Birth Story

Ok, as promised, here is Titus birth story and it's probably going to be pretty long.

It actually starts 2 weeks ago with prodominal labor. I had this with Raquelle where I start contracting early, but make no cervical change. We went to the hospital on Sunday night the 8th with contractions 4 min apart. The contractions were making no change, but Titus HB was low and not variable enough so they kept me. After monitoring over night, there had been no progress, but his HB was better. My MW offered to try a cytotec to ripen things up and see if that would get things going for him to be born. I had the first dose at 8 AM and a 2nd dose around noon. They caused my ctx to become very consistent but not incredibly painful. By the end of the day I had made no progress and his HB had been better so we went home. Went to the dr the next day and she offered to induce with pitocin. We said no.

Then next Sunday the 15th, I had been cleaning all day and probably over did it (my mom was visiting). I woke up at 1 AM with really painful ctx. I timed them and they were 7 min apart. They were painful enough to pay close attention to so DH and I got up. We got our stuff together and when they got to 5 min apart we went to the hospital. At 2:30 AM we checked in and I was 1 cm, same as I had been earlier in the week. We walked the halls for a couple hours and at 5 AM I was a tight 3! We were excited, this was really it! They hooked up my IV and I got my antibiotics for strep and then continued to labor through the evening. At 10:30 when they checked again, I was the same, a tight 3 and 60% effaced. The dr came in at noon, and the ctx had completely stopped. We were very disappointed. It wasn't til the dr came in that we heard anything about Titus HB again. This time it was "tacacardic". I didn't know what the big words mean, but the monitor had his HB at just over 200 earlier in the morning. The dr offered to break my water and continue with pitocin. Since his HB had come back down and he seemed to be doing fine and we were exhausted, we said no and went home.

On Wednesday, my Midwife got back into town. Thad and I had discussed it and had agreed that since his HB had come up as a question twice, when my MW got back we would induce if I hadn't already had him. So we were set for first thing Thursday morning.

Thursday morning...
8:30 AM - We check into the hospital and get put on the monitor. I'm already having sporadic non painful ctx about 8 to 10 min apart.

9:00 - My MW comes over...I'm still a tight 3 cm and too far posterior for her to break my water, so we start pitocin instead.

10:00 - Feeling very crampy and contractions are about 4 to 5 min apart. They are getting painful, but not too horrible yet.

11:00 - Start focusing and deep breathing through contractions. There is a picture above the hospital bed of blue sky with clouds and kites flying in it...I focus on that and take deep slow breaths through contractions.

12:00 - Start having back labor. They let me get up about 40 min out of every hour so walking and sitting on the birth ball helps.

1:00 - Getting tired of deep breathing and ctx. DH rubs some lavender massage oil on my neck and upper chest to try to help me relax.

2:00 - Get checked. Gone from a tight 3 cm to a loose 3 cm. The baby is lower and I'm more effaced. Not the progress report I had wanted, but my MW assures me I am not going home without a baby this time.

2:30 - Titus HB starts dipping with the contractions.

3:00 - Confined to bed to stay on the moniter for his HB. The nurse can't find his HB when I am sitting up so she makes me lay the bed halfway back. This causes teh pain level to significantly increase and causes the back labor to tripple. I start to get mad that the TV is still on.

4:00 - I tell Thad I'm dieing! He puts more lavendar oil on me to try to help me relax. I can't tell you how surprised I was at the effectiveness of aromatheropy at this point!

5:30 - Still only a loose 3 cm, but my MW can reach my cervix better so she breaks my water. This is where all the fun starts! I swear the min she broke my water I went in to transition! Contractions had already been right on top of each other, 2 min apart and lasting over a min long...but now, suddenly they were 2 min apart and lastingmaybe 1min and 55 seconds long! And the pain level suddenly went through the rough. I take the entire bottle of lavender from Thad and hold it under my nose in an attempt to stay in control.

6:00 - CTX are so intense that I can no longer breath through them. I am shaking uncontrolably with each one and my breathing has turned into agonizing moaning. I remember my mom telling me that when you think you can't do it anymore, that you are in transition and you are almost done. I keep repeating this to myself that we are almost done.

6:30 PM - I have my breaking point. I yell at Thad "I'm going to kill you if you don't get me some freaking drugs!!!" Thad informs me that he has already paged the nurse and we are just waiting for her to respond. She comes in and says she'll check to see if I am 4 yet so I can have some stadol. For the ctx, I'm sure that I must be around 6 or 8. She checks, I'm still a loose 3 cm. No progress at all since this morning still. So, I give in to the power of pitocin and take some Stadol. Stadol does not take the pain away, but it calms me down enough that I'm no longer going to kill Thad. It also takes the edge off so I can focus and breath through them again and am rambling something about an elevator and a water skiing bald eagle in between ctx.

7:00 – The Stadol is already wearing off after only 30 min. I'm back to panting and moaning through ctx. The nurse offers a 2^nd dose but also says that's all I can have for the next 4 hours. So we begin to talk epidural. I express my concerns and fears since I had a spinal head ache last time and a bone bruise and an epi that didn't work. They told me that anesthesiologist doesn't work there anymore because she couldn't seem to do a good epi. So I take another dose of Stadol to hold me over while we wait for the epi.

8:00 – I get the epidural with no spinal head ache and it works! It is dosed perfectly so that I can move and feel my legs and toes, but as far as ctx, I feel the tightening and a little bit of cramping. I don't have to breath through them anymore so I lay back to rest and wait to see if I ever make any progress.

9:00 PM – My MW checks and I am at 5.5 cm! Yeah! Finally making progress!!! Titus HB is dipping into the 90's with every contraction. I start this conversations with the nurse during ctx...

Me “It feels like there is a lot of pressure”
Nurse “That's how it is suppose to feel. The epi takes the pain away but not the pressure”.
Next contraction...
Me “I feel like there is a head in my vagina!”
Nurse “That's because as you dilate, he is moving into position to be born!”
Next contraction
Nurse loses the HB on the moniter and has to go looking for it....
Me - “Try looking for it lower...like maybe in the birth canal”
She finds it way way low.
Next contraction
Me “I feel like if I just give a little push he would just pop out!”
Nurse “Let me go get someone to check you”

9:30 PM - The other nurse comes in and checks and I am at 10 cm. She calmly says she'll go call my Midwife and walks out of the room. As soon as she is out of the room, 5 people come running in and are frantically setting up all the delivery stuff. A few min later my MW comes in and tells me if I have to push that's fine as she is still setting up to deliver. Since I have the epi, I wait for them.

9:40 PM – Start pushing. The dr arrives just as he is crowning. He crowned pretty quickly, but then they applied counter pressure to try to keep me from tearing so bad. It was a few more contractions after that before he was actually born.

9:56 PM – Titus is born and his daddy catches him! They hand him to me as he makes his first little cry, but he doesn't keep crying and. I must have asked 5 or 6 times if he was breathing. He was purple. He would occasionally let out a little cry but did not cry hard. DH cut the cord and they took him away from me. They took him over to the little infant area across the room and I couldn't see what they were doing, but there were 4 people over there working on him and just one person with me waiting for the placenta. After what seemed like forever (maybe a min in reality), my MW turns around and tells me that he is going to be fine. He had some fluid in his lungs that they had to suction out for him to breath. Another min later and they bring him back to me and I start nursing. I nursed him while we waited for the placenta (about 20 min) and then handed him off to Thad while I got my repairs down. I had a 2^nd degree tear, some “skid marks” and a hyper extended tail bone. In spite of that, recovery is going well and he is the sweetest baby ever!