My first daughter was born when I was only 17. Even back then (1987) I knew I wanted a birth without pain medication. However, I didn't know about all the medical interventions that would be thrust upon me, making this a less than "natural" birth. I started to get a bit of pre-eclampsia toward the end of my pregnancy, and the doctor was about to go on vacation, so he decided we needed to induce. The baby was quite big, anyway, he said, and he wanted to be safe rather than sorry. I can easily see his point, and don't necessarily disagree with this decision. I remember the pitocin was started at 9:30 am, and around 2pm the nurse told me that she didn't think I'd be having the baby today, that I'd probably be sent home because I wasn't progressing. She was very cold all day, rather snippy really, and I couldn't help wondering if her attitude was because of my young age. After a while, the doc came and checked me, pronounced me 5cm dilated, and broke my water without warning me. He also attached an internal monitor to the baby's head. I HATED the IV, the wire screwed into my daughter's head, and the now much stronger contractions! Nonetheless, with no pain medication, I gave birth to my 8lb. 13 oz. daughter at 9:57 that night. The doctor gave me a triple episiotomy, which I never expected and have always regretted. I think that kind of ruined my muscle tone, frankly. The nurses also ignored my requests for breastfeeding only and gave my daughter bottles of sugar-water. Again, I couldn't help wondering if they ignored my wishes due to my young age. The hospital kicked me out the very next day, saying my insurance wouldn't cover any longer stay. I didn't feel ready to leave - exhausted and barely able to walk. I ended up back in the hospital a week later with a terrible infection and fever. Basically, my whole birth experience was not what I had expected or wanted, but I did manage to forego pain meds and came home with a beautiful, healthy daughter.
When I became pregnant over 20 years later, I knew I wanted a different birth experience this time. I created a birth plan, did lots of reading, watched The Business of Being Born, etc. Unfortunately, I had Kaiser for my insurance. With Kaiser you don't get to meet the person who will be delivering your baby until you go into labor. All my prenatal appointments were with a nurse practitioner, except one with an MD, and there was no way to know who would deliver my child - it would be whoever was on call when I went into labor.
My water broke at 3 in the morning when I was between almost 37 or almost 39 weeks along (almost 39 by my calculations, almost 37 by the medical personnel calculations). I was 38 years old, and I assumed since 21 years had passed between births, that I'd have a long labor like most first-timers. Wrong! Within an hour of my water breaking, we were in the car heading for the hospital. I noticed the contractions getting faster and more intense. We lived about 25-30 minutes from the hospital. When we were about 5 minutes away, I started getting the urge to push. I resisted, and didn't tell my husband for fear he'd freak out! At the hospital, I hobbled in and told the nurse "Baby's coming pretty fast!" They got me situated on a delivery table/bed, and made me get an IV of antibiotics since there hadn't had a GBS test yet. Still, no pain meds. The labor was so intense I couldn't open my eyes the whole time! Within an hour, my second daughter was out. It was only 2 hours and 45 minutes after my water broke. Her poor little head was all bruised up from the quick trip down the birth canal, but she was beautiful and healthy.
The REAL ordeal started at this point, believe it or not. Within a minute or two after they put the baby on my chest, they suddenly took her away, and the midwife who handled the delivery started reaching her hand up inside me (no kidding - almost to the elbow) and exploring around! I didn't know it, but apparently the umbilical cord snapped where it attaches to the placenta (because the midwife tugged on it, trying to hurry things along as there were 4 other women in labor). Since it broke, now she had to manually extract it, which only happens in 2% of deliveries. THIS WAS HORRIBLE!!! Especially since in my birth plan I had stated "Placenta to be born spontaneously without manual extraction – no post-delivery pitocin or pulling on the cord please" specifically trying to avoid this complication... but my way would take up to 45 minutes and she didn't want to wait. I guess a one-hour labor wasn't fast enough for her! She apparently started pulling within a minute or two of birth.
For 30 minutes she was reaching all around in my uterus trying to get it out. HELLISH PAIN!!!! I was screaming and crying and begging her to stop, trying to crawl backwards away from her, it hurt SOOOOO bad (and asking for my baby, and asking "why?" but not getting any answers). According to hubby, she was rolling her eyes while I was doing this -- witch! She kept threatening me that next we'd have to go to the operating room and use currettage (scraping) under anesthesia to get the placenta out, so hold still. I begged for a break, but she said no, I could bleed to death. Finally the on-call obstetrician came in because I was bleeding so heavy and screaming so much, and she took over. Much smaller hands, more compassion, more wisdom -- she immediately ordered that they catheterize me to get my full bladder out of the way, give me Fentanyl in my IV (never felt any relief though), and 10 minutes later it was finally over. I've since read other women's account of this experience and they agreed it was way worse than the labor.
