At about 1:20am on Friday, July 18th I woke Jason up and said, "I guess we're having a baby today--my water broke!!" We were both surprised and little bit nervous because it was 5 weeks early. I wasn't having any contractions or pain, so after talking to the on-call nurse, I stayed up and got a few things done (laundry, dishes, cleaning, etc) to try to get the contractions started. A few hours later, after dropping the boys off at a friend's house (Kelsey was at Girl's Camp!), Jason and I headed to the hospital. We arrived at about 4:30am, checked in and got ready to have a baby!
At that point, I still wasn't having any contractions, so I asked if I could walk for a while. The doctor said I could after they got a good monitoring of the baby. Well, the baby didn't cooperate very well, so it took a while to get a good monitoring before they would let me walk. By that time it was 7:55am. They said I could walk for 1 hour and then see if anything was happening. Walking was incredibly uncomfortable for me, but I had my heart set on having a natural birth, so I was willing to walk as long as they'd let me to get things going. I really, really didn't want to be given pitocin to start the contractions. Unfortunately, after the walk, I wasn't having regular contractions and I was only dilated to 2 cm. I was a little disappointed that I wasn't further along than that, but I knew that we needed to get the contractions started since it had already been several hours since my water broke. The nurse, Brenda (who was very supportive of my desire for a natural birth), started the Pitocin at a very low dose. But as the hours passed, we had to increase it significantly to get the contractions to come regularly. The day passed very slowly as the contractions got harder and harder. I wanted to be mobile (stand and walk in the room) during the labor to help things along, but the nurse couldn't get the mobile fetal monitor to work very well so they finally made me stay in the bed. I was still firm in my decision for a natural birth and no epidural, but it seemed like a lot of things were working against me!
The contractions continued to get harder and longer and I felt like they were surely doing something--but when Brenda checked me again, I was only dilated to 3 cm!! I couldn't believe how little progress I had made after how hard I had been working. I was disappointed again. So the Pitocin had to be increased once again. After a few more hours of hard contractions, I was only 4 - 5 cm dilated. I was not progressing very quickly and I was losing steam. The contractions were getting so painful and hard to bear. I know I said, "I can't do this!!" to Jason over and over. He was such a good support, though, and kept telling me that I could do it and I was doing it! However, I finally got to a point that I really felt like I couldn't do it anymore. I was so tired and the contractions were so painful. I was extremely discouraged at how slowly the labor was progressing--this was not the labor I had planned in my mind. Brenda suggested I use a pain medication "to take the edge off" of the contractions. She said the medication would not stop or slow down the contractions, but it would help me relax. I agreed to do it and within a few minutes of receiving the medicine (Stadol), I was feeling much more relaxed and a bit loopy...The medication did nothing for the pain of the contractions, but it did help me relax significantly in between the pain. Jason says that I said some pretty funny things, but that few hours is kind of a blur to me!
Because that time is fuzzy in my mind, I'm not sure of the timeline after I received the medication, but eventually I got to 8 cm sometime after 6:00pm. From then until the birth of Spencer was very, very fast--maybe 15 - 20 minutes. The doctor was still putting on his gloves when I said I HAD to push. The urge was so strong I couldn't have stopped it even if I tried! The pain of the delivery was so intense--it was an awful, searing, burning pain, but I knew we were so close to being done so I pushed with all I had left--I wanted to feel that release of pressure that I knew was coming. It didn't take long! With what felt like one long push, Spencer was born at 7:03pm. It was such a relief, but I was incredibly exhausted and did not feel the exhilaration that some women say they experience after natural birth.
After checking Spencer over, the nurse laid him on my chest. He was 6 pounds 9.4 ounces and 19.1 inches long--my smallest baby, but a good size for being 5 weeks early. Spencer was working really hard to breathe, so after only holding him for a brief time, they had to take him to the NICU.
I can't say that I have very positive feelings about my experience of natural birth, but I am proud of myself for doing it even though it was the hardest and most physically painful experience of my life. I think if Spencer had waited 2 - 3 more weeks, my body would have been more ready to give birth and I probably would have had the natural birth experience I was hoping for. In hindsight, I should have prepared myself for different birth scenarios (like what I would do if my water broke 5 weeks early...)! Oh well, he's here now and it all turned out all right and it sure is nice not to be pregnant anymore!!! I hate that he is still in the NICU and that I had to leave the hospital without him, but he is receiving the best care and hopefully he will be able to come home soon.
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