Detailed Birth Story

On Sunday, November 20th, 2011, at around 9 p.m., I began to experience what felt like PMS cramps. Since it was still two weeks before my due date, I assumed they were Braxton Hicks contractions, but started timing them, just to experiment with the app I had downloaded to my smartphone. They were consistent in length, but sporatic in frequency. I called my OB’s office line anyway. I had been diagnosed with Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR - my baby was measuring much smaller than normal), and a biophysical profile the Friday before, my levels of amniotic fluid were on the lowest end of normal. They told me to drink some water, and pace for a little while, and that I did not need to come in until my contractions were 4 minutes apartment, 1 minute in length, and had been that way for an hour.

I drank a tall glass of water, and walked for about 30 minutes. After I went fourteen minutes without a contraction, I laid down to go to sleep.

About 30 minutes later, the contractions were back again, so I started timing again. This time, they were consistent in length AND in frequency: about 45 seconds long, two minutes apart. My Significant Other (hereafter called D.) urged me to call the doctors again. I felt silly, but I called again. The answering service answered, and remembered that I had called earlier. They told me they’d pass the new info along and a doctor may return my call in 30 minutes, but they were “busy.”

Thirty minutes passed with no return phone call and the contractions continued. It was beginning to be difficult to carry on a conversation during a contraction. D. made the “executive decision” to put the hospital bags in the car and head to the hospital.

It was about 11:30 at night, and our hospital was only 7 miles away, and yet, I don’t remember D ever driving so fast. We parked in the hospital’s garage. I told D. to leave all the bags in the car (I was convinced I wasn’t REALLY in labor, as it was still two weeks until my due date) and walked about 500 feet to the Emergency Room. The security guards at the door took one look at me and waved me through the metal detectors toward triage. I gave the nurse my information and she called for a wheelchair to take me up to the 7th floor, where the perinatal evaluation center was.

We got to the PEC, and had to sit in front of a window for several minutes while the intake nurse finished a (personal) telephone conversation. They took me to a bed, hooked me up to monitors and did an internal exam. I was 4 cm dilated. They told me the baby was on his way, and I was being admitted. They sent a phlebotomist to place an IV, and asked if I planned to get an epidural. I said yes. They told me the anesthesiologist was in a C-section, but was just about wrapping up.

We waited in the PEC what felt like FOREVER (D tells me we were there about an hour). D called both sets of parents. They finally sent a wheelchair to take me to my Labor and Delivery room. I remember being wheeled in and thinking “This is it. When we leave this room, we’ll have a baby.”


The room was gorgeous, with wood floors and paintings on the wall. And it was HUGE. They let me use the bathroom, then put me in the hospital gown. The doctor on rotation that night just happened to be my perinatologist! The resident doctor with him was the one who had performed a growth ultrasound on me three weeks earlier. The perinatologist joked with the nurses that I spent more time in the Maternal Fetal medicine office than he did.

D offered to go get the labor bag that was in the car, but the contractions were very strong and I didn’t want him to leave my side. Again, we waited. For what? The anesthesiologist, I guess. Nurses came in every once in a while to look at the monitors. I remember asking for water and they said I could have ice chips.

A little after 3 a.m., the anesthesiologist came in. She said she needed some bloodwork before she could place the epidural. I have a history of blood clots, and she needed to make sure my clotting factor wasn’t too high. However, the IV they had placed earlier had blown, so they couldn’t draw blood that way. My contractions were too close together to allow them to stick me to draw more, and they also couldn’t provide me with IV pain medication instead of the epidural.

The doctors, nurses and anesthesiologist were having a mini conference out in the hallway, when I felt intense pressure in my pelvis. It felt like the baby’s head was pressing to come out. I yelled that the baby was coming, somebody help me! D. ran to the door and yelled into the hallway for some help. A nurse came in, saying that it couldn’t be time to push yet, I still had hours to go. The doctor came in, did a quick exam and called to his nurses that the baby was coming NOW. I remember him saying to me that the baby was coming now, there wasn’t time for an epidural. I remember telling him I couldn’t do it.

In the blink of an eye, they had taken the lower half of the bed off and put me in a semi-reclining position. A nurse was at my left side. She told me her name but now I can’t remember it. She instructed D to hold my right leg, and that she would help me through it. As the next contraction came, she told me how to breathe through it. When the doctors were ready, she told me to push. I had forgotten everything from my childbirth class -- I didn’t know how to push! She told me to hold my breath and bear down. I closed my eyes and pushed while they counted to ten.

After three pushes, his head started to crown. They told me I could reach my hand down and feel his hair, but for some reason, I didn’t want to. I remember a nurse saying he had dark hair like his daddy. I also don’t remember feeling the “ring of fire” (the burning sensation when the baby’s head crowns). I remember the last push, with both the nurse and D cheering me on and telling me I could do it. I remember feeling his body slide out and the nurse telling me to open my eyes and look at my son. I remember he was purple, and still covered in vernix. I remember saying, “Oh my god.” I remember D turning away for a minute, and later he told me it was because he didn’t want the nurses to see him cry.

They placed him on a table to rub him down and wrap him up. I remember asking for him to be placed on my chest, but the residents were poking around “down there,” checking for tears. It hurt so badly. D heard the doctor telling the residents to give me a minute to rest. My hospital does not do routine episiotomies, and I got my with only superficial labial tearing, no stitches needed.

They gave him to me to hold, and all I could do was stare at him. His head didn’t “cone,” it was still perfectly round. He was 5 lbs 15.9 ounces and 19.25 inches long. I remember delivering the placenta and it felt larger than I thought it would be. I remember D taking my hand and telling me how amazing I was, and that after what I just went through, he couldn’t argue with me ever again (yeah, that didn’t last long, lol!).

The baby was so alert in the 30 or so minutes after birth. A nurse helped me latch him on for his first nursing session. It hurt, and I later found out he wasn’t latched correctly, but we fixed that before we left the hospital. I remember calling my parents, who had just arrived in the waiting room, that he was here. They were amazed; they had packed water bottles and food, prepared to wait all day. We waited another 30 or so minutes, bonding with our baby, before inviting them back to meet their first grandchild.