Quentin's birth story (long)

[psocoptera]

So I had another midwives appointment scheduled for 10 am on Friday the 30th. I was honestly dreading this appointment. I was sure they were going to tell me that the baby was up to nine and a half pounds, based on the previous week's estimate of 9 and 2oz, and that I was still at 2 cm and 90% effaced, and that it was time to officially schedule my induction for early the next week, and I didn't *want* a gigantic baby, or zero progress, or an induction. At 9:45 I stood up from the couch to head to the appointment, felt a "pop" and a little spurt, and had a contraction. On the way back from the bathroom I had another contraction, a stronger one, and so felt completely justified in calling the midwives' office to tell them that I wouldn't make it to the appointment after all.

They thought I should still come in, "to check if I was really in labor". I explained that I didn't think I could drive safely, because, you know, contractions; they countered with the suggestion that Josh could drive me, once it was established that he'd be on his way. Ok, fine, whatever. I called him and started timing. Then I called them back before he'd even made it home and told them that my contractions were four or five minutes apart and I wasn't spending any more time in the car than I absolutely had to; we'd be going straight to the hospital, thanks. They agreed as this was reasonable and would call their counterparts at the hospital to let them know I'd be coming in.

Josh got home and started working his way through the off-to-the-hospital checklist - we'd figured I wouldn't be laboring at home for hours and hours, like I had last time, but had thought we might have half an hour or something to gather things and make some key phone calls, etc. Somewhere partway through this process I moaned at Josh that I really wanted to be at the hospital NOW and he gave up on whatever email he was sending and tore around grabbing jackets and things. He somehow got me into my socks and shoes and down to the car, where he realized he didn't have his keys and had to leave me leaning against the door; I think somewhere in here Chaos showed up somehow, as I was dimly aware that she was in the car with us when we left. My world had already pretty much narrowed down to pain, management thereof - I had my eyes shut the entire time we were in the car (and pretty much the rest of labor too) - although I was still very aware of every turn and curve. (Boston has waaaay too many rotaries.)

When we got to the hospital I had the presence of mind to mutter "wheelchair" and was whisked by some helpful orderly-type person straight to Labor&Delivery - no idea if that's now standard practice or if they just realized that I was non-verbal enough that checking in at the admitting desk would have been a farce. When the wheelchair stopped I opened my eyes long enough to see that we were waiting for an elevator; when it stopped again, we were in a room, and I immediately started tearing off my clothes, as I was at this point drenched in sweat and had the vague idea that a hospital gown might be nice. (I think this was actually more like tearing off my shirt and then sort of waving my hands at my shoes and pants until someone else removed them?) I did manage to get my brain together enough to answer several questions from the midwife about how long I had been in labor, etc - it was about 11 am at this point, although I had no idea of time at the time, and only know this because Chaos helpfully took notes. Josh showed up from parking the car and (I assume) took over question-answering duties.

I kind of freaked out when it was time for the internal exam. In my labor with Juniper, there had been a low point where after a long difficult time with very intense pain, hours past a 5 cm check, when we were like "this is so unbelievably awful it must be transition!", I had gotten checked again and measured at 6-7 cm. Super discouraging, and that's when I had opted for the epidural, because the idea that it was going to get significantly worse just broke me. So I was sure it was going to happen again and they were going to tell me I was at 6 cm and it was going to go on for hours and hours and waaaah.

Instead, they said I was already at 8 cm! I believe Josh's quote at this point was something like "fuck yeah". It was just as well that I'd been planning to have an unmedicated birth anyways, because things were clearly moving too fast for an epidural even if I had wanted one. (Chaos pointed out later that in the time it had taken to get an anesthesiologist last time, this time I had a baby.)

After that things were straightforwardly agonizing for awhile, as per most accounts of transition. I did various cliched things like begging for someone to stop the contractions, explaining that I didn't *want* the next contraction, shrieking, needing to be reminded to breathe, etc. At one point I slapped Josh's arm to get him to stop doing something completely intolerable like counting aloud (which had of course been my idea, when we talked about coping strategies), which I remember doing, and I apparently also sank my nails into his hand at another point, not quite breaking the skin, which I don't remember at all. I had been sort of scrubbing my hands on the legs of my corduroys as a minor physical distraction from the pain; with my pants gone, I switched to scratching my left thigh, leading to a sort of funny moment later when I gingerly looked under the blanket to see if I had left giant gouges or anything. (I hadn't, just some red marks; I also had some parallel streaks on my left upper arm, so I must have scratched that at some point too.)

I recall various things happening but have no idea about sequence or duration. I know at one point the midwife asked if she could break my water the rest of the way with the amnio hook, to get the baby further down and speed things up, which I agreed sounded like a good idea. There was some sort of concern about the baby's heartrate dipping, or maybe getting lost on the monitor, such that I was told I needed to work hard to get the baby out more quickly, and I guess they eventually deployed one of those internal monitors stuck onto the baby's head. That must have been after I was pushing, I guess. In retrospect this sounds really scary (the heartrate?!) but at the time it wasn't, particularly, to me at least, any more than I was worried about my own blood pressure (there was some whole thing with them not getting a good measurement, and they had the cuff on me for awhile and it kept inflating during contractions and made my whole arm throb in extra bonus pain and I kept saying I wanted it off and I think they eventually gave up).

I *think* I started tentatively pushing before the midwife told me I could, when it sort of started to feel like maybe it would help, and I *think* that was before they moved me from the edge of the bed to the birth stool, which we know was at about 11:30 because of Chaos's notes. (I guess the midwife suggested this, and I was like "no no no glaaaargh" and Josh was like "let's try it" and they correctly listened to the one of us who was coherent.) Pushing, and the birth stool, was really good for awhile; I could relax completely between contractions, and slump back onto Josh. The midwife kept trying to get me to not make noise and put all that energy into pushing; I was usually only able to do two pushes silently, and then had to grunt or growl through the third one.

