opinions about my labor please

[joyakshi]

i'm trying to understand my labor. i intended totally natural and ended up with every intervention in the book. i used a midwifery group at a hospital birth center.

please read and tell me what you think happened:
due date 10/3/09. baby measured in 95th % at all u/s and prenatal appt's.
at 39 & 40 weeks i was 1 cm dilated. they tried to sweep my membranes at 40 weeks but could not.
at 40 wks, 3 days i started acupuncture for labor induction & took EPO. (i did it 2 days in a row and had a bad reaction the second time - hot, panicky, couldn't breathe etc... so i stopped).
At 40 weeks 5 days I lost my mucus plug.
I had been having long, intense, painless BH contrax for weeks.

Friday 10/9/09: at 40 wks 6 days, I was still 1 cm, and they did sweep the membranes. i started cramping right then, and odd pain low down around my cervix started an hour later at 5PM. the pain was coming in waves but i didn't identify them as contrax.

Sat. 10/10/09: by 1AM they were every 15 min. but i was sleeping in between, wondering if they were contrax or not.
by 6AM they were intense and I could not sleep through them. DH started timing. they were every 12-20 min.
I spent ALL DAY Sat. on the yoga ball leaning over the couch having DH do hip presses during contrax. they were still 7-15 min. apart. i could not walk/talk through them.
Was this back labor?
after DH talked to mw at 7PM Sat., we went to triage at hospital at 8. I was STILL 1 cm, but 50% effaced, and anterior. they offered morphine and to go home and sleep. I declined and we left.
I tried to eat a little at home and took a bath. I tried to eat again after the bath and immediately threw up. contrax were 6-10 min. and very painful. DH called mw and we went back to the birth center at 11PM for that morphine, came home and slept from 3AM-7AM.

Sun. 10/11: I was lying on the bed dozing off the drugs in between contrax, getting up to lean over the bed for hip presses and using the massage tools on my sacrum during contrax. every 10-20 min. from 7-11AM.
still back labor???
i tried to go to the yoga ball in the living room around noon and got caught walking during a contrax. and it was horrible. i managed to bend over a chair and yell for DH to do a hip press.
we decided to go to the beach around 1-2, and I was having mod. contrax every 7-20 min. there.
around 4PM, we were home and they started changing. coming every 5-12 min. and excruciating. i could not eat or drink all day.
by 7PM Sunday we called the mw on-call, contrax were all of a sudden 4 min. apart. (all my contrax were lasting 2+ minutes).
we go to triage around 9PM. i was 2.5 cm. i could not walk, talk, and i was PISSY. I told them to admit me or give me morphine. they finally admitted me at 11 or midnight! contrax were 2-4 min. apart and unbearable. i took a jaccuzi bath which did nothing. they gave me fentanyl which did nothing. they wanted me to walk, but i could not.

Monday, 10/12: at 2 or 3AM i demanded my epi which they didn't want to give me. they wanted to check me first. i said NO WAY!
at 4AM i got my epi!!! then they checked me & i was 4cm. after 50 hours of labor!!!
i was 5 cm at 7am and around 8am my water broke - MECONIUM they said baby will go right to NICU table for suctioning and we can't cut the cord or have immediate skin-skin contact.
she checked me again and i was 6cm!!! but 2 hours later i was back at a swollen 5cm. mw said baby's head was asynclitic, or catywompus but facing my left side.
they inserted a uterine monitor and my contrax were weak - barely 200.
we started pitocin at 11AM and baby's HR was decelerating to 70-80 bpm during contrax, my BP was getting up there - 150/80, and i stopped dilating. so we stopped pitocin. started it again around 1 pm and eventually got to 12 units that baby could tolerate. they found there was still a part of the amniotic sac at baby's head so she broke it.
of course I consented to all this intervention. btw- they had me turning from side to side every hour in the bed, and the epi wore off and i could feel intense mid-low back pain and anterior uterine pain. i couldn't talk thru those contrax til they upped my epi dose.
we went all day Monday waiting, and by late afternoon, baby started to decel again, I got a slight but increasing temp, and no more dilation. baby never engaged either - i was at +3 still.
by 8PM DH was ready to ask the mw for a C-section. i could have waited til the next morning, but mw said no. it'll be an emerg. c-section if we wait.
So at 10:45PM on 10/12/09, Roslyn Sadie was born(!) via C-section. 8lbs 14.5 oz, 20 inches long. It was amazing and I was relieved and grateful for every intervention (except they also had to use a vacuum during the c-section to get her out). we had great contact with baby immediately after the NICU cart and BF right away and of course she roomed in with me & DH for 3 more days.
but my question is: WHY THE 70 HOUR NON-PROGRESSING YET EXCRUCIATING LABOR??

