Little Man is over 6 months old, and I’m just now sitting down to write his birth story. At first I didn’t write it because recovery took a lot longer than I was expecting, but then I was really avoiding writing it. Most of the birth stories I read are about this wonderful, beautiful, emotion filled labor and delivery that is so beautiful and artistic and exactly what the mother wanted for the birth of her child. The birth of my son didn’t go how I had planned it and I guess in a way I felt like I had cheated because I didn’t end up doing it completely natural like I had planned. Subconsciously I felt a little “sub par” becaue of the way our birth story went. with a sister who had a home birth, and several friends who gave birth at a birthing center, I already felt defensive that I had chosen to have my baby at a hospital and then I didn’t even get to have him naturally. Ugh. what a failure! right? That’s how I felt for awhile anyway… (no fault of any of my friends, every one was super supportive, just my own silly insecurities mixed with crazy moodiness and hormonal madness from giving birth.)
Honestly, I don’t feel guilty any more, and I am actually proud of myself. I made the decisions that were right for me and my baby and I have a wonderful son that I wouldn’t trade for anything. Labor and birth was awful though. I hated it. and it took an eternity to recover from…. but I’m getting ahead of myself. I had been wanting to write this for awhile and then this birth story bash made me know it was time! For the first time, I’m proud to share – Baby boy’s birth story!!!
Lets start by saying that while I was preggo baby did everything early. I felt him kick for the first time WAY earlier than I was “supposed to”, especially with my first pregnancy. Then I was feeling him kick all the time, and hubby was too, about a month before “they” say is normal. and Braxton hicks contractions were often and hard! So in my mind I was thinking “Awesome! this kid is going to be born early!” I wanted him born as soon as healthily possible so that he would be as small as healthily possible and hopefully not hurt as much.
So one month before my due date I cleaned the entire house, had the freezer full of a month’s worth of dinners and quit my job. Just to be on the safe side. I went to the hospital twice thinking I was in labor – but no such luck. (those UTIs can sure be tricky!!!) I was so sad every time we left the hospital, and the nurses who all but made fun of me for thinking a UTI (with bad cramps every 5 minutes) was labor, didn’t help any!
My due date came and went, and I still was not dilated. I was having so many Braxton hicks contractions everyday, I was really bummed because it seemed like they weren’t doing anything! I had a drs appointment a few days after my due date, and I knew she was going to start talking about induction. Hubby couldn’t go with me to this appointment because he would be working, so we talked about it together before he left for work that day.
Up until this point my plan was to have a natural, drug-free birth in the hospital. We hired a doula for extra support and info in the hospital. I knew that inducing would make it harder for me to have the natural birth I wanted, and would increase my chances of having an emergency C-section, so it was a hard decision to make. But baby definitely help make the decision for me. Baby had been a super active little guy always kicking and shoving and causing all types of discomfort for me, and then all of a sudden he just stopped moving as much. I would get little flickers of movement instead of these massive shoves and it was really starting to worry me. I knew it could be explained away with “he’s running out of room in there”, but it seemed so sudden to me that I was silently freaking out about it. So that was what pushed me to say “yes” to induction.
Nov. 1st Hubby and I went in to the hospital at 10 pm to start the induction process. I was excited but extremely nervous because I didn’t know how this was going to go as it can all be so unpredictable. Hospitals and needles scare me, so I was really worried about everything. Then my nurse comes in and she is a Filipina. I could tell right away by the way she talked and her mannerisms. She put me at ease so much just because of little cultural things that she did that made me feel right at home. (I lived in the Philippines for several of my teen years, and grew to love their culture, it was very much ‘home’ for me as a teen.) She gave me and IV of fluids and and then gave me something to ripen me up and start dilating me. At this point I was still only dilated to 1 – and even that was dependent upon who you asked. She gave me one dose of it, and said that she would be back at 3am to check on me and give me another one if I needed it.
 |
| trying to sleep and labor at the same time |
She came back at 3am and I had already dilated to 3cm and my contractions had started and were getting pretty consistent. The original plan was to start the Pitocin at 6am, but since things were going so well I asked the nurse if it continued on like this if we could skip pit and just let everything happen naturally from here on out.She said that would be fine, but hung a bag of pit on the IV next to the fluids I was getting, in case we needed it for later. I don’t know what stage of labor I was in at this point, but I was sleeping through everything fine, so it can’t have been too bad, everything was progressing nicely.
