Evangeline decided to make an early appearance (she was due December 1). Her birth was not what I had planned or hoped for, but in the end the outcome was positive and the baby is beautiful.
My water broke right around midnight on Saturday, November 13. We called the midwife who had me wait an hour to be sure it was my water (it wasn’t as much as I’d expected) and meanwhile the contractions started fairly regularly. So early Sunday morning found us driving to the hospital thinking: “this is it, our baby is coming and she’ll probably be here today.” Boy were we wrong!
Almost as soon as we got to the hospital the contractions stopped. However, my water had indeed broken, so they wanted to keep me there. At first it was very hands off, just some monitoring and whatever I wanted. However, as the hours passed and the labor didn’t get going, the midwife stepped things up. The way my midwife practice works is that one CNM is on call for 24 hours, and when I got there it was a midwife I’ve really liked and a student. The student was really rough with internal exams, and this midwife turned out to be very negative. They were estimating the baby at 8 and a half pounds (wondering out loud if I could even deliver a baby that size) and kept telling me about the magical 24 hour window after my water broke. I just couldn’t get the labor going and soon it became clear that I was headed for a C-section. We tried Cytotec (I was reluctant but trying to avoid pitocin) and after 18 hours they started antibiotics and a pitocin drip.
Fortunately, it was then time for a different midwife to come on. She was no nonsense with me and told me I needed to change my attitude (little did she know that I’d had this 24 hour thing drilled into my brain since I’d gotten there and that I’d pretty much given up hope). She continued working to get me into labor, including doing some things to manually dilate me (yes, that hurts as much as it sounds like it would). After trying 2 manual methods to get me to dilate (about 40 hours after my water broke) I asked for an epidural. I didn’t even need to really say anything, she just looked at me as I started to ask and said “I think it’s that time.” So we started one, and actually, as it started so did some more regular contractions. She examined me again, now I was a “stretchy 3 cm” and discovered that the sac of waters was still mostly intact. So she broke it, and finally labor started. Having been on pitocin now for 20 hours, and my waters fully broken, the contractions set in, of course I didn’t feel them.
Midwife shift change. My primary midwife came on. At 11:30 pm on Monday she examined me and declared I was finally 4cm. For the first time I began thinking I might deliver this baby vaginally. Then around 3 AM I called them in to ask what it would feel like when I was ready to push, and after they explained I said “I think I’m ready”, an exam found me at 10cm (finally!). But they made me wait another hour (until I was begging and screaming to push) before they’d let me push. After that long they were worried I’d ware myself out before I delivered the baby.
An hour of pushing produced a baby girl! I tore a little but nothing major. She was placed immediately on my chest. After an hour or so we nursed. Then my blood pressure dropped dramatically and baby had to go with daddy for a little while so I could stabilize.
So I was really hoping for a low intervention, drug-free, vaginal birth. I got one of my wishes and a healthy baby. In retrospect, I think I was very fortunate. I had to have a hospital birth for my safety, but had I been at any other hospital or with any other care team, I think a C-section would have been the outcome. They let me go for 53.5 hours after my water broke. I’ve never heard of an OB being that generous. Even when the baby’s heart rate started dropping while I was pushing, they just had me stop for a few minutes and gave me oxygen (actually, they didn’t even tell me something was wrong).
Evangeline had great apgar scores (8 and 9) and all the nurses kept commenting on how healthy she was. I am so amazed that, in spite of all the interventions, she arrived so healthy.
My water broke right around midnight on Saturday, November 13. We called the midwife who had me wait an hour to be sure it was my water (it wasn’t as much as I’d expected) and meanwhile the contractions started fairly regularly. So early Sunday morning found us driving to the hospital thinking: “this is it, our baby is coming and she’ll probably be here today.” Boy were we wrong!
Almost as soon as we got to the hospital the contractions stopped. However, my water had indeed broken, so they wanted to keep me there. At first it was very hands off, just some monitoring and whatever I wanted. However, as the hours passed and the labor didn’t get going, the midwife stepped things up. The way my midwife practice works is that one CNM is on call for 24 hours, and when I got there it was a midwife I’ve really liked and a student. The student was really rough with internal exams, and this midwife turned out to be very negative. They were estimating the baby at 8 and a half pounds (wondering out loud if I could even deliver a baby that size) and kept telling me about the magical 24 hour window after my water broke. I just couldn’t get the labor going and soon it became clear that I was headed for a C-section. We tried Cytotec (I was reluctant but trying to avoid pitocin) and after 18 hours they started antibiotics and a pitocin drip.
Fortunately, it was then time for a different midwife to come on. She was no nonsense with me and told me I needed to change my attitude (little did she know that I’d had this 24 hour thing drilled into my brain since I’d gotten there and that I’d pretty much given up hope). She continued working to get me into labor, including doing some things to manually dilate me (yes, that hurts as much as it sounds like it would). After trying 2 manual methods to get me to dilate (about 40 hours after my water broke) I asked for an epidural. I didn’t even need to really say anything, she just looked at me as I started to ask and said “I think it’s that time.” So we started one, and actually, as it started so did some more regular contractions. She examined me again, now I was a “stretchy 3 cm” and discovered that the sac of waters was still mostly intact. So she broke it, and finally labor started. Having been on pitocin now for 20 hours, and my waters fully broken, the contractions set in, of course I didn’t feel them.
Midwife shift change. My primary midwife came on. At 11:30 pm on Monday she examined me and declared I was finally 4cm. For the first time I began thinking I might deliver this baby vaginally. Then around 3 AM I called them in to ask what it would feel like when I was ready to push, and after they explained I said “I think I’m ready”, an exam found me at 10cm (finally!). But they made me wait another hour (until I was begging and screaming to push) before they’d let me push. After that long they were worried I’d ware myself out before I delivered the baby.
An hour of pushing produced a baby girl! I tore a little but nothing major. She was placed immediately on my chest. After an hour or so we nursed. Then my blood pressure dropped dramatically and baby had to go with daddy for a little while so I could stabilize.
So I was really hoping for a low intervention, drug-free, vaginal birth. I got one of my wishes and a healthy baby. In retrospect, I think I was very fortunate. I had to have a hospital birth for my safety, but had I been at any other hospital or with any other care team, I think a C-section would have been the outcome. They let me go for 53.5 hours after my water broke. I’ve never heard of an OB being that generous. Even when the baby’s heart rate started dropping while I was pushing, they just had me stop for a few minutes and gave me oxygen (actually, they didn’t even tell me something was wrong).
Evangeline had great apgar scores (8 and 9) and all the nurses kept commenting on how healthy she was. I am so amazed that, in spite of all the interventions, she arrived so healthy.
