Sam's Birth Story

I was inspired by Crystal, who recently shared her daughter's birth story on her blog. I wrote Sam's story all out in an email to a friend soon after he was born, so here is the somewhat condensed and edited version. I thought it might make sense to share it on this blog rather than my regular one, since this one already has to do with pregnancy stuff. Be forewarned, though--it's still very long! It will be fun to compare our next birth story with this one in about 5 months or so.

My water broke at 6 am on Friday, March 5th, 2004. I called the midwives and was told to come in at 9 so they could confirm
that that's what had happened. At this point I wasn't having any noticeable contractions, just fluid gushing out and getting me all wet! So that was a little uncomfortable, but not all that bad. My appt. was with Katrina, which was nice since I was already familiar with her. One thing we noticed right away was that she was dressed in scrubs, so we figured she must be delivering that day. She confirmed that yes, my membranes had ruptured, and she didn't want to do an internal exam because after the membranes rupture they try to keep them to a minimum to reduce the chance of infection. But as far as she could see by just looking, I wasn't dilated yet, or at least only a tiny bit at the most. She put me on the monitors for about half an hour, during which I was having some contractions, but not painful ones. Some of them had a tiny bit of cramping, but mostly it was just a tightening feeling like all Braxton Hicks. They were about 7-8 min. apart at that point. She said we may as well go home, and get some rest, and if my contractions hadn't sped up at all by about 6 pm, to call in and then come in, because they would likely have to induce me. We made sure she knew that we lived an hour away from the hospital, and she was very casual about it--to the effect of, well, it's your first baby; you'll have plenty of time. :) All the way home, the contractions were still about 7-8 min. apart, and I started getting a little more cramping with them, but not much. The gushing fluid was still the most uncomfy thing. We stopped off at Walmart for a few minutes, then came home to have some lunch and pack any last minute things that we may have forgotten in our frenzied packing that morning.
(We took everything with us that we thought I may need for labor, etc., since we thought we might have been staying.) It wasn't more than half an hour after we got home, that my contractions really picked up--started getting very crampy and about 3-5 minutes apart! I called Katrina again and she was very surprised that they had sped up that much, but still not really thinking I needed to hurry back. She said not to rush over there since I still probably had a while to go, but to
come within an hour or 2. She said when I felt like I needed to be at the hospital and not at home anymore, that was the time to come. Well, that time arrived very rapidly! I was trying to eat some lunch, and was getting such terrible cramps that I kept having to rush to the bathroom between bites. I couldn't believe how fast this had all happened. I decided we needed to leave before too long, but wanted to take a shower first to see if that would relax me. It did help, and I didn't look forward to getting out and making the hour long drive back there, but I knew we had to leave!

All the way back to the hospital I kept having contractions about 3 minutes apart; some were extremely painful and I got a little cranky with Jim, who was trying to comfort me and remind me to breathe through them. :) Poor guy! I was SO relieved to arrive at the hospital; I think I was a little scared the baby might arrive on the way! At the door, they immediately got me a wheelchair and Jim grabbed our bags and pushed me in, leaving the Suburban for the valet guys to park. We flew to the elevator, up 2 floors, and then made a very quick trip down the halls to the birthing pavilion! They immediately put me into their triage room, along with another woman who was also in labor, to check me out. (There was a privacy curtain between, but we could still hear each other moaning. :)) In between contractions, I managed to get into one of those lovely hospital gowns and they hooked me up to a monitor to check the baby's heart rate. In a few minutes, Katrina came in to check on me, and this time she did check for dilation. I was very happy to hear that I was 7 centimeters already! We had only been at the hospital maybe 15 minutes at that point! She said, "I think you're going to have this baby sooner than later, very
likely before my shift ends at 8 tonight!"

