Kitten1929
LIF Adult
Member since 1/13 6040 total posts
Name:
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My crazy long labor and birth story!
It's taken me a few weeks to process my labor, and now I'm ready to share.
On 10/1, I woke up feeling awful, very crampy and lots of back pain. I had a midwife appointment that day, where she told me it was totally normal for 38w. We scheduled my induction for 10/13 since I had GD. My due date wa 10/14.
Later that day, the cramps turned into irregular contractions, and when I called the midwife back she said it definitely sounded like the start of labor and to go home and wait for my water to break. I took a nice warm shower that night, and at 11:30pm, it broke! It also NEVER stopped, which was weird. I leaked fluid for days. Even ini triage the next day, it just kept gushing out of me leaving puddles everywhere! No one I knew experienced that!
We went to the hospital the next morning, Wednesday, because I was concerned about the fluid. The midwife checked me, and even though I had regular, painful contractions all night,I was only a fingertip dilated. We decided to go home, wait, and be admitted later that afternoon. When we came back 5 hours later, I was only 1cm dilated. The midwife told me it could be days before I delivered because I wa progressing very slowly, and I laughed in her face! Yeah right, I thought. No one is in labor for days. I was moved to my room to begin the induction, which kept getting delayed since I had to be monitored for the GD first, then wait for them to administer the Cervadil. At 9pm I has the first Cervadil put in and I was told it would last for 12 hours. It fell out after 2. The contractions were getting much more painful at this point, so they gave me some pain meds while I waited for another Cervadil to be put in. A little after midnight they tried inducing again, but one again, it fell out when I went to the bathroom. At this point, I was so weakened from the pain of the contractions that I could barely even stand up or walk, and I remember thinking I was going to pass out just from those few steps.
As for the contractions, that was the worst night of my life. Nothing could have prepared me for the pain. They wracked my body so hard and so forcefully that I thought I was going to die. I had bruises for a week afterwards from holding the bed rails. I was delirious from the pain, it was a million times worse than I ever imagined. I was the woman screaming and crying and wishing for death! At about 4am, the midwife checked me and I had gotten to 4cm - over 24 hours after my water had broken - so I was given an epidural. I remember having a complete panic attack waiting for the epidural because I couldn't handle another contraction, and thank god for my nurse because she held me and helped me push though while they gave me the epi because they were coming so hard and so fast I couldn't even breathe. Once I has the epi, I was able to relax and rest a little better, but it was by no means a miracle.
At 7am on Thursday, my FAVORITE midwife came on and checked me. I was finally fully dilated! We were gonna have this baby by lunch time! I was feeling good, my DH, mom and 2 sisters were with me and we were just having a ball while we waited a few hours for the baby to descend. The nurses from the previous day came to check on me and we having a blast.
At noon, we began to push. There was some confusion about the epi, I don't know if it wore off or if I wasn't allowed to use my pain button, but I pushed for three hours without any drugs, in every position possible, pooped everywhere, and still the baby wouldn't budge. At this point, the pain was so unbearable I thought I would explode, and every single contraction was just crushing me, I said it was time to do a C section, I was beside myself and in tears, but my midwife said I'm not letting you give up yet unless you really want to stop. She suggested doing a sono to see if there were any issues. Baby was sunny side up, and wouldn't move down the birth canal. She explained that my absolute last option to have this baby vaginally would be for a doctor to manually turn him, then push some more. I have no idea why I agreed to it, but I think I truly thought that this was what labor was supposed to be like and this was what women had to do.
I ended up with a million doctors in my room, doped up on drugs...but NO amount drugs could dull the pain of 2 pair of hands up to their elbows inside my vajayjay and THEN the absolutely surreal and excruciating pain of my baby being turned around inside me. I remember seeing nothing but red, screaming my head off, thinking that my entire bottom area must have been blown to bits. I wanted to die. I figured I had probably torn myself a new asshole  I did tear, but not nearly as bad as I thought.
I was monitored very closely now since I had been continuously bleeding along with my fluid leaking and had spiked a fever. I had a few very scary moments where my heart rate soared, but the baby was always fine! The doctors were very strict now...I was allowed to push for only one more hour, with half hour breaks in between. I gave it my all, pushed with every fiber of my being, but my baby would not move, I'm crying just thinking about when my midwife stood up and said how sorry she was that I had gone through so much and now it was over, they were going to do a C. She just hugged me and me let me cry. I lost it. Not because I was upset that I was getting a C, but because I was so delirious I didn't even know what was going on. I know I was terrified and spent and just completely incapable of processing what was happening, I do remember seeing how scared my DH and mom looked. No one expected for things to happen the way they did. I feel like I put them though so much having to see me in such pain. After 60-odd hours of labor, to still not have my baby in my arms...I was numb.
The C was horrendous. I will not lie, I was in in no way mentally prepared for a C and although it went off without a single complication, I had a massive panic attack during it. I hated ever single second of it. I will never do that again. I I cannot describe how much I hated it. When the they got DS out they did everything so quickly they barely even showed him to me before they took him to the NICU. My DH and midwife took some pictures I could see him. When they were stitching me up I had another panic attack and they gave me meds to calm me down, but I kept thinking that I was going to die right on the table and never see my baby again,
DS spent two days in the NICU, simply protocol, because of my fever. And that whole experience was just so cold and clinical...I couldn't wait for him to get out of there, the nurses were not mean, but certainly not nice or comforting, I had to literally beg them to to release him to my room on the second day. I had issues with BFing him, which just added to my anxiety. My post partum care at Stony Brook was, IMO, severely lacking, they basically just checked to see that I was alive, offered no support or help after the trauma I has just endured. Luckily, my amazing friends and family more than made up for it.
What I can say that was positive about my experience at SB was the labor and delivery unit and my midwife. Words cannot describe the lengths they All went to to see me through to the end. Every nurse I had came to see me after the baby was born, my midwife stayed beyond her call time and held my hand during my C and told me I was amazing, that she never would have thought I would have made it all that way. I simply cannot rave enough about care I had prior to DS being born. Those men and women gave me strength to keep going when I didn't think I had anything left. DH and I are so incredibly grateful to them for making it through such an absolutely crazy experience with me.
Kevin John was born 10/3/13 at 5:28pm, weighing 7.8lbs and 21" long.
He is my world.
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