photo credit: galateadia
Sometime around 10 pm on the 30th of January, I noticed the Braxton Hicks contractions that I had been experiencing for days were getting stronger and more consistent. They were coming anywhere from two to eight minutes apart and lasting a minute or longer. My husband and I stayed up timing them until near midnight when I decided he should probably try to get some sleep. I stayed up for another hour and, when they did not change much, decided to head to bed myself. Getting to sleep was not particularly easy, as there was too much excitement, and I was more than a little worried about how my first son would handle us being gone for two days while we would be at the hospital. My first son seemed to know it was time for the previous week or so. He was getting increasingly concerned about getting enough Mommy time and was asking me to read his books at night, something that is normally time for him and Daddy. He was also waking up and wanting to come cuddle with me a few times in the night. He slept restlessly the night of the 30th and woke at 4 in the morning. I knew I would never get back to sleep, so I got up and headed downstairs. About the time I hit the last step, I knew I had lost my plug, and the contractions were then coming every 4-6 minutes. They rapidly increased to a regular pattern of four minutes, with each lasting about a minute. I decided it was time to call my mom and have her drive over. I did not want her to get stuck in rush hour traffic, and I really had no way of knowing how long it would be before I would need to get to the hospital.
The nesting instinct to clean the house suddenly kicked in, or perhaps it was the desire not to have my mother arrive to a sink full of dishes, and I got to unloading the dishwasher and tidying up. The noise woke my first son again, and he refused to go back to sleep. In a way that was good, he got some time with us before my mother arrived. I tried to hop in the tub for a bit, but after 20 minutes of that, decided I would rather spend the rest of the time at home with my son. Mom arrived at 7, and we headed off to the hospital. I do not know what it is about me and needing to go into labor during rush hour, but this clearly was not going to be any different the last time. Unlike the last time though, we only had about 25 miles to go instead of a 75-mile trek to the hospital, and the freeway was pretty clear until the last ten of those.
The hospital, which the nurse had assured us during the walk-through was hardly ever over-crowded with birthing moms, was full. They had already delivered a baby in the triage room, and since I was still contracting only four minutes apart, I opted to wait in the hallway for a birthing room instead of getting set up in triage. I have no idea how long we waited, perhaps 20 minutes or so, before we got a nice birthing room – one of the ones with a tub, hooray for that. I had been looking forward to that tub since the moment I found out they had them and I had gotten a bit worried while we were sitting out in the hallway that I would end up spending the morning flat on my back in some random hospital room where I would progress slowly. Apparently, they were not sure I should stay at the hospital. They wanted me on the machine for an hour to be sure the contractions were progressing. I do not know if I was too mellow to be in active labor or if it was standard procedure to wait an hour. Who knows. *I* knew I was not going back home. Once I was hooked up on the monitors, we found out I was 2-3cm dilated and 60% effaced. They decided I should stay. My husband hooked up the stereo with my hypno CDs, and I decided to enjoy the Jacuzzi tub. A new labor nurse came in about 20 minutes later. She was beyond awesome and actually asked if we had a birth preferences list *and* she took it seriously. She was training a new nurse and specifically noted to her that I requested not to be asked about my pain, and so instructed her not to ask me about my pain. Never once during my first birth experience did a nurse *ask* to see the list, and few of them paid any attention to it. I was quite happy to find that this experience would be different – it is hard to stay focused on providing natural anesthetic to your body when people keep interrupting your trance to ask you to put a number on the pain you are theoretically supposed to have. The new nurse let me know that I could get in the tub as often as I wanted, as long as I got out every hour for monitoring, and to make sure I knew that a water birth was not allowed. I could hear her whisper to the other nurse that I was a “hypnobirth” and thus they needed to watch me, because “when they go, they go fast.” Soon, we’d find out how true that statement was. Getting out of the tub was less than easy – I knew if I stayed there, they would have to pry my hands off the rails if they wanted me out for the delivery. It was just too darned comfortable there.
