Birth story

Eat, sleep, poop, repeat.  What a life!  Soon enough you'll be awake and running all over the place!  I've lucked out, as you eat for a good half hour each time, then pass out for 3-4 hours on your own.  You only really cry when it's time to eat, too.  In the hospital even the nurses were amazed at how you'd sleep through dirty diapers and temperature changes.  And once you're asleep, you are hard to wake up!  Thankfully now we can work on our own schedules but there they make all new moms wake their babies every three hours to make sure they get the hang of feeding and ensure there aren't any complications that are making you sleep longer than you should.  Pain in the butt, if you ask me.  I'd try and wake you for 20 minutes sometimes.  It usually took both Daddy and I tickling you incessantly before you'd start to stir.

So I better get on this "birth story" business before I forget all the small stuff.  It doesn't feel like it all started two weeks ago already, that's for sure.  At my last OB appointment (October 21, four days overdue), Dr. Chanda and I started discussing induction because I was still only at 1 cm and it didn't look like you were coming out any time soon.  I really didn't want to be induced, but you can only wait for so long!  I'll spare you some details, but we decided I'd go into the hospital the following Monday (October 25, eight days overdue) and start the induction process.  The plan was to then be called in some time on Tuesday and have my water broken and get going into labour.  With this timing, I knew MY OB would be doing it and she would be the one on-call the day I'd go into labour.  This timing also made it easy for Daddy, as he was able to tell work on Thursday that he wouldn't be back for a bit.

By the time we got out of the hospital on Monday it was after 7, and we got home around 8.  I had watched my contractions on a monitor and had no idea they were even happening.  I couldn't feel them at all.  When I got home I went straight to bed.  Daddy stayed up for a little bit and while he was still downstairs, I woke up shortly after 9 with mild cramping (which is typical with the catheter but may have also been contractions) so I decided to go to the washroom, since I was up anyway.  Good thing I did!  My water broke on the toilet!  You typically have a while between your water breaking and contractions getting regular but Dr. Chanda had asked that I come straight back if I thought I was going into labour, so we played it safe and headed out.

In the assessment room, I was 3-4 cm, gushing by the minute.  Daddy and I were both falling asleep, and I think that's part of the reason why I didn't feel some of the smaller contractions.  I have no pain tolerance whatsoever, so I was pretty surprised.  I knew I wanted an epidural at one point and was happy to hear that Dr. Brown was the anaesthetist on Monday night (Dr. Ademidun was the OB).  He's the anaesthetist I had met with last month to discuss whether or not I could get an epidural, as Dr. Chanda was worried because Morphine has no effect on me.  Unfortunately, Dr. Brown was in the midst of a major bowel reconstructive surgery, so he was two hours behind!  Because of that, there was a couple who had been waiting for him for a c-section all day as well, so I was third in line at best.  I was quite comfortable at that point but worried that I wouldn't be such a happy camper two hours later.

As the night went on and we moved into the labour and delivery room, you were progessing pretty slowly.  I didn't realize how much time had passed as I kept falling asleep but at one point they gave me Oxytocin because it was the wee hours and I was only at 5 cm.  Oxytocin made me even sleepier and you did not like it at all.  One stupid nurse woke me up rolling me over, screaming for me to get on my back because your heart beat had plummeted for no reason.  She started calling people into the room and just freaked, which - needless to say - terrified me.  She could have easily just woken me up and asked me to roll over and explained later, but no.  Full on panic mode.  They kept an eye on you pretty closely after that.

As for the contractions, they were getting stronger, and I still couldn't feel them.  I'd watch the monitor read up to 127 and not even flinch.  The nurses told me you typically feel contractions around 50!  I started to suddenly get reall uncomfortable at 6 cm, which is coincidentally when Dr. Brown had finished with the two other patients.  I remember the nurses asking if I wanted him to come before or after the other pregnant woman.  I said after, and the timing worked out perfectly.  The epidural was dreadful, though.  I couldn't sit properly in the bed because it sloped down so badly in the middle, and I guess it was hard for him to get a good spot because I'm so small in the first place.  He got it on the second try but it was terrible.  They kicked Daddy out of the room (protocol, as Daddys don't like to see Mommys in pain) and the nurse literally bent me over so that my head was between my knees at the side of the bed, and she held me like that until everything was done.  I've always been okay with needles in the past, but that was awful.  Worth it?  Absolutely.  I was very surprised at just how frozen I was.  Everyone says you can't feel the pain but you can still feel the pressure.  I felt nothing.  From start to finish, I probably felt three contractions that were almost comparable to my period, and that's it!

By the time 8:00 am rolled around, Dr. Ademidun was off and Dr. Chanda's shift was starting.  Yay!  I didn't have to be induced, and yet I still ended up with my own OB!  She checked up on me and made fun of my frozen state.  Dr. Brown actually checked in that morning too, even though he had been off at midnight.  Turns out he had stuck around for a few extra hours to give me my epidural.

With an epidural it drips straight down so if you were to just lie on your back it would puddle and go nowhere, so you have to lay on your left side to freeze your left, then your right for your right, and keep alternating every hour.  Needless to say, it wasn't long before I could not flip myself.  Nurses would wake me up and ask me to turn, and I'd successfully turn my shoulders and head lol.  That's it.  At one point the nurse had to ask for Daddy's help in moving the blanket beneath me, subsequently turning me over.  One woman actually picked up my left leg and it was total jelly.  Bizarre.

It wasn't long before Dr. Chanda mentioned a c-section if things didn't pick up.  I guess throughout the entire night and the few hours with her around before you were born, your heart rate kept dropping because of the Oxytocin.  I'd start to progess with Oxytocin but then your heart would drop so they'd take me off of it, but then the progess would stop entirely.  It's called Fetal Distress, and happens often, but it's not something to take lightly.  I went back to sleep hoping for the best.

When I woke up around 11 the nurses greeted me with warnings and potential dangers of c-sections.  They told me I hadn't progressed since my last check, and Dr. Chanda finally came in and said we had to go ahead with a section, unfortunately.  I thought I'd have some time to wrap my head around it but it was "We have to go with a cesarean.  The OR is getting set up now."  Literally five minutes later I was being wheeled away.  In a matter of minutes after that, you were born!