I left the appointment and the midwife on call, Hannah, called me and said to come in that evening between 5 and 7. I called Bobby, he started wrapping things up at work and headed home. We thought we had a few more days before the induction so I rushed around getting last minute things from Wal-mart and I went and had to get a new tire.
I picked Emma up early from school, it was during her nap so she was not the happiest, but we wanted to spend some time with her before we wouldn't see her for five days. She wound up coming to the hospital with us because my mom couldn't make it before we went in.
We got to the hospital and checked in around 6:15/6:30 and just hung out for an hour or so because they were busy with shift change. The midwife, Monica, came in around 8:30 and did a check. I was 2cm dilated and 70% effaced. We debated on when to insert the balloon to help me dilate further, and decided to put it in around 3 or 4am. She didn't want to do it any sooner, because we needed the baby to be born during the day because of his cardio issues and if we put the balloon in too soon there was a chance it would jump start labor and he would come in the middle of the night.
I got a little bit of rest over night, the specialist wanted him monitored the whole time I was there, including while I was sleeping even though I wasn't in labor. That cut into the amount of rest I was able to get and the baby was really active so I also couldn't sleep. Around midnight I took an Ambien and got about three or four hours of sleep before they came in and put the balloon in around 3:15. I started having some contractions, nothing horrible, but I couldn't sleep through them either. The balloon fell out around 7:15am. I ate some breakfast.
At 9:15 I was contracting on my on every 2 to 3.5 minutes and they were lasting for 50-80 seconds. They checked me at 9:30ish and I was 4cm and 80% effaced. They went ahead and started pitocin to help jump start things a little more since we needed him born that day. The contractions picked up immediately and got more intense. I could still talk through them if I had to, but preferred not to. By 10:30 they had upped the pitcocin to 4ml and I could no longer talk through the contractions, only in between.
Around 10:45am the NICU doctors came in and we kind of talked about what would happen after he was born and how I didn't want him to get a feeding tube until he had had a chance to take a bottle. This was a really hard conversation to have because I was contracting every couple of minutes.
At this point my contractions were picking up and Bobby started doing some hip squeezes. I also started having some back labor at this point. The only way I could get through the contractions was to stand and lean on the back of a chair. The whole labor the nurses kept coming in to put the baby back on the monitor and it made it really hard to focus on getting through the contractions because they kept messing with the monitors on my belly. They would want me to get in a position that I could not handle the contractions in. They also didn't have the wireless monitors like I had with Emma (they were out of the pads that stick on you) so I couldn't get in the shower, which with Emma that gave me so much relief.
At 11:10 am Lindsay, our doula, got there. She said that she thought I was about 6cm and in active labor. I changed position from leaning over the chair to hands and knees, but they couldn't keep the baby on the monitor so they kept messing with me during contractions.
At 11:50 am Summer did another check and I was 6cm, 90% effaced and -1 station. Around 12:00 I started to feel really shaky and nauseated. Lindsay thought at that point that I was starting to enter the transition part of labor. I wanted to stand again, that was the best way for me to handle the contractions. However the nurses were still messing with the monitors trying to get the baby on them. I was standing leaning over on pillows and at this point the nausea got to me and I threw up. At 12:40 pm Summer did another check and I was at 7cm and starting to feel a little bit of pressure.
They had me get in bed and lay on my side at this point because they couldn't keep the baby on the monitor. The side lying was so much worse than standing because I couldn't sway my hips or move in any rhythmic form what-so-ever to get through the pain. I laid on my left side for 30 min and then my right side.
At 1:23 pm they had to place an internal monitor on the baby, which is something I 100% did not want to do, but they couldn't keep his heart rate on the belly monitors so we didn't have much of a choice. Placing the monitor broke my water. I laid back on my left side again and I started to become shaky.
At 1:50 pm I went back on my hands and knees. They turned the pitocin off sometime around here because the baby wasn't handling it well. I couldn't tell the pitocin had been turned off, the contractions kept coming and were just as strong as with the pitocin. The pitocin never went past 4ml which is barely anything. With Emma they had it up all the way. At 2:05 I started to feel a lot of pressure. 2:13 pm Summer checked me again and I am 10 cm and 100% effaced. I felt the need to push with every contraction but because NICU wasn't there yet they told me I couldn't. Lindsay had me do what they call 'horse lips' through the contractions so I wouldn't push. They worked for a few contractions but then I couldn't help it anymore and I had to start pushing. I felt the ring of fire almost immediately, it is perfectly named. I continued to push on my hands and knees for a few contractions, but the baby's heart was having some decels so they had me lay on my left side. I remember hearing Summer say that we needed the baby out now (apparently the baby was not doing well, because Bobby said he wasn't sure what they were about to do if I couldn't push him out at that point, but that the doctors were starting to look worried) and so I pushed as hard as I could. I remember being loud at this point and just needing to make noise to get him out. Everyone was telling me to conserve my air, but I feel like I was much more effective at pushing with making noise. Blake Phillip was born at 2:24pm on Tuesday, May 1, 2018. He weighed 6lb 7oz (Emma was 7lb 6oz) and was 19.6 in long.
They placed him on my chest and we were able to do delayed cord clamping and Bobby cut the cord. The Blake was a little bit blue and I kept asking the NICU doctor if she needed to take him but she just kept saying hold on a minute.
They brought him back to me for some skin to skin and his pulse ox went way up. Skin to skin does wonders and can be some of the best medicine. I got to hold and cuddle him for about 10 minutes and then they took him across the bridge to the children's hospital.
The best thing about delivering where I did is that the hospital is connected to the children's hospital through a bridge so he was only about a 5 minute walk away. Bobby went with them while I got cleaned up and then I went to meet them a couple of hours later, but that will be covered in Blake's one week old post.
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| Summer, the midwife |
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| Lindsay, the Doula |
Thoughts on unmedicated child birth:
I still can't believe how short this labor was, 5ish hours compared to Emma's which was 48 hours.
I am still not sure how I feel about unmedicated labor now that I have had both. I didn't really want the epidural until about 7cm which is transition which lasted about 1.5 hours for me this time around. The recovery was definitely better unmedicated. I barely tore (which 2nd birth so thats to be expected), but I just felt physically better over all. I was able to spend the whole day at the NICU the day after he was born with only some Motrin as my pain meds. While we are probably done having kids, if God has different plans for us I honestly don't know which way I would go. I do know that I will never have a baby without a Doula. I would not have gotten through either of my labors without Lindsay.