My husband got out my essential oil blend, and we put it on the pillow case to aid with focus and to keep my nasal passages open. When I got out of the tub at 11am, I was having lots of pressure waves, flowing from the top of my uterus down to my hips and thighs. I was 6 cm dilated and 80% effaced. In the next 15 minutes or so, the pressure was getting strong and the tightening was so intense that I could feel my body pushing even though I did not want to. Thinking I was only 6 cm, I was getting worried that I would damage myself by pushing. That fear made me waver quite a bit – I did not think I could hold my concentration and stave off the feeling to push for another four hours, which was the high end of their estimate for how much longer it could be before I was 10 cm. I really started to have a hard time focusing and the fear of what it *could* feel like made me tense up, and tensing made it hurt. I just wanted something to take the edge off when it got worse, and I had convinced myself it was going to get worse. The nurse asked if I wanted to get back in the tub because I had seemed so peaceful and relaxed there. Frankly, I was afraid to move at that point and was clenching every muscle trying to keep the baby from tearing through my cervix too soon. I knew getting in the tub would be a better place to be, but I also knew I would not be able to face getting out again. Thankfully, I had the aforementioned most awesome labor nurse. She was really supportive of med-free birthing, and told me that the decision to get meds was mine of course, but that she sees lots of people coming in wanting to go med-free and not making it and she knew after watching me breath and focus that I could do it if I wanted to. My husband was fine with whatever decision I made and went out to talk to the anesthesiologist about options. While he was there, the nurse told him how impressed she was by my focus and breathing because she does not see that kind of calm very often. She also told him that it would probably only be another half hour, but she did not want to tell me that in case it was longer. She really wanted him to know that she thought I could do it. He came back in and told me what my options were, and also that he would prefer I get an epidural if I wanted meds, but that there might not even be time to do it. I was still completely undecided and, while the encouragement was nice, I was not sure I believed it myself. The nurse reminded me about my goal, but truthfully, I was more concerned about my fear than my goal. She asked if I wanted her to check me again, just to see if progress had been made. Maybe I was not 6 cm anymore, and maybe that would affect my decision. So as the anesthesiologist stood waiting outside for my decision, she checked my dilation again. 8 – 9 cm and fully effaced! In 15 minutes. The nurse was not wrong when she said when it went, it would go fast. I was in transition. It turns out I was already midway through the “worst” of it, and the worst of it was not so bad. With that info, I relaxed and gave in to what my body wanted to do, complete with the primal urge to moan a long “ahhhhhhhhhhhhh” and grunt through the waves (the latter being something that came as a surprise to me, since it did not happen with my first son).
By noon, my water had broken, I was at 10 and ready, and I desperately wanted to push. But alas, my OB was in an emergency c-section and they wanted me to wait. I tried to breathe through the urges and not push, while my husband and the nurses rubbed my legs to calm me. But after 20 minutes of that, I was getting really annoyed that I was not being allowed to do what my body was going to do whether I actively participated or not. I asked why I could not push, and they said they wanted to wait for the doctor. The collective crowd of nurses (…either med-free births are a spectator sport, or they have an ungodly number of staffers at births at this hospital – it is the later…) had a good laugh when my response was “well, screw him!” The nurses started to prep to deliver the baby themselves since the baby’s head was becoming visible, all the while mouthing “where is he? He needs to get here now!”, so my husband informed me later. Luckily, the OB showed up as the next wave started, and I finally was allowed to start pushing. After waiting so long, the “ring of fire” was a welcome, and almost pleasant, change of sensation. Alas, Social Distortion’s cover of “Ring of Fire” did not serenade the experience as it had in my first delivery…One has to wonder if Johnny Cash would be amused. Once the baby’s head was out, the OB saw that the cord was around his neck, and I was instructed to keep pushing as much as I could. They wanted to get the baby out in a hurry since his heart rate was dropping to 60. It’s not so easy to push when there is no contraction to help you. I pushed so hard from every part of me that I somehow sprained my middle toe. As it turned out, I had no rips or tears, and the only part of me that was sore the next day was that toe.
The baby was born at 1:02 pm on January 31, 2008. He weighed 8 pounds and 2 ounces, and 20.5 inches. He is a quite peaceful little boy who did not make the slightest fuss when they drew blood for his bilirubin test. He nurses like a champ, and my milk was in by the end of the second day.
Teri Nava, PhD
[tags]natural childbirth story, natural chid birth stories, hypnobirthing, hypnosis for childbirth, natural childbirth in the hospital[/tags]
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