By early morning Saturday- and I mean early, like 3am or 4am -they were much more intense. They kept me awake and still didn't go away even after I got out of bed and cleaned the apartment. Around 6am I decided to call my mom. She had been planning on coming out to Utah for the birth and I wanted her to know things could be at least starting to get on their way. We talked about it for a bit and she decided to come out that same day- even if it would be days until Harper arrived.
A short time later, there was no mistake it- this was labor. Throughout the night and morning the contractions had grown closer together, had become more intense, and were lasting longer. At this point I was about 7-10 minutes apart. I had also experienced a labor symptom I wanted clarification on so I decided to contact the midwife on call.
The midwife told me to continue timing contractions and to try taking a bath to see if that would stop or slow them. I basically wanted her advice as to whether having my mom come that day would be a bad idea- I didn't want her to have to be here for a whole week or longer before baby came! She said to see if anything made the contractions go away and if not- it's probably safe to say a baby would be there within a couple of days.
The bath did nothing but to augment the contractions. They became much closer together and more intense. Now they were about 5 minutes apart. We called the midwives back and they told us to time them and let them know if we needed to go in.
Justin needed to work that day and since there was no guarantee I would actually have a baby on Saturday I told him to go and come home if I called and it got close. My mom was also on her way from San Diego and would be in Utah about 5pm.
Let me say- this was a terrible idea. Laboring alone is terrible. There's no one available for moral support or to help you breath or to physically lean on during labor- no daddy doula when you send daddy off to work. By 4:30pm on Saturday I was about done doing it alone. I was in pain. Enough laboring alone- I needed my rock! I asked him to come home and he did. The contractions at that point were putting me in tears, and I would even be in tears in between them because I knew the next one was around the corner.
My mom and Justin got to the apartment pretty close in time to one another. It was pretty intense. I could no longer walk or talk or do much of anything through them- when a wave hit, I needed to focus on it, focus on breathing and counting and visualizing. (btw. Hypnobirthing is pretty wonderful!). At this point contractions were a solid 5 minutes apart. We decided to wait until they were in the 3-5 minute range, even though we could have called the midwifes for a check right then.
At about 7:15pm on Saturday we called and met the midwives at the birthing center for them to take some vitals and do an exam to asses my progress.
It had to be pretty good, right? I mean 22 hours of pretty continuous contractions means something, right?
Wrong. I was 1 centimeter. And 50% effaced. What.the.heck. Women reach that WEEKS before their due dates and sometimes without experiencing a single contraction or even knowing they had progressed at all.
A 1? I was pretty upset. The last 22 hours had been hard. It wasn't easy working through those contractions.
We went home with the intent that I try to sleep. The problem is that when you're having contractions every 3-5 minutes it's really quite impossible to sleep. I barely got any- if I even got any! -sleep that night.
At 4am on Sunday the contractions were just really getting intense and strong. I was convulsing through them and I still hadn't slept. We called our midwives again and went in for another check.
A 4. 80% effaced. Okay cool. Progress. They went me home with more medications to try to help me sleep again.
Nothing worked. I tried to sleep. I tried. But nothing stopped the contractions- which were now 2-4 minutes apart. I couldn't sleep and the medicine wasn't helping. Even if I managed to doze off, I was woken up with no more than 10 minutes of rest.
At 8am I couldn't take it anymore so I just got out of bed. My mom was already awake and I started talking to her.
If I had labored from Friday at 9pm to Sunday at 4am (31 hours) and had only made minimal progress, what else would this journey entail?
I felt like I needed to ditch the birth center plan. I felt that I needed to walk into Timp Regional Hospital and be admitted, if for no other reason than to labor under the watchful eye of people who could help me find ways to tolerate the pain and help things along.
To be honest. I wanted the epidural. I wanted to sleep, and badly. I hadn't slept well on Friday night and I got virtually no sleep on Saturday. If I was going to progress at all, how was I going to handle 4 more centimeters before transition and 2 more centimeters after than, and THEN stand and find energy for pushing?
I thought getting an epidural would help me sleep. Then I could at least have the energy to do some more intense laboring. The epidural can wear off within a few hours, so even if I just needed a little rest- I could do the rest the way I had planned. Completely unaided with no medical interventions.
After talking to the midwives about whether they thought my line of thinking was even sane- I decided to do it.
We arrived at Timp Regional around 11am on Sunday morning. I had the epidural within 30 minutes. It.felt.amazing.
I didn't sleep still. At least not a lot or well. But being able to sit back, relax, and close my eyes gave me so much more energy. And I won't lie- not feeling contractions is wonderful.
"No Epidural" part of birth plan- History.
At some point the doctor came in and said he wanted to break the bag of waters to augment labor. I really didn't want him to. But I had still only progressed to a 5 and the baby was low enough to where it wouldn't cause much risk to her to have it done- so we had it done.
"No Breaking of Waters" part of birth plan- History.