At 9am my sweet Filipina nurse had to go home and I got assigned a new nurse. Apparently it was not communicated well that I didn’t want to do the pitocin unless I had to, because she started me on it the first time she entered my room. My doula arrived sometime just after I was started on the pitocin.
My dr. came by at about 10am and broke my water. That was weird! I can’t really describe it because it makes me feel sick to my stomach to think about it. It didn’t hurt or anything, but just the thought of a small hook being shoved up me to pierce something is enough to make me want to toss my cookies! At 10am I was dilated to 4 according to the dr.
Shortly after that everything got pretty (excuse my language) hellish. The contractions were so hard! My doula and hubby were trying to help me move around to labor in different positions but I physically could not because the contractions were so hard. I remember standing next to the bed at one point (had stood up between contractions) my hubby was holding on to me from the front and my doula was off to the side and they were trying so hard to help me stay upright, but when the contraction hit I ended up falling back to a sitting position on the bed, literally could not stand up.
At some point we figured out that it helped me to concentrate if hubby would count during the contractions. It helped me to see it as little mountains that I was scaling, I just had to get to 10 (where the contractions usually peaked) and then I was home free. Then they started getting harder and longer. I remember the first time that happened, hubby got to 10 and the pain was only getting worse and I screamed at him “IT’S SUPPOSED TO GET BETTER WHEN YOU SAY 10!!!!” I was so mad! His meek reply was “I’m sorry honey”
At around 11am I felt like I was literally dying. I have never died, so I can’t say for sure what it feels like, but I cannot imagine anything worse than the pain I was feeling at that time. That was when I decided I needed pain killer. I was still nervous about it, but one more contraction hitting was all I needed to say “get that nurse in here NOW!!!” My doula was so great, she tried to encourage me not to get the pain meds, she said “you could already be at 9 by now, just keep holding on”. To which I replied that they better get that darn nurse in here immediately to see if I was at nine because I was about to die! At some point I also told my husband that we would also be adopting all future children. To which he replied “ok, honey”.
The nurse came in and I had not progressed very much at all, I was still between 4 and 5cm so I asked for something to dull the pain. She gave me some sort of narcotic in the IV that I already had hooked up. I don’t know what it was, but it was weird/wonderful. It knocked me out between contractions so I could “sleep”, but I’m not sure that I could really call it sleep – it felt like I was in another world. The world was in BRIGHT Technicolor with paths to walk down and such… I don’t think I could describe it well, but it was freaky!!! then a contraction would hit and I would come back to reality with all its pain!
1 hour later I was pushing. I had the urge to push and told them to go get the nurse. This had already happened once before so my hubby and doula were trying to tell me that it had only been an hour and I just needed to calm down. I wasn’t in a mood to negotiate so I yelled at them again saying “well I can’t- not push!!!” (what grammatical clarity!) so one of them went and got the nurse for me. She seemed skeptical too, but turns out, I was right! I was dilated to 9!!!
At this point everything got crazy. All I know is that I was in this nice dark room with me and my hubby and my doula and then suddenly there were huge lights on and about 10 people crowded around me, all yelling different instructions to me. “hold your legs up” “don’t do that” “do this” blah blah blah! I was still on whatever drug they had given me and totally out of it so getting yelled at by 10 different people was not at all helpful! The dr. finally got frustrated and said I wasn’t pushing right so I needed to labor some more. She got all her people and they left again. I was still in agony and now I felt bad that I wasn’t doing it good enough :(
I am so thankful my doula was there because I was able to turn to her (between contractions) and she calmly and quietly explained what everyone was telling me to do, and “how to push”. I still could not keep from pushing so she went and got every one again (because I was going to push with or without them) and everything got crazy again. At least this time I knew what I was doing!