ps-They also said the cord was wrapped around her shoulder, under her arm and over her head. maybe that made it too short for her to descend?

[tmareeh]

Hope you don't mind me intruding... I'm in the Jan. DDC.

I would say the most important thing to keep in mind is that labor almost never goes how you think it will! You did everything you could on your part, and it sounds like you were informed about the choices you made for interventions. Isn't that the point?

Secondly, I would say that it sounds like the baby was posterior. Did your midwife mention that possibility? A posterior baby will cause a lot of back pain during and between contractions, but because the head is not positioned correctly, the contractions won't be "effective" enough to dilate the cervix. I'm guessing that is what they meant when they tried to give you a number that rated your contraction. The reality is that no one can tell you how the pain actually feels to you. So, don't let them undermine your pain by rating your contractions as not very intense.

I just wanted to respond to you, because your birth sounded similar to my first. It was really hard for me to accept that I didn't have the natural birth I had wanted. I kept thinking I could have tried harder. After my second birth, (which was a natural, water birth) I realized that you just get what you get with labor, and you have to work around it. I do think it's crucial to be informed, but you really have very little control.

I hope you are doing well!

[StephM76]

I'd say you had back labor. Your labor sounds like my labor with my first DD-back labor. I was in agonizing pain for 48 hours and only made it to 3cm. Once I got the epi I progressed quickly. But it was very hard, ad an unbearable exprience. Once I experinced labor with a LOA, I knew that the without the pain medication I would have never made it through that labor. I would have to say that the pain of early back labor is just as intense as the final stages of transition with a LOA baby.

I know its hard because you wanted a natural birth, but I think you really made the right decision with what you were presented

[completebeginnings]

Please take my opinion with a grain of salt.
Fist don't beat yourself up. Second I have seen so many hard long and ineffective labors with a malpositioned baby brought on by stripping of membranes. It just often makes it harder much like yours. Don't dwell on it too much and just plan mentally and physically for a VBAC. Just because you had a long hard labor the first time doesn't mean it will always be that way. My first was 36 hours and my second was 4. I didn't do anything differently.

Allowing your body to go into labor completely on its own usually makes for easier labors. Who knows about the cord. I recently helped catch a baby at home with the cord around the neck 3 times plus over shoulder and between the legs and around the torso 2 times. Everything was fine. Just don't over think it. Maybe contact your local ICAN chapter.

[Pookietooth]

I was thinking the sweeping was at least part of the problem, but I'm no expert.

[boobs4milk]

hugs. i had everything but the c-sec so i'm no help really.

[Friendlee]

My labor really made no sense to me either and I, too, am struggling with the "why". I'm not necessarily beating myself up about it, but I would really like to understand what happened. If anything, so I can prevent some of those things next time. I am desperate to find the link between women who birth orgasmically and women whose births are pure agonizing hell (mine). I even used hypnobabies and had an amazing doctor and doula (and my mother and my husband). I couldn't have asked for a better environment or support group. It's hard not to be disappointed and feel like my body let me down. I hear that the premise of many calm and delightful births is to trust your body...I did...until this. Now, how am I supposed to trust my body as I go into next time?!

Joyakshi: All I can offer is commiseration. I can't imagine why things didn't progress but remained so painful. It doesn't seem to follow a typical labor. So, why, then was it so atypical for you? I don't get it. I'm sorry. I know you're enjoying your darlin baby anyhow, but I know how we mamas still ruminate for weeks and months over the intense experience of birth.

