
little strokes of electricity up and down my skin.
They put up a curtain, so I couldn't see what was happening,
but at some point they were pushing down on my abdomen to get the baby out of
the incision. I was rather surprised by how much labor was involved. I felt
like I could hardly breathe for a second, and then I heard little baby sounds.
The anesthesiologist called the time of birth, 23:12. All I wanted was to see
and hold him. Eventually the pediatrician brought him over to me, but only for
a moment.
Nearly two hours passed between when he was born and when
they had me stitched up and back in my room. At that point, the baby was pretty
hungry. The pediatrician had suggested giving him a little bit of formula, but
Cris asked him to wait and let me feed him as soon as I could. Had the c
section been planned, I probably would have been able to feed him sooner, but
as soon as they had me back in bed, my doctor came in and helped me get him
latched on. Given that it was our first time and I could hardly move, we did
alright, but the latch was pretty bad.
If I had it to do over again, I would have had more
conversations with my doctor about what to do in case of an emergency cesarean.
We’d talked about skin-to-skin and nursing right away, but in the chaos of
everything that happened, Seamus ended up spending his first couple of hours
under the heat lamps. He ended up getting pretty cold and almost certainly
would have done better snuggled up with his dad’s body heat keeping him warm.
My birth experience wasn't perfect, but I’m really happy
with how it turned out. My doctor and my husband both advocated for me
throughout the process. There is a small chance that I could have had a vaginal
birth if my water hadn't been broken, but it’s very likely that things would
have gone the same way or gotten even more dangerous.
The hardest part of this process has undoubtedly been the
recovery. There are times when a medically assisted birth is necessary and I
think that my case is a good example of that, but I would recommend avoiding it
whenever possible. What I've gone through in the couple of weeks since my baby
was born has been far more painful than anything I experienced during labor. The
only thing that makes it all worth it is my healthy, happy, beautiful baby boy.
