After what seems like FOREVER…..I’m happy to say that I’m no longer pregnant!!
My beautiful daughter was born at 3:45pm on October 6th, 2010.
I had no epidural.
I had pitocin
That is NOT the way I wanted to do things.
Never again will I blog about how much I hate something…..or how I’m NEVER going to do this or that…
Wait a minute…..I take that back.
I will NEVER say NEVER again! How bout that?
Our interesting birth story began last Tuesday when I began coughing so hard that my water broke. They did a litmus test on me at my doctor’s office and it was inconclusive, so they sent me back home. I was pissed. When they do a litmus test to check for amniotic fluid, the test strip turns blue. My husband watched as the test strip turned blue…..but apparently, it wasn’t blue enough to convince Dr. L that my water was leaking.
I know what urine is, and I know what it looks like….. I’m a coffee drinker. The liquid that ended up all over my bathroom floor that morning was not urine…..not by ANY stretch of the imagination.
Anyway…..we called the doula and labored at home for a while. I was getting sporadic contractions and they weren’t really getting stronger. My doula walked me around the neighborhood, had me going up and down stairs…..bouncing on a birthing ball and trying various positions to get me going into labor naturally. Nothing was progressing, and we were on a time clock……you must deliver within 24 hours of your water breaking or risk an infection.
I knew that my water had broken…..and after a night of trying everything to get further along in labor, we decided to throw in the towel and head to the hospital. I knew my idea of natural childbirth was about to go right out the window.
When we got to the hospital, luckily enough….our regular doctor was the one on call. Dr. M examined me and did another litmus test. This time, it turned blue enough to get things going…….I was admitted and put on Pitocin to speed up labor. I HATE Pitocin (see previous blog) however, after a couple of hours I still wasn’t progressing fast enough…..so they turned up the Pitocin and popped my water bag…..now instead of a slow leak, we had no more water in the amniotic sac and the baby’s head hit my cervix like a Mac truck.
I labored naturally for a little while before the strong Pitocin contractions got to much for me to bear…..and I asked for an epidural.
Pitocin contractions are stronger, longer, closer together and a TON more painful than regular contractions…..so an epidural is quite necessary……unless you like torture.
I knew early on that an epidural may not be possible for me because I had a blood clotting problem earlier in the pregnancy….however it had gotten better, so I was cleared for an epidural and I wasn’t about to give birth naturally with hellish Pitocin contractions….no way, Jose.
Or so I thought.
When they ordered the epidural, they checked my blood pressure and found out it had dropped……a lot. The contractions had gotten way too painful at that point, and I could barely breathe or think through them. I’ve never been in that much pain before……EVER.
Pitocin with no epidural is the devil.
So….they said I couldn’t have an epidural until my blood pressure went back up and I had to have two bags of IV fluid before they could let me have any pain meds.
Too bad I was already in transition.
I went from 3 centimeters dilated to 7 centimeters dilated in less than 30 minutes. And YES….it freaking hurt. When I felt the nausea of transition, I KNEW I was about to push my baby out without an epidural.
My doula told me to do what my body was telling me to do.
I went from 7 centimeters to 9 centimeters within minutes and I felt the urge to push. I pushed and felt the baby coming out!
There is NO WAY to describe what it feels like to have the urge to push. If you’ve ever felt it, you know…..if you haven’t felt it…..you have no idea and will never know. That’s all I can say.
The nurse used her fingers to push the rest of my cervix back from the baby’s head, and it felt soooooo good. The next thing I remember is having lights come down from the ceiling and about 20 people appearing out of nowhere. My wonderful doctor was already suited up and in position.
I pushed and felt her head crown. I felt the stinging, burning “ring of fire” when the baby’s head crowns that everyone talks about…..but I tell ya, it didn’t hurt as bad as those contractions. I even tore pretty bad….but that didn’t hurt as bad as those contractions, either.
I pushed again and felt her shoulders and body slide out.
When she came out, it was the best feeling in the whole wide world, and I’ve never felt such a release in my entire life. All of my emotions were wrapped up in that one single moment, and when they put her on my chest, it was beyond anything I ever imagined.
I held her for a moment while the doctor stitched me up. He used a local anesthetic…..and the needle STILL didn’t hurt as bad as those contractions.
I don’t remember every detail….but I know that pitocin-induced, no-pain-medication childbirth makes you do crazy things. I ripped my IV out during delivery and I grabbed my husband’s hand so hard that I broke a capillary in his thumb. I felt that there was some kind of conspiracy against me at some point because I had campaigned so hard for a natural childbirth in my birth plan and all during the pregnancy. I thought maybe they didn’t order the epidural to teach me a lesson…..but they did order it….they just couldn’t give it to me.
My entire labor lasted 4 hours.
I only pushed twice….and she came out
Dr. M told me that I showed those nurses a thing or two…..because no one gets to see a ’no epidural’ delivery anymore. No one screams and moans and spins their heads around like Regan from “The Exorcist” He made me feel good about the whole thing because at times there were low gutteral sounds coming out of me that I did not recognize …..and there was no comfort from the pain at all. He said I was tough as nails.
I don’t know about that…..I’m just glad it’s over, and I don’t have to ever do it again.
My perfect little girl was totally worth all of the pain.
Now, it’s my husband’s turn to be in stirrups.
Maybe he can do it with no pain meds?