I don’t know what time it was when we started to push the 2nd time, but it seemed to take an eternity to get him out. His head did not cone at all so it was one solid ball trying to exit my body. Not fun! My dr. was screaming at me “I can see your baby’s ears, PUSH HARDER” and I was screaming back “I CAN’T!!!” I seriously was getting worried that he would be stuck like that forever. Even between contractions his head just hung out in the birth canal. The dr. put something on there to make it slide out easier, still no luck. They finally got me to do it by saying things like “do you want to see your baby?” “get your baby out”… thinking about holding my baby was the incentive I needed. Dr. said something like “if you wanna see your baby push one more time” and so I did, with all I had and his head popped out! finally a little relief! 1 or two more pushes and I felt his whole body slide out. He was born at 12:30pm. 8 pounds 6 ounces and 19 inches long!
 |
| This is one of my favorite pictures – you can see my tears as I hold him for the first time |
They pulled him up a little and I could see him and I just started crying saying “my baby my baby”. I couldn’t believe he was finally here! I was still sort of out of it because of the drugs, but when I looked at him I felt totally there, in the moment with my baby. They asked my hubby if he wanted to cut the cord, and he said no, so they asked me, I replied “I think I have already done enough”, (so sarcastic when I’m in labor) so a random nurse or dr. did it. In the moment I was seriously a little irritated that they expected anything more out of me at this point. – I know it was a nice offer, but I didn’t realize that at the time.
 |
| we cried together while I was stitched up |
They cut the cord and he was crying, and they handed him right to me. I could not believe how beautiful and perfect he was. He was covered in icky goo, but I didn’t even care, I was kissing him and cuddling him, it was so wonderful. I was able to calm him right down, and he stopped crying. That made me feel so good, at least baby believed in me even if the nurses/drs didn’t!
 |
| first family photo – I’m still getting stitched up here… |
 |
| holding daddy’s hand, and already pouting! |
They cleaned him up in our room. baby held his daddy’s hand while they cleaned him. Hubby was stretched across the room, holding my hand while they stitched me up and holding baby’s hand while he was cleaned.
It was an awful and wonderful experience all at once. It didn’t go the way I had planned, but I still did it. I gave birth to my beautiful baby boy, and it is MY story. Our story. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That moment where I first saw him and first held him is forever burned in my memory. Still makes me cry thinking about him. How relieved I was and how my heart felt like it was about to burst with love.
 |
| In complete awe. |
That is the greatest feeling. Birth was awful. But I would do it all again – that moment, after hours of agony – is worth everything.
 |
| my happy family |
Robin says
Aw thanks so much for sharing! I had a range of emotions while reading this! I laughed at parts (like “Would you like to cut the cord? I’ve done enough!”) and was angered by parts (the nurses laughing at you for mistaking a UTI for labor. How rude!) and was filled with joy during the rest! Thanks for sharing! Love this! I still say pitocin sounds dreadful ;) lol
futurehope says
glad you enjoyed it! Pit is definitely not “ideal”, but I’d do it again… if that makes sense :)
ugh I know the nurses weren’t always the nicest. My dr. yelled at me for not “doing it right” in the middle of my first attempt at pushing too :/ I have a new dr. this time though so i think it should go better! <3
futurehope says
here’s to hoping for no pitocin this time around for either of us!!!
Kassi @ Truly Lovely says
That’s crazy that your doctor was telling you that you weren’t doing it right!?! I guess for them it’s so common place that some don’t act as we would’ve hoped. Glad you had your doula to see you through though!