5 months ago ... (Part 2)

Arla was my first nurse and she met us at the front desk and led us to our room, hooked me up to pitocin and chatted for some time. The contractions started kicking in pretty quickly and slowly started to progress. I used the labor ball for the first few hours until my hips hurt from sitting that way for so long. It was my goal, going into labor, to stay unmedicated the entire time, or for as long as possible. The contractions were starting to get stronger and closer together, both of which were good signs, but it also meant there wasn't as much down time between contractions. We walked the halls some, I used the bed to change up my position, and back to the ball.

My doctor came down after her last appointment to check my progress around 5:30pm. I had been on pitocin for 5 hours and figured I should have made SOME sort of progress. Her news was not what I wanted to hear. i was still about 95% effaced, but only 3cm dialated. 5 hours, 1cm. ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?! I started to doubt whether or not I could go without an epidural considering I was having contractions right on top of each other at this point in time.

She felt there was still a small amount of fluid in the forebag, so she broke that after her exam. It was a good thing they induced me when they did as there was little fluid left around Elizabeth, and who knows how long that had been going on.

At this point I had a new nurse, Kristen. When Arla left, she told me to expect about an hour for each cm left, so about 7 more hours of contractions before pushing. That really got me wondering my strength, but I was going to keep pushing through the pain until it was completely unbearable.

After the doctor left, the contractions started getting a little more uncomfortable, and I was starting to get naseous while they were occuring. The greatest thing my nurse did for me was stand at my side while I was contracting at the ledge of the counter and whisper in my ear, "remember, you can do anything for one minute." I kept telling myself that.

By this time, nothing was helping me get through the painful contractions so I asked the nurse to start me a bath. I got in the warm bath and was finally able to really relax between contractions. My shoulders were finally able to rest instead of holding all the tension of each contraction. Mark commented how amazing it was sitting there and watching the rolling of the muscles contracting from top to bottom each and every time.

The bath was over, I needed to change positions and worked my way out of the bathroom back into the room where I felt something was different. My nurse recognized that I knew something was going on and asked me if I was okay. It was then I told her I felt like I needed to push. Less than an hour and a half after my doctor was in the room and I was at 3cm I was 98% effaced and about 9cm dialated. Wow that was fast!

The nurse got me up on the bed to check my progress and I cannot explain what a primal feeling it was to be pushing. Your body takes over and the urge to push was incredible. From here to the end was a blur. It took a little over an hour of pushing, or not pushing. Your body is pushing, but they were telling me NOT to push the whole time. Are you kidding me?!?!

She was starting to crown when the nurse called the doctor to my room. Mark stood by my side and held my hand, but watched the whole thing. The most vivid memory is of his face when she was really starting to crown, he looked back at me after seeing her head, bright eyes, big smile, and he exclaimed, "I can see hair!"

I think they actually told me to push a total of 3 times when she came gushing out. Seriously, the doctor had just finished getting on her last glove when she came out, head, shoulder, arms and legs, everything in one push. Needless to say, the doctor was caught a little off guard, and the nurse seemed to think it was pretty funny! (she said she had never seen the doctor so flustered)

I remember looking at Mark and saying "ow" only once, and the 'ring of fire' that is used to describe the pain during birth was hardly there. She was there, she was with me, labor was done and I had survived. She was tiny and she was perfect.

Now, for my next pregnancy, I think I might just have to camp out at the hospital a week before my due date if my first labor was only 7.5 hours (2.5 after full breaking of the water). It was scary because it was unknown, but I would willingly do it all over again!