I tore just a little during delivery, and got four stitches which I felt them stitching but didn't care by now as I finally got to hold my baby. I ended up in intensive care, but dd was fine. I was home in 36 hours. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there! Nice, clean, new hospital but that midwife jacked it all up by ignoring my wishes. Why do hospitals always do that?!
I'm pregnant again and worried my next labor will be even shorter. Also worried about whether my birth plan will be disrespected AGAIN. But I'm going to keep a positive attitude... as long as I get a healthy baby in the end, it's all worth it!
When I became pregnant over 20 years later, I knew I wanted a different birth experience this time. I created a birth plan, did lots of reading, watched The Business of Being Born, etc. Unfortunately, I had Kaiser for my insurance. With Kaiser you don't get to meet the person who will be delivering your baby until you go into labor. All my prenatal appointments were with a nurse practitioner, except one with an MD, and there was no way to know who would deliver my child - it would be whoever was on call when I went into labor.
My water broke at 3 in the morning when I was between almost 37 or almost 39 weeks along (almost 39 by my calculations, almost 37 by the medical personnel calculations). I was 38 years old, and I assumed since 21 years had passed between births, that I'd have a long labor like most first-timers. Wrong! Within an hour of my water breaking, we were in the car heading for the hospital. I noticed the contractions getting faster and more intense. We lived about 25-30 minutes from the hospital. When we were about 5 minutes away, I started getting the urge to push. I resisted, and didn't tell my husband for fear he'd freak out! At the hospital, I hobbled in and told the nurse "Baby's coming pretty fast!" They got me situated on a delivery table/bed, and made me get an IV of antibiotics since there hadn't had a GBS test yet. Still, no pain meds. The labor was so intense I couldn't open my eyes the whole time! Within an hour, my second daughter was out. It was only 2 hours and 45 minutes after my water broke. Her poor little head was all bruised up from the quick trip down the birth canal, but she was beautiful and healthy.
The REAL ordeal started at this point, believe it or not. Within a minute or two after they put the baby on my chest, they suddenly took her away, and the midwife who handled the delivery started reaching her hand up inside me (no kidding - almost to the elbow) and exploring around! I didn't know it, but apparently the umbilical cord snapped where it attaches to the placenta (because the midwife tugged on it, trying to hurry things along as there were 4 other women in labor). Since it broke, now she had to manually extract it, which only happens in 2% of deliveries. THIS WAS HORRIBLE!!! Especially since in my birth plan I had stated "Placenta to be born spontaneously without manual extraction – no post-delivery pitocin or pulling on the cord please" specifically trying to avoid this complication... but my way would take up to 45 minutes and she didn't want to wait. I guess a one-hour labor wasn't fast enough for her! She apparently started pulling within a minute or two of birth.
For 30 minutes she was reaching all around in my uterus trying to get it out. HELLISH PAIN!!!! I was screaming and crying and begging her to stop, trying to crawl backwards away from her, it hurt SOOOOO bad (and asking for my baby, and asking "why?" but not getting any answers). According to hubby, she was rolling her eyes while I was doing this -- witch! She kept threatening me that next we'd have to go to the operating room and use currettage (scraping) under anesthesia to get the placenta out, so hold still. I begged for a break, but she said no, I could bleed to death. Finally the on-call obstetrician came in because I was bleeding so heavy and screaming so much, and she took over. Much smaller hands, more compassion, more wisdom -- she immediately ordered that they catheterize me to get my full bladder out of the way, give me Fentanyl in my IV (never felt any relief though), and 10 minutes later it was finally over. I've since read other women's account of this experience and they agreed it was way worse than the labor.
I tore just a little during delivery, and got four stitches which I felt them stitching but didn't care by now as I finally got to hold my baby. I ended up in intensive care, but dd was fine. I was home in 36 hours. I couldn't wait to get the hell out of there! Nice, clean, new hospital but that midwife jacked it all up by ignoring my wishes. Why do hospitals always do that?!
I'm pregnant again and worried my next labor will be even shorter. Also worried about whether my birth plan will be disrespected AGAIN. But I'm going to keep a positive attitude... as long as I get a healthy baby in the end, it's all worth it!
