He Is Here!

I went in on Friday 11/16 8 pm for the induction.  When I got there and was checked, I was thrilled to find out all those contractions keeping me up at night earlier in the week had been productive – I was already at 4 centimeters!  Since I was at 4 centimeters my Bishops score was high enough that the Cervidil would not be needed and my doctor recommended we go directly to inducing with Pitocin.  For most women, a second labor averages about 9 hours from start to finish so we figured we’d have a baby by morning.   And I was already 4 centimeters along, so it might go faster! 

Me, the morning of the induction:

So Mac took Seda to grandma’s house and they started me on the Pitocin.  They started at a low dose of Pitocin and upped the dosage every half hour.  I lay down to get a little sleep and within an hour I was having mild contractions.  Mac came back and pulled out the husband bed to get a little rest as well.  The contractions were not bad, but I couldn’t sleep through them.  When they checked me after a few hours, I hadn’t made much progress but the contractions were starting to get stronger.  They were still easy enough for me to bear, but I put on my headphones and listed to music loudly to get me through them.  Soon, I woke Mac up to help me out by massaging my back during them.  The next time they checked, we were happy to hear I was at 6 centimeters!  Making progress and still not in enough pain to need medication.

Me, at six centimeters - I was still pretty enthusiastic and energetic at this point:

I had gone into this labor trying to have as few expectations as possible.  I would deal with the discomfort until it got bad enough that I couldn’t deal anymore and then I would get an epidural and not fret about it.  So far, the contractions were quite uncomfortable, but entirely manageable.  I was listening to music, sitting on the birth ball, moving my hips, and getting massage to cope with them.  Leaning forward helped a lot.  Laying back made them more painful.  

After a few more hours, it was getting close to dawn and I was getting exhausted.  The contractions were still bearable but taking more effort to work through, I hadn’t slept, and progress was slow.  My doctor recommended we break my bag of waters and I agreed.  I was mildly concerned about taking this step because breaking the amniotic sac means that the risk of infection rises if the baby does arrive in a timely fashion, but I figured I was at 6 centimeters already and it couldn’t be too much longer before the baby would arrive.  When they next checked me, I was at 6 centimeters, but the baby hadn’t descended into the pelvis really at all – he was still at –3 station to ballotable, meaning his head wouldn’t stay engaged in the pelvis.  He would slide back up between contractions.  As a result, the doctor was reluctant to break my waters because there is a slight risk that the umbilical cord will slip out before the baby and cause a cord prolapse, which is a serious problem that can result in the baby’s death.  So, she upped the dose of Pitocin and we waited a while longer.

At this point, it was early morning and I was exhausted and I knew that contractions would just get much worse once my water was broken.  It was going to be at least a couple hours before they would break my water and who knows how long after that before the baby was born.  The pain was still manageable, but I just mentally couldn’t handle it for that many more hours.  So I asked for and got an epidural.

Ah, relief!  It was so nice to have the constant waves of pain turned down to just pressure.  However, one of the drugs in the epidural (fentanyl) made me very itchy – it was driving me nuts.  They offered me Benadryl to combat the itchiness and even though I don’t generally like how antihistamines affect me I took it because the ants-on-skin sensation was driving me nuts.  Also, I was having trouble sleeping and knew Benadryl would make me sleepy.  The Benadryl did nothing for the itchiness but did make me really loopy and out of it throughout labor.  It made me drowsy and incoherent.  If faced with a similar choice, I would recommend you skip the Benadryl.

My doctor came in and decided to break the bag of waters herself carefully.  She did that and after an hour or two they checked and I was at 8 ½ to 9 centimeters!  Yay!  Maybe a baby soon?

It was around this time that I started feeling really nauseous.  Maybe it was the medication?  Maybe it was normal transition of labor nausea that often occurs at this point?  Whatever it was, I started throwing up.  And throwing up.  Until I had nothing to throw up, and then I just gagged.  And then I got really thirsty.  Really, really thirsty.  So I took a couple drinks of water. . . and threw that up.  Then I was so thirsty and my throat so dry I couldn’t stand it.  So I ate an ice cube.  And threw that up.

At this point, I had been at 8 ½ to 9 centimeters for 2 hours and my doctor was concerned.  Normally, this phase to should pass very quickly to delivering the baby – it was really abnormal to be stuck at this stage for that long.  But she wanted to give me a fair shot to deliver the baby vaginally.  She was certain that if we could get the baby to come down into my pelvis, birth would come very quickly.  So they upped the dose of Pitocin and a nurse came in to help me try some positions to bring the baby down into the pelvis.  This was around 5pm on Saturday, 20 hours after Pitocin induced labor.

I was vomiting and exhausted and in pain since the contractions were too strong for the epidural to fully relieve.  In addition, my epidural had run out of medication in the drip and the anesthesiologist was in a C-section and couldn’t come and replace the meds so it was slowly wearing off.  However, they said I was at 9 centimeters and if the baby could come down I would be done with this, so I decided to give it all I could for the next hour.  I got up on my hands and knees and moved my pelvis and bounced and did all I could to get the baby to come down.  I was in pain, thirsty, loopy on Benadryl, and vomiting the entire time, but I tried as hard as I could to open my pelvis and allow the baby’s head to descend.  At the end of the time, I swear I felt like I had run two consecutive marathons.  I was more exhausted than I had ever been.  If the baby hadn’t descended, I knew I was done for and they would have to remove the baby by whatever means they could because I couldn’t do it.

They checked me, and there was no change to my cervix and the baby was still at –3 station to ballotable.  His head hadn’t engaged at all.  My doctor recommended a C-section at this point since I had been at about 9 centimeters for four hours with no progress and my temperature was raised.  She was concerned that it might indicate the beginnings of an infection in me or the baby.  I knew I couldn’t do any more, so I agreed and they whisked me off to prep for surgery.  

I was still nauseous so they gave me some anti-nausea medication.  It did nothing for me.  So they gave me a different medication.  No help either.  So they gave me the last-resort anti-nausea medication, but I was still sick and wanted to vomit but could only gag.  I was thirsty, but I couldn’t drink anything.  I was like that during the entire one hour plus surgery.   It was miserable.

At 6:46 pm on 11/17, Daegan was born and the doctor said, “That’s why we were having so much trouble!  He’s a big boy!”  He was 9 lbs, 14 oz and he hadn’t descended into my pelvis at all.  His head wasn’t moulded at all – it looked like it hadn’t tried to engage at all.  The doctor thinks that his size stretched my uterus and my uterus wasn’t able to push him into the pelvis effectively so he just kept bouncing back up and out.  My uterus also wasn’t able to start contracting back down after he was removed and they had to give me added medication to get it to start contracting.  I lost a lot of blood.

Big boy! -

Despite all the misery, when I saw Daegan for the first time, I said “He’s so beautiful!  It was worth it!”  And it is a testament to the power of mother hormones that my next thought was “We need to have a hundred babies if they are all as perfect and wonderful as our first two have been!”  His name, Daegan, is an old Gaelic name that means “dark haired” so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when he arrived with his head covered in a coat of dark hair.  But Mac, Seda and I were all baldies at birth, so I didn’t expect it. 

Since I had a C-section I got to stay in the hospital four days.  I really enjoyed having the time to bond with the baby without dealing with the household.  Also enjoyed having a baby nursery to send him to when I needed to nap or shower.  Having abdominal surgery and then dealing with a newborn complicates things.  However, my baby is big and beautiful and healthy and I am recovering nicely.  It was a miserable experience, but all’s well.