[completebeginnings]

Joyakashi-
I have found that women often over analyze a labor when they have a high needs baby as well. So just give yourself a little break and take a look at it a bit later. My first sounds very similar to your little one and I definitely beat myself up about the labor because I was already so exhausted. Makes sense right...

[joyakshi]

thanks for all your replies. first I'll say that I actually loved my experience and feel the birth was amazing. I don't feel the loss of the natural childbirth or regret the c-section. I was truly grateful and relieved at the time, and still am. (i did 2 days of natural labor!!!)
I have just been confused that my contrax were so painful but not much was happening. plus when the mw's kind of dismissed me in triage and said it was "prodromal" it kind of invalidated the labor I was experiencing and made me feel like I was a wuss and didn't work hard enough to manage the pain, although I know i did really well for 2+days.
b/c of the m/w on-call, I never really believed I was in labor till Sunday night when I was in excruciating pain and had started dilating and by then it was so intense i couldn't function.

tmar & Steph: it's good to hear that early back labor is as bad as transition with OA babies. when I was in the tub at 4cm, I just knew I'd never get through transition without the epi. plus the nurse & mw kept saying I had a long way to go and it's going to get worse. I was also so exhausted b/c I couldn't sit down for 2 days, my legs were shaking. I just wanted to rest for 10 minutes...I kind of think her head was crooked and getting caught on the ramus of my illium. it felt like bone-on-bone pain. i think she couldn't get into the birth canal at all due to this and maybe that's why i wasn't dilating, and why it was so painful. it did not feel like menstrual cramps at all. I had no uterine or cervical pain. it was all low central pelvic bone pain.

complete beginning: yes, I've wondered if the membrane sweep complicated things, especially b/c the mw who did it had kind of overbearing and controlling energy. but i've also heard it won't do anything if you aren't ready, and when I had it attempted at 40 weeks, it did nothing. i had to get labor going b/c i had every "normal" pg symptom in the book but worse. I couldn't breathe or sleep or eat b/c I was so swollen my throat was closing up and I had terrible heartburn; my BP was higher than ever; I couldn't walk without getting completely out of breath to the point where after a couple steps I had to bend over and huff and puff to catch my breath; i had unexplained tingling of my entire upper body; and the list goes on....

DH's mom & sister also had 9lb babies with each of their 4 babies and they both had to be induced for each of their babies. even though my mom had short labors, on time or early with medium sized babies, I think DH's genes were in charge with this one!

I've also wondered if the epi stalled things, but i've also heard the epi can get things going in an exhausted or stressed woman.

the mw and nurse both said that if it had been the 1800's, my labor would have gone on for days and had a bad outcome.

my baby had been breech for 37 weeks. I had a painful version at 37 weeks that i managed fine. i kind of think she wanted to be breech and it would have been fine if i could have delivered a breech baby.

oh well, it's nice to process my labor, before our DDC closes!

[Pookietooth]

to you.

[Friendlee]

"I had no uterine or cervical pain. it was all low central pelvic bone pain."

That's EXACTLY what I was feeling too. It was my first baby and I didn't know if what I was feeling was normal or not - it didn't feel right and it went on and on and on and on despite lots of raspberry tea, freedom to position, warm water, etc. She seemed to just be stuck at some point. Man, if I could figure out how to avoid pelvic BONE pain again, I would be so happy.

Anyone???

[joyakshi]

Friendlee: weird. did you have a c-section too? it must be a weird positioning thing with the baby. It really didn't feel right to me either, not that I expected it to feel "right", it just felt really wrong, and not just b/c it was excruciating. like - the wrong kind of pain...
I don't really feel it was back labor either as I didn't have back pain, although hip presses and pressure on my sacrum were required to manage the contrax. I felt it more on the inside of the top side of my left hip socket. I did have a car accident 13 years ago and the right side of my sacrum twists down and forward since then. maybe it's structural with me? or the chiro I went to to get my breech to turn messed me up. I had pain ever since she adjusted me...

