Pregnancy Info HOME

Well, I did the majority of posting in the Third Trimester Forum with April Babies but thought I would update you all with the birth of my son (fourth child, age 39).Well I finally have two minutes to write my birth story. After much contemplating and cancelling the 8am induction on April 6, 2007. My husband Jimi and I decided to go ahead with it at around 12pm or so. We called up to labor and delivery to see if we could come in and they said we would have to call the doctor’s office and they were out to lunch until 1pm. I was very anxious to say the least to know if we were making the right call. I knew however if I waited my doctor would not be able to deliver and the relationship we had with our doctor could never be filled by anyone else especially a doctor we had only seen once. Besides, being my fourth baby and having a very large third baby with the shoulders getting a bit stuck we had faith in our doctor. We were given the go ahead to go in but by the time we loaded everything in the car, fed the pets, dropped my youngest son off and said goodbye to him and my older son, my daughter was away at school, we arrived at the hospital after 4pm. They had me change and the doctor checked me and said I was 2cm and 60% effaced. He asked me if I wanted him to rupture my membranes to which I said yes since it is often all I need and we would not have to use the cervidal. He ruptured them and the fluid was clear. The nurse told me I was committed to deliver now. She soon started the penicillin IV and you know this is only the second time I ever had an IV and I have a pretty big pain tolerance but I hate the way they feel and I am conscious of it in my arm for so long afterward. Anyway she tells me it may burn and after a few minutes it was the worst burning up the length of my right arm and I told my husband to get her. She lowered the drip and that provided some relief. I started having contractions right away but they were really low like right above my pelvic bone and did not feel the way I remembered in the past. They were not bad and at about 8pm I started walking. The doctor told me he was going to check me at 9pm and if things were not significantly different he was going to start Pitocin. I walked for about one hour and the contractions were mild. At 9pm he checked me and said I was 3 cm and 50% effaced and while there was some change he wanted to start the Pitocin. At 9:30 pm the nurse hooked up the Pitocin and right away the contractions were very painful. I had all natural births with my oldest 3 children and the third I also had Pitocin with but these contractions were excruciating. She turned the pitocin up one time and then I called the doctor and told him these contractions were excruciating and one on top of another and I needed something. He wanted to give me Fentinal he said it would help me relax. I told him I did not want anything that would make me loopy as I needed to concentrate. He told me he could get me an epidural but wanted to wait until I was 5cm. He checked me at I was 4cm they also said the anesthesiologist was not in the hospital and would have to be called in and I should take the Fentinal to start and it would help me to relax because they thought I was too tense and then they said I would dilate and get the epidural. Now mind you an epidural was my biggest fear so if I was looking forward to one after having three totally natural births you u had to be sure what I was feeling was intense. My husband was trying to help and the nurse was wonderful. So the doctor said, “Carolyn please listen to me and take the Fentinal, it is very light and will be out of your system within an hour and will help you.” I told him fine give it to me. The nurse injects it in the IV and it is about 10:15pm at this point. Within minutes I feel this funny feeling come over me and the clock starts looking fuzzy. I am not used to drugs and they tell me this is normal and that I may even be able to sleep for a bit. Well it was a few minutes and they did take the edge off but I started putting my hand on my va___a pushing up and my husband asked me what I was doing and I told him there was so much pressure and I was trying to counter it, but then the nurse comes to me and says she wants me to like on my left side and she is going to give me some oxygen. We were not aware but I guess the baby’s heart rate was having some decelerations with the contractions. So my husband and her help me onto my left side and as they are turning me my right leg that I sometimes experience some slight cramping in even earlier in labor goes berserk and I start having a leg cramp to end all leg cramps. I tell them, “oh my leg!” and they both start to work on in frantically. I hear the nurse saying flex her toes and my husband is doing that and rubbing but it is not working and it is so bad that it is nothing compared to the contractions so they have me on my side, the nurse is putting oxygen on me and my husband is trying to rub this cramp out and I hear the nurse saying she does not know why this is happening. The cramp subsides and then comes back with the next contraction now this time the same situation occurs, my husband is rubbing the cramp things are frantic around me and I am thinking that I must be having some reaction to the medication or something is wrong and while on my side the pain that if very low in the front is severely worse than when I was on my back. While on my side with all this going on I am thinking that I hope someone called for the anesthesiologist because I must surely be 5 cm and that I hope that I am not going to have to wait because no one called him and my husband sees me having back to back contractions and sees I am uncomfortable in this position so he asks me if I want to move my leg and I said yes and then an overwhelming need to push hits and I am thinking oh no, this can’t be happening as I think I am only about 5 cm. So I tell him and the nurse, that I have to push and the nurse says okay let me check you and she puts her hand in and while it is still in she calls the doctor to come to labor room 1, I tell her not to take her hand out, and she said she would not and the doctor comes in and she tells him we are going to have a baby now she is fully. The doctor asks her if she is sure and she said yes. I am freaking at this point because it is frantic. I cannot believe this is happening again as it happened fast in my last birth but I wanted things to go smoother here and now it was frantic as the birthing suite was filled with three nurses and the doctor who did not even have time to get a gown on. He checked me and said I was fully dilated and then started to get me to concentrate saying that they had to break the bed apart for the birth. Another nurse was taking down the light that was hid in a compartment in the ceiling and the room was transformed from a luxurious birthing suite into a surgical room and then he said he wanted me to put my hands behind my knees and push. I asked him why they could not hold my legs and he said he wanted me to do it. I was very emotional and scared that something was not right and I kept telling the doctor to please help me. I tried to remove the oxygen as it was in my way and he told me to not touch it. Now I started to push but kept moving my legs or not grabbing them the way he wanted and he kept firmly telling me to stop. They put up two handles on either side of the bed that I could grasp and I pushed they told me the head was right there and he had a lot of hair. Then I could feel him running his finger around the rim of my va___a that had the head bulging but I could only feel his hand there it did not feel like the head was there and every time he completed the circle there was a pop when his finger came out. This was all happening in seconds and then they told me the head was out and then the shoulder and he told me to look as the entire baby was born and they put him on my stomach. I grabbed him close and was so relieved it was over as was my husband who cut the cord. I could not stop thanking the doctor and nurses for their support and they were so good to us. We have a very special and close relationship with our doctor that goes beyond professional to friendship, care and concern. He plays jokes on us like calling our hospital room from the desk to see if we were going to buy Chinese food. Anyway like I said all of this happened in less than 10 minutes and it was a wild ride. I was so freaked out by the pace and the confusion that I told my husband I don’t think I could have ever gone through those last minutes again. The placenta was delivered and then he said I did not tear at all. That is the story and I was so glad it was over and my little boy was here. Earlier in labor I said to my husband I may never be pregnant again and it was a little sad but after that experience I was so glad he was born and here. So Ethan James entered the world at 10:59 pm at 8lbs. 4.2oz and 20inches long. He looked so tiny which was strange because my other babies looked so large that I thought he was like 6lbs but I am glad he looks so little because I always felt like I gave birth to 4 month old children with my other three and now he is a little bean and even my daughter can not get over how little he is. Again I am so glad he is here, my husband talks about a fifth and I tell him one day at a time but if we are blessed then we have to do something that will make me feel it will not be frantic like that again. The nurses keep saying it was good it was fast but I said it was too fast that it was scary because I did not think it could go that fast. Anyway he is here and that is all that matters now.