My story starts out with my water breaking on Sunday night. It was a trickle that happened each time I got out of bed to go pee. It kind of dawned on me as I was getting ready for work on Monday morning what it might be. I wasn't having any contractions that I could feel. Brian encouraged me to call my dr, who then told me to go to the hospital to be checked out. We were scrambling around to get a hospital bag ready - just in case. I hardly had anything to eat - but I just figured I would be sent on my way and knew that I had an apple, pear and yogurt at work. I get to the hospital and was told, yup, my water had broke and was already 2 cm dilated. I could wait, and hope that my body started to contract naturally within the next 48 hours, or I could go on pitocin which would induce the contractions and make my labor go faster. Apparently, only 10% of pregnancies happen like mine, where the water actually breaks first. It figures I was out of the norm! I opted for the pitocin because I really wanted a vaginal birth, and didn't want to risk having to do a c-section. BUT I guess I didn't realize what being on the medication meant - which was continuous monitoring (two belts around my belly and an IV) and NO EATING!!! I was starving, and the contractions didn't really start feeling yucky until 3 PM. They were messing around with my med dosage because at one point I was having 7 contractions within 10 minute periods. There was no break. They also don't like to check your dilation very often when your water has broken as a risk of infection increases. So I never knew how far along I was getting. I had been 2 cm when I first got checked, then I didn't find out till later - my guess would be around 7 PM that I was 6.5 cm. At that point I asked to be taken off the medication and I got to take a bath and have a piece of toast. Yeah!!! The bath was wonderful and I managed the pain really well in there. But when that was done the nurse wanted to monitor what my contractions were doing. They were getting much longer and more sporadic. Not something they wanted to see. I had to go back on the pitocin and monitoring which made things really hard. I couldn't really move around much. I spent most of the time leaning over the bed while Brian did a counter pressure on my back during the contractions. With all the stuff strapped around me, we couldn't really do much else like get a back rub, walk around or use the birthing ball very sucessfully. Basically all the stuff we had learned in childbirth class to help with managing the pain was out the window. By 10 PM I was delerious. It was probably due to the fact that I had no energy from a lack of food. I gave in and asked for the epidural. Brian said it was hilarious because I looked terribly out of it when the doctor doing the epidural came in, but that I signed my name perfectly on the consent form! I don't really remember that point. I had a feeling that I was going to cave in if things took that long. SO, after the painless epidural, I got about a half hour nap in and then started to feel uncomfortable. My belly felt twisted. My delivery nurse couldn't figure it out and insisted that I shouldn't be in any pain. She finally did another check and realized that I was fully dilated but had a sac of amnio fluid that was right at the base of the baby's head, which she broke, and the baby quickly moved done into place. Yeah...I finally got to start pushing. This was close to midnight. We kind of held off pushing because my OB was getting ready to do a c-section and they wanted to make sure he would be available for me. Not knowing how long pushing would take for me. It ended up taking longer than they expected - just a little over 2 hours. Man it was hard work, but I got there in the end. It was just amazing. It wasn't exactly the birth that I had hoped for, but Owen is just perfect so I don't really care that much how I got there. Brian took the most adorable video of us talking about him after they cleaned him up and give him back to me. We laughed as we realized that he had Brian's big hands and feet.Owen's Birth Story
My story starts out with my water breaking on Sunday night. It was a trickle that happened each time I got out of bed to go pee. It kind of dawned on me as I was getting ready for work on Monday morning what it might be. I wasn't having any contractions that I could feel. Brian encouraged me to call my dr, who then told me to go to the hospital to be checked out. We were scrambling around to get a hospital bag ready - just in case. I hardly had anything to eat - but I just figured I would be sent on my way and knew that I had an apple, pear and yogurt at work. I get to the hospital and was told, yup, my water had broke and was already 2 cm dilated. I could wait, and hope that my body started to contract naturally within the next 48 hours, or I could go on pitocin which would induce the contractions and make my labor go faster. Apparently, only 10% of pregnancies happen like mine, where the water actually breaks first. It figures I was out of the norm! I opted for the pitocin because I really wanted a vaginal birth, and didn't want to risk having to do a c-section. BUT I guess I didn't realize what being on the medication meant - which was continuous monitoring (two belts around my belly and an IV) and NO EATING!!! I was starving, and the contractions didn't really start feeling yucky until 3 PM. They were messing around with my med dosage because at one point I was having 7 contractions within 10 minute periods. There was no break. They also don't like to check your dilation very often when your water has broken as a risk of infection increases. So I never knew how far along I was getting. I had been 2 cm when I first got checked, then I didn't find out till later - my guess would be around 7 PM that I was 6.5 cm. At that point I asked to be taken off the medication and I got to take a bath and have a piece of toast. Yeah!!! The bath was wonderful and I managed the pain really well in there. But when that was done the nurse wanted to monitor what my contractions were doing. They were getting much longer and more sporadic. Not something they wanted to see. I had to go back on the pitocin and monitoring which made things really hard. I couldn't really move around much. I spent most of the time leaning over the bed while Brian did a counter pressure on my back during the contractions. With all the stuff strapped around me, we couldn't really do much else like get a back rub, walk around or use the birthing ball very sucessfully. Basically all the stuff we had learned in childbirth class to help with managing the pain was out the window. By 10 PM I was delerious. It was probably due to the fact that I had no energy from a lack of food. I gave in and asked for the epidural. Brian said it was hilarious because I looked terribly out of it when the doctor doing the epidural came in, but that I signed my name perfectly on the consent form! I don't really remember that point. I had a feeling that I was going to cave in if things took that long. SO, after the painless epidural, I got about a half hour nap in and then started to feel uncomfortable. My belly felt twisted. My delivery nurse couldn't figure it out and insisted that I shouldn't be in any pain. She finally did another check and realized that I was fully dilated but had a sac of amnio fluid that was right at the base of the baby's head, which she broke, and the baby quickly moved done into place. Yeah...I finally got to start pushing. This was close to midnight. We kind of held off pushing because my OB was getting ready to do a c-section and they wanted to make sure he would be available for me. Not knowing how long pushing would take for me. It ended up taking longer than they expected - just a little over 2 hours. Man it was hard work, but I got there in the end. It was just amazing. It wasn't exactly the birth that I had hoped for, but Owen is just perfect so I don't really care that much how I got there. Brian took the most adorable video of us talking about him after they cleaned him up and give him back to me. We laughed as we realized that he had Brian's big hands and feet.
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