Also, I'm 39 and this was my first (only?) baby. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

[kathleen_mary]

Originally Posted by joyakshi

Friday 10/9/09: at 40 wks 6 days, I was still 1 cm, and they did sweep the membranes. i started cramping right then, and odd pain low down around my cervix started an hour later at 5PM. the pain was coming in waves but i didn't identify them as contrax....

I spent ALL DAY Sat. on the yoga ball leaning over the couch having DH do hip presses during contrax. they were still 7-15 min. apart. i could not walk/talk through them.
Was this back labor?....

they inserted a uterine monitor and my contrax were weak - barely 200.
we started pitocin at 11AM and baby's HR was decelerating to 70-80 bpm during contrax....

ps-They also said the cord was wrapped around her shoulder, under her arm and over her head. maybe that made it too short for her to descend?

What you wrote could practically be MY birth story, almost exactly except my midwife broke my water after I stalled out at 6cm. I was at 6 cm for another 10 hours after that, and then they started pitocin, which I apparently am very sensitive to, because it gave me a "super contraction" i.e. one that did not stop. After 5 minutes they gave me the medicine to counteract it, but that was fairly horrible. After that, I gave up on the "natural" pain management and asked for an epidural. That ended up being good because the decelerations with the baby's heart got bad after that and we had to do the c-section right away. Same thing with the cord, although I still wonder if that happened when she broke my water, and maybe if I hadn't had that done there would have been hope to reposition her. Although her head was pretty firmly engaged, although at a bad angle. She had this crazy ridge in it when she first came out.

I seriously cried every time I thought about the birth for about two weeks. It was just sooo not how I imagined it. And I felt like such a failure as a mother. Especially after having some breatfeeding challenges at the beginning, and the baby lost a lot of weight, etc.

I'm kind of coming to peace with it now, though. It is what it is. I don't think I did anything wrong. In fact, in reading about it, I was doing everything right - on my hands and knees, frequent position change, not lying on my back (it was actually really unbearable to be lying down or sitting at all).

And I like what you said, Joyakshi...we did two days of natural labor! My DH was there, there was music and singing and it really felt like a bonding experience.

[kjs]

I have a hard time dilating as well, have had two back labors and one without back pain, and each time I stalled at 4cm. I will say that labor with back pain is a completely different kind of labor....so much harder. I did not get any breaks in bewtween contractions, just one long bone-crushing stab of pain in my back. When DS1 was born without back pain is was so much more bearable, and the labor progressed so much faster. Labor #1 and #3 were posterior, and it is a TOTAl game changer as far as my tolerance goes, as well as how effective the contractions are.

[Therese's Mommy]

You can't beat yourself up about it. I am no birth professional, have only had 3 kids, and only 1 was completely natural (no induction, absolutely no drugs), but these are my thoughts. I wouldn't have been checked so often, especially before labor had begun. I think hearing you are 1cm dilated, especially hearing that 2 weeks in a row can be discouraging. My belief about cervical checks is that they can be discouraging regardless of the news. If you have little/no dilation you are discouraged, if you have good dilation and don't start labor soon you can be discouraged. I think cervical checks set us up for a bad psychological mindset. I believe the right frame of mind is *very* important for labor. I also am not a fan of membrane sweeps. I think that you need to try as much as possible to let labor begin on it's own. That being said, I did consent to a membrane sweep this time. My water had been leaking for over 24 hours and my mw needed to check to see what was going on. Since she needed to check me anyway I consented to the sweep. I went into labor 2 hours later and then had only 5.5 hours of labor. I have no idea if the membrane sweep helped labor start, but I would not have consented to one had she not already been in there. And I never would have consented to a cervical check had my water not been leaking.

Personally, I think the best thing you can do is look at your labor, recognize the cascade of interventions and from it try and learn how to avoid the cascade of interventions in the future. Also, you need to know that there is a possibility that yours was one of the few sections that were needed and even if it could have been prevented you can't beat yourself up about it. What's done is done, you have a healthy baby and you need to be grateful for that. Just prepare yourself for next time.

[GoBecGo]

This is a perspective based on one labour experience, a lot of reading and some familiarity with the overall process...i'm not a birth professional, so grain of salt please!