On top of that, when the water broke there was thick muconium in the fluid. (That means the baby had a bowl movement in utero). That meant she would be taken by a NICU team as soon as she was out to avoid her aspirating the bowl movement into her lungs and stomach. That meant- no delayed cord clamping/cutting and no immediate skin to skin.
"Delayed Cord Clamping" part of birth plan- History.
"Immediate Skin to Skin" part of birth plan- History.
After that the nurse came in. Only still having progressed a couple centimeters they wanted to put me on Pitocin to make the contractions more frequent. They were strong enough, just not constant enough. (After a full bag of pitocin they still were ranging 2-4 minutes during pushing, which is not super great.)
"No Pitocin" part of birth plan- History.
Finally I reached the 10 centimeter mark. Baby was facing my left side with her back to my right side so she wasn't perfectly anterior. The wants to wait and hour after I reached the 10 mark to see if baby would turn on her own to a better position. She also hadn't been able to thin part of the cervix so pushing at that stage would have caused a tear in the cervix- which just doesn't sound fun.
It finally came time to push. The hospital uses "directed pushing" as a technique. You breath in, hold your breath and push for 10 seconds, then breath again and repeat two more times. I hated the idea of being told when and how to push. I really wanted to breath down into my abdomen and follow my instincts on when and how to push. But truly- this wasn't something I was about to fight about, and I figured the nurse helping me at the beginning stages of pushing would be better able to help me in the way she had been trained.
"No Directed Pushing" part of birth plan- History.
I was pushing for an hour and a half when the babies heart rate skyrocketed- and stayed there. Suddenly my room was flooded with people. The doctor, more nurses, a NICU team- all in gloves and hats and gowns and tables with equipment.
The doctor wanted to use forceps to guide the rest of the delivery. I was so worried. But he said- and the screen and monitor next to my head verified it- that the baby's heart rate was not coming down and that she needed to be out as soon as possible. I just wanted a safe baby.
"No Forceps/Vaccum" part of birth plan- History.
Within about 5 or 6 more pushes the baby was out. She cried a deep cry right away and was whisked away. I didn't even get to see her face. That was the part that made me the saddest, but I knew she was in good hands.
After being stitched up, they handed me my baby. I was already bawling my eyes out looking at her from across the room. She was so perfect. Like breathing oxygen for the very first time. Like feeling weightless. Peaceful. And so much love I don't even know how to describe it. I said her name...
"Harper."
And she turned her little head, opened her eyes, and looked at me. She knew me. Just like I had known her far before she every got here. Far before I was every pregnant.
"Have a healthy baby" par of the birth plan- Perfected.
I didn't care that virtually every other part of my birth plan had been thrown out the window. THIS. This was the only moment that mattered to me. This was the peaceful birth I wanted. This was the empowerment I wanted. This was the memory I wanted. Her. In my arms. Safe. And looking at me with the same longing and yearning I had felt for her for so long. My baby. My daughter. And she was here. That's all that mattered.
Ultimately, we didn't get the out of hospital, low-intervention, birth we wanted. But there ended up being several good reasons for that.
First, the muconium. There was a lot of it. It was good to have a NICU team stand by so close who were able to keep out of the NICU. They fixed her so fast and so well that she has never left my side the whole time I've been at the hospital.
Second, the forceps. Yeah. It's crazy. But considered it took 50 and 1/2 hours from the first contractions to delivery- they were needed. Considering I was still not having frequent enough contractions during the pushing stage- it's an indicator my body needed help, not only in augmenting labor but in delivering as well. One of my sweet nurses (who were all amazing, by the way) came up and told me privately "The doctor said that if we hadn't used forceps, she would have become stuck under the pubic bone. I'm so glad that you were with us today." Clearly my baby needed the help and so did I .
Third, hemorrhaging. During delivery I lost close to 300ml of blood, which is actually quite low! But afterward...it kept coming. 600 more ml in a soaked pad. 400 more ml in a soaked pad. Blood clots the size of grapefruits. It wasn't good. The hemorrhage was classified as major. They ordered blood for a transfusion, put me on 4 different anti-hemorrhaging medications, 3 antibiotics, fluids, and pumped my epidural so the doctor could go in with a scraping tool and make sure there were no lacerations and nothing was left behind. Over the morning nurses were pushing on my belly every 5 minutes for hours on end to expel more and more blood clots.
Luckily, with that last part, the clotting stopped and things started to appear to be getting better. I didn't end up needing the transfusion.
Still, those three reasons are reasons I was glad to actually have thrown my birth plan out the window. I would have loved to have my natural, unmedicated, peaceful birth. Instead my labor and birth were crazy. But what I got out of it was far more important to me.
My perfect, sweet, Harper Noel. Healthy, happy, and strong. Beautiful and safely in my arms.
And to me, that's all that mattered.
Born: 11:34pm on August 16th, 2015.
6lbs 5oz, 18 inches.
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