As we got close to the end, I was also slipping forward on the birth stool, such that I was in a really bad position for my lower back, which was hurting like crazy, only I couldn't manage to explain this, or move myself - I just kept saying "my back, my back" and they were like "the baby is almost out, you're feeling it everywhere" which was frustrating. Also my head and neck were really starting to hurt (from tucking my chin as instructed? from not tucking my chin enough?). I was trying to grip my knees but my hands were too sweaty and kept sliding off (they kept trying to put a pulse oximeter thing on my finger and it kept sliding off from sweat too), so I was gripping the handles on the birth stool, but that wasn't helping my back. I remember actually being glad when I started to feel the "ring of fire", since it meant the baby was close to being out (and also thinking that it was painful, but *nothing* on the overwhelming pain of those earlier contractions, so much for the rumors of it being the most painful part).

I had had my eyes closed this whole time, despite having requested a mirror in my birth plan, but at the very very end when they were saying "slow pushes" I did manage to open them enough to see a baby half-out of me. And then they were putting it up on my chest - it pooped on my arm in the process, and was already poopy from meconium in the fluid - I remember thinking I should kiss it, but ick. So I just sort of hugged it through the blanket they put over it and Josh helped - my arms were like noodles, I could barely make them work. I guess there was a kind of funny bit, as Chaos described it later, where the midwife and nurse were really curious whether it was a girl or a boy, and Josh and I were just staring at the face end and not checking.

After a bit of that, the baby went to get baby-processed or whatever, and I got moved back up to the bed (my legs were also completely limp and nonfunctional, from having spent 45 minutes clenching every muscle in my body while pushing - I remember feeling baffled by my own legs and arms and the idea that I could make them work somehow). And I started shaking, hard, and
my head exploded into a horrific headache from the tension in my neck. Someone put a big warm blanket over me, which helped with the shaking, but I was way too overwhelmed by the headache pain to talk or interact - I remember watching Josh and Chaos hold the baby and feeling like a bad mother for not participating somehow, for being so locked down by the pain in my head. Eventually the Motrin kicked in and I was able to try to breastfeed, etc, but the headache/neck pain would go on to be the major issue of my recovery - much worse than anything going on in the parts that actually had the baby.

It was very weird as I started to collect myself and tune back in to things like time. My sense from last time was that labor should have taken many many hours, but in fact it was just early afternoon. I was body-tired, limp and sore and wrung out, but not mentally fogged from lack of sleep. When they suggested we might want to order food, they were talking about a late lunch. In fact Quentin had been born at 12:12 pm after just two and a half hours of active labor, including about 45 minutes of pushing. It seemed like much longer - in particular, the day before seemed like it might have been *weeks* ago - that night, briefly online, I logged in to the library network thinking my library books must need renewing, but of course it was only like a day after I had last checked. (The other thing I did online was to talk to Juniper over Skype - best Skype ever, seeing and hearing her exclaim "it's the baby!".)

I know lots of people don't get to have the birth they wanted, so I don't want to gloat, but honestly I think this was just about as good as it could possibly have been. Intense and brutally painful, yes, but mercifully brief, but with enough pushing that things had time to stretch and only tear slightly (first degree, four stitches). Meconium in the fluid, but he came out crying and pink (except for shriveled grey hands and feet). His head was hardly molded at all, which they thought might be due to the short labor (my theory is that all those months of overly-relaxed pelvis finally paid off). I also sort of feel like last time I did all the early parts of labor and then got the epidural and this time I skipped straight to transition and pushing and thus have experienced an entire unmedicated childbirth, just in two parts. I've heard sometimes you get crazy endorphins after an unmedicated birth and was rather disappointed to instead get a shattering headache. But I was *so* relieved to have finally had the baby and have him out safely.

There are various other new-baby memories I'd like to write down (it is going so, so, so fast) but I think I will finally hit post on this - it was very blurry at the time, but at two weeks, it's already getting even moreso.

Comments

[mst3kforall.livejournal.com]

Wow, congratulations! Glad you and baby were all right. Yay, Josh and Chaos.

[tirerim.livejournal.com]

Huh, I find it really interesting that they told you not to make noise; in general, making noise helps people deliver more force with their muscles, which is why tennis players grunt, and (part of) why martial artists yell. Since that obviously matches up with what you were feeling, I wonder if they just haven't gotten that message yet, or if they actually have a good reason for thinking that not making noise would help.

[kelilah.livejournal.com]

Well, the midwife and nurse told me to take a breath, hold it, and push against that. So if I hadn't been holding my breath because I was grunting or screaming, I probably wouldn't have been as effective at pushing. Maybe it's the difference between explosive force, like you'd want when hitting a tennis ball or doing a kick or punch, and...um, whatever you'd call pushing. But for pushing, it's definitely not explosive--it's a sustained push. And, er, to be slightly TMI, if you've ever been constipated, that's the same kind of pushing. It's actually very much the same muscles, I think, too.

[irilyth]

I'm no expert in any of these things, but my intuition is that grunting is more the thing if you're trying to direct energy outwards, and silence is better if you're focusing inwards? That may be completely mumbo-jumbo though... My suspicion is that it actually has more to do with the muscles involved, and that your pelvic floor muscles are perhaps working against your thoracic diaphragm, such that if you're exhaling, there's less of something something. More mumbo-jumbo? Perhaps. :^)

[belecrivain.livejournal.com]

I am relieved he is out safely and you only had four stitches. Go you, Q, Josh, Chaos, and the medical team!