My DD's labour began (after FIVE stretch-and-sweeps) with ROM at 3am in bed. I had some vague tightenings before then, but nothing very painful - i'd been dreaming i had my period. After they went i had contrax every 12-15mins, which i slept between. By 7am sleeping meant i woke up mid-contraction in real pain, so i gave up sleeping and sat up instead. By 9.30am they were every 10-12 and painful, but i could still talk (in a very strained voice) through them. At about 11am i went out for a walk with my friend. I couldn't walk through contractions but i just stopped and hung onto her or a nearby object (lamppost, flower container, etc.) when they came. I had REALLY fierce back pain during contractions by then. I had this horrible moment at the start of every ctx where i wondered if i should lean on my friend or lean on something less comforting but have the friend press my sacrum instead. We got in about midday, ctx were every 5-7 and i couldn't talk, walk or think during them and the ball of hot pain was in my back ALL THE TIME, i was getting really tired and defeated from relentless pain. I got into a warm bath (we had a planned HB) and XP called the midwives. The bath really helped the between-ctx-pains but didn't do much for the ctx themselves. The midwives said it sounded like i was in early labour and someone would come in a few hours.

I stayed in the bath. By 2pm i was moaning through every contraction as i had a mild pushing urge and SO much pressure in my back. The midwife came at 2.30pm. I was 2-3 (i'd been 2 for nearly 3 weeks - i was at 41+4 when labour began), 50% effaced, DD was at +1 and we were "not at all in labour". Baby is posterior, she said, and i think maybe tilting his head - this might be a long one. You'll probably dilate slowly, you got in the bath too early really. Then she left, LAUGHING as she left "and don't push!". I was in serious pain. She left to go back to the hospital, saying she'd come back in a little while. I was frantic. Between contractions i screamed at XP that i needed an ambulance, i needed an epidural RIGHT NOW, and a c-section or my back would break and i would push and rip my insides to shreds.

At about 3pm my labour deviated from yours entirely. I got out of the bath and tried knee-chest for a contraction. It was so painful. I cannot tell you. It felt like someone twisting my guts into a rope and then trying to tear them out through my butt. There was a TON of pressure, scraping of bone on bone (seriously how it felt) as DD's entire body moved inside me. I pooped, i felt like my butt was going to rip right off. It was horrible, as it ended i LEAPT up (nearly 42 weeks gone too!) and told XP i was NOT getting down on the floor again.

Now i know, in retrospect, that DD rotated and tucked herself in in that contraction - she was indeed malpositioned and by the grace of someone (not ME) she managed to turn at that point. Anteriorly presented her head began to descend immediately, she was born 3 hours later (despite the midwife coming back and insisting i wasn't in labour yet up until her head was born to the ears). She too had the cord around her and i think she actually was about 90degrees off anterior but had to do a 270 turn because of the cord to actually GET anterior. That contraction was one of the few we timed and it was over 90 seconds long.

It sounds to me like your baby was indeed posterior and asyclintic, and perhaps because she was a bit biggish (though not huge) this meant she really couldn't descend properly into the pelvis and get her head against the cervix in a way which would make a difference. Pressure on the cervix leads to production of oxytocin which makes stronger contractions. This system means that a malpositioned baby will NOT (without intervention) be pressed down hard against the cervix/pelvis, which minimises the chance of danger to the babe and injury to the mama during a natural labour. That system falls down, however, if the baby cannot re-orient themself - possibly the cord, possibly lack of space, possibly something else obviously prevented your DD from being able to reposition the way my DD did. In that case labour would usually stall, or the mother die of exhaustion (imagine if you'd gotten to the cannot-eat-or-drink stage and had to stay there with no access to pain relief or IV fluids for days...). Ultimately the outcomes of those situations (where babe is ready to be born but cannot get into a position to bring about dilation) do not have good outcomes without medical intervention.