After that, Jim and a nurse walked me to my own room. It was much nicer to be in a private room and be able to make whatever noise I wanted without being embarrassed! :) Actually, from what I could hear coming from other rooms, I didn't make too much noise at all. I guess different people handle labor lots of different ways. The 2 nurses I had, Debbie and Patty, were absolutely wonderful. And Jim was an incredible support, too! I discovered that what I most needed him to do was to breathe with me, breathing on my face so I could feel and hear it, and just do it with him. And I needed to hold his hand and be able to squeeze as hard as I could during the contractions! In between contractions, I felt pretty good and it was nice to be able to just rest. Of course, during all this the nurses were monitoring me, and taking blood pressure, etc. etc, which was a little frustrating because I just wanted to be able to concentrate on labor, but I know it's just what they have to do. And it ended up that my blood pressure was so high that they got concerned about possible pre-eclampsia, so they had to hook me up to an IV and give me magnesium sulfate for that. (The mag sulfate was probably the worst thing about
post-labor and delivery--I had to be on it for the next 24 hours, and it made me feel so weak and groggy that it was NOT fun.) Anyway, back to the story . . . it's all a bit fuzzy now in my mind, but I do remember Katrina coming back in and checking me again, and I was fully dilated at that point. All along I'd been having the urge to push, but it was getting stronger, and now I could push to my heart's content! She could feel that the baby's head was already well descended into the birth canal. I was amazed that I had come so far, so fast! The nurses were great on instructing me how to push, and they kept saying over and over how I was doing it so well and making good progress.

I have to say that pushing was such a relief compared to breathing through the contractions. I mean, the breathing really did help, but pushing was great because it felt so good to make progress on actually getting the baby out. And what they told me to do was take several good breaths, then give a nice long push, then another big breath, another push, and another. I tried to get 3 or 4 good strong pushes in on each contraction. Katrina had gone out of the room somewhere along the line,
and as I was pushing, the 2 nurses started saying how they might get to deliver the baby because it wouldn't be long! It was so encouraging to hear that!! They were anxious to get Katrina back in there, and she made it in plenty of time. They brought in a big mirror so I could look and see my progress. Part of the time I liked to look and part of the time I didn't want to! It was a little scary at that point, knowing I was so close to the actual delivery. But it was so incredible when I could look and see the top of the baby's head in the mirror. They asked if I wanted to feel it, so I did, and that was really neat too. Anyway, at one point as I was pushing, I asked Jim, "Do you really think I can do this?" And of course he assured me that I
could-- that I was almost there! And Katrina was telling me how wonderful I was doing, and that I had only been pushing for 35 minutes, and he was almost out! Then they said one more big push would do it, and I gathered all the courage I could, and gave it my best, and out he came! It was the most incredible relief and an awesome experience!! They got him up on my tummy very quickly so I could touch him, after they suctioned out his nose and mouth. He was crying, but not too bad . . . and then Jim got to cut the cord! I cuddled with him a little more and then they put him on the warmer thingy to do the various tests and stuff. He didn't like that one bit! As they did that, Katrina got me stitched up and cleaned up a little. Oh, another funny thing--as soon as he popped out, I asked Jim, "what did we have?" and he said, "it's a boy!" . . . ."Oh wait, no, that's just his umbilical cord . . ." But he was right after all, even though he wasn't looking at the right part to start with. :)

We named our precious baby Samuel James. He was just a little guy, being 3 weeks early . . . 5 lb., 14 oz. and 19.5" long.

Within a couple hours, I was all put back together, Sam was bathed and dressed, and we got to eat some supper and make phone calls to our families. And so that was my birth experience! I never even got to use the labor tub, as I had hoped, but in the end, I didn't even care! I was just so focused on getting him out, it didn't really matter what means were used to accomplish it!

So that's my birth story. For Sam's birth, at least, I was blessed to have a very short, easy labor and delivery. Though it was very intense at the time, I would much rather have it be that way and get it over with quickly! I had only 5 1/2 hours total of active labor; Sam was born about 3 hours after we arrived at the hospital. I hope all my babies will come that quickly and easily, and I'm also hoping that giving birth in the comfort of my own home will help me to relax more, so I won't be as likely to have the blood pressure issues that I did in the hospital. We will see!