From reading what you posted you seem to have tried repeatedly all the things which might have helped, and they must have made some difference because the ventouse-c-section indicates that however "high" your DD still was she was well-and-truly wedged down in the direction of the exit. I think the NORMAL pain of labour already varies massively, and that is between women with pretty well positioned babies. When the baby is pressing down against places which were not designed for that prolonged pressure and unable to get out of the way a cervix can (like your sacrum, or the girdle of your pelvic inlet) very very debilitating pain is common, even when the machine says the contractions aren't "strong" - when the baby was directing labour it was as strong as you and your baby could bear - in normal circumstances that is safest. But your babe couldn't get her head aligned just right, despite everything you tried.

I only had 12 hours of "prodomal" labour, i cannot imagine how you bore it for DAYS. It was incredibly disheartening to be told over and over that i wasn't in real labour (which continued right up until she was born), i can't imagine how you dealt. My DD was a high needs baby, and the pattern of her labour DOES reflect in her overall life - she will spend 80% of the available time trying to do a task the hard way before accepting advice and then *just* pulling it off at the end, over and over, i see the pattern repeat. Maybe her labour coloured my view of her, or maybe they REALLY do do it their own way from birth onwards. I don't know. But don't feel bad, you did everything you could and she came the way she had to.

[mamabutterfly]

First of all, yo uwent through a lot!

Someday, maybe if you are trying for #2 down the road, look at Penny Simkin's "Labor Progress Handbook". Things that can inhibit labor's natural progress sometimes can include:
posterior position
asynclytic head (you had both maybe?)
labor being started before it starts on its own
baby having dificulty descending (cord in your case maybe)
experience of stress on mama's part (this is harder to define/control than we might think - not just a matter of "relaxing"!)

Seems like those were all factors for you. Also, not to say you did anything 'wrong' but just since you asked what might have prolonged that early stage, I always learned as a doula for many women that when the head is wonky (not LOA), it is usually best not to try to engage it/bring it down through squats, birth ball, etc. So all those early hours on the birth ball maybe didn't help the baby to turn - even though I know people say that the birth ball is "good for labor," it's only true in the right situations/right times, IME. With a baby that needs to rotate, usually one might recommend hands and knees, lunges, childs pose, etc. Again, I only mention this to help address your question.

Also does seem like the turn from breech would have been tough on you both, gotten her tangled up maybe!

Congratulations on your beautiful baby girl!

[Friendlee]

Originally Posted by joyakshi

Friendlee: weird. did you have a c-section too? it must be a weird positioning thing with the baby. It really didn't feel right to me either, not that I expected it to feel "right", it just felt really wrong, and not just b/c it was excruciating. like - the wrong kind of pain...
I don't really feel it was back labor either as I didn't have back pain, although hip presses and pressure on my sacrum were required to manage the contrax. I felt it more on the inside of the top side of my left hip socket. I did have a car accident 13 years ago and the right side of my sacrum twists down and forward since then. maybe it's structural with me? or the chiro I went to to get my breech to turn messed me up. I had pain ever since she adjusted me...

Also, I'm 39 and this was my first (only?) baby. I wonder if that has anything to do with it.

I actually had a natural and vaginal birth. No back labor - but once the ctx took a turn to feeling like the bone crushing stuff, it was constant without any breaks. No waves of pain or pressure, just constant and I screamed like hell for about 7 hours (dilating from 5 to 10). My mom couldn't figure out why there was never a peak or a break. This was something I felt angry about - no break whasoever. Not even a smidge of lowered pain to gear up for the tougher pain. It just piled on and I think the ctx were breaking, it was just this bone thing that took over and was worse than the ctx. I wish I'd tried the hip pressure thing (it felt good during pregnancy) but during labor I couldn't help screaming if anyone touched me or tried to maneuver me. I never had any structural damage to link it to, but I was told I have a narrow pelvis.

[joyakshi]

Thanks to each of you for your very well thought out responses and sharing you own personal stories. It's informative to hear about back labor, posterior labors and how bad they can be. And how minimized the medical staff can make them seen.

I do believe that every woman's labor is different, and that each labor for every woman can be very different from previous labors.
I also agree that without some of these medical interventions, outcomes can end up bad.

I do believe my c-section was actually one of the necessary ones. We waited and tried as long as as much as we could.
I really don't know if the sweep caused the not-readiness. I think it could have caused 2 days of "prodromal labor", but I had a pause Sunday afternoon, and then things really got going. I think my labor could have stalled altogether if I really wasn't ready, but the fact that it kicked into high gear after the pause (mild contrax 20 min apart for a few hours) makes me think I might have just gone into hard labor Sunday on my own if I hadn't had the sweep (although I might have avoided 2 days of "prodromal" labor).
I also truly believe pregnancy and labor and birth is all about the baby's personality. I know my baby made me realize that even if her birth wasn't all natural and ecstatic, it was still more amazing than I could have imagined because she was born out of it, and it was her process.

GoBecGo - I really appreciate your experience and comments - they make a ton of sense to me and feel pretty right on about what happened.

I was well read on avoiding interventions and read all the Ina May books, watched Orgasmic Birth and the Business of Being Born, and did hypnobirthing etc...
I think there is a dis-service in some of that stuff in that it made me think if I did all the prep right, I could have a painless natural birth. They also make you feel that it's your responsibility and within your control to have a natural birth if you do everything right, when it really isn't. And that the baby will suffer if there aren't candles and water (which I wanted). My baby was happy and calm and alert and nursed right away, even after the drugs and NICU suctioning. Those books and methods don't mention that you can do all the prep and the birth plan and still have it end up excruciating and out of your control. I think my intuition in those moments told me to go for the interventions for both of our health and safety. I knew that without them things would be bad for me and/or baby. I actually feel I've had childbirth go wrong in past lives (I grew up terrified of pregnancy and childbirth and I always said I'd never have kids until 5 years ago (after an unexpected pg loss when I realized I very much wanted to have a baby)). I very consciously chose to have this baby and I think doing this in this lifetime and having it succeed (with medical help) has changed some karma for me. I had to have a past-life regression to get pregnant with this baby. We tried for 16 months and finally conceived the cycle after my regression. of course I was on fertility meds, too, but I had been before also with no luck...

anyway, thanks again. It's been great to process my labor and hear your stories and get more ideas on what might have happened.
Congrats on all your babies' births!

[fyrebloom]

I think you had a case of a baby not really 100% ready to be born, and malpresentation. Prodromal hurts like a mofo, but it's really good at getting babies into position and toning your womb. I think that hospital midwives really don't get positioning issues like they should and in your case added on the interventions. A few things that probably could have saved you the pain of a c-section and a 70 hour labor would have been identifying the baby's position prior to labor onset, using spinning baby techniques and use of abdominal support to get the baby up and floating for maximum ease of spinning... this includes during labor. When the baby is low and engaged it's harder for them to move to an anterior position and the fact that you started to swell closed was a strong indicator of the fact that you had a baby in need of spinning.

As for your interventions, meconium rarely needs deep suction. Luckily you didn't have trouble breastfeeding as a result, but many women (myself included) have babies who refuse to suck after. It's rare that meconium, even particulate meconium will cause a prob with the baby after a vaginal birth.

The epidural was likely the first step down the slippery slope, even though it gave you great pain relief. I think you would have managed better if you had had a practitioner who knew to get the baby up and spinning you would likely not needed it.

Pitocin may have been the deciding factor in your need to have a surgical birth. I'd be curious to know what they started you on as far as dosing and why they felt that a mother dilating on her own warrented this. Many many babies go into distress after pit.

The section itself was needed at that time, but likely could have been avoided if your practitioners hadn't been so into the medical model of care. Labor takes time, sometimes labor is slow and painful. Sometimes you contract fast, sometimes only every 10-15 min. A woman's body is really far smarter then any midwife and it's important to listen. Push to hard and you put the baby into distress or worse. Maybe in your case it was the cord, but cords rarely cause problems, but it could have in your case. We'll never know.

I guess do what you can to disect the experience and process it all. Do know that if you have another and attempt a vbac, it's likely to be completely different then this experience. Every baby is.

Oh and don't blame yourself, what happened happened. You did a great job in really really tough circumstrances. 70 hours is herculean!