My Birth Story
In our society, we celebrate newborns. We congratulate the parents. We shower them with new baby clothes and toys and keepsakes. Flowers and blue and pink balloons adorn hospital rooms. Seldom heard are the stories of the mothers—those whose lives have been forever changed, those who have sacrificed their bodies and their sanity for this tiny, fragile human. Every choice, every move, every thought now revolves around this baby. For such a momentous life event, you would think the details of the process wouldn’t seem off-limits, almost taboo. Many other women have shared their birth stories and I am grateful for these contributions, for they helped me to prepare for this life-changing day. To these I add my own story with the hope that my perspective can inform and prepare other women, shed light on the reality of labor and delivery, and dispel the idea that the details associated with childbirth should be swept under the rug.
5:00 a.m., November 14th
Austin and I arrived at the hospital for my scheduled induction. I was officially five days past my due date without so much as a twinge of a contraction. I was nervous, having scoured the internet for information about inductions, reading that it was better that the baby come naturally, the induction process lengthened the mother’s recovery process, and the length of labor would double or triple… None of these ended up being true—please don’t believe everything you read on the internet! Better yet, just stay away from Google and instead rely upon the words of your nurses and doctors.
The nurses started by checking my dilation. I was one centimeter at 36 weeks, and nothing had changed nearly five weeks later…I was audibly annoyed upon hearing this. Then they hooked me up to an IV to pump me with fluids, put a monitor around my belly to track baby’s heartbeat and contractions, and started the flow of pitocin to induce contractions. Then the waiting game began. For the next five hours, Austin and I waited in giddy anticipation as the contractions gradually got more intense, emphasis on gradually. Also, from this point on, the only food and drink I was allowed were jello, water, and apple juice. I was dejected.
10:00 a.m.
Five hours of contractions had passed, although I admit that they paled in comparison to period cramps. I kept thinking to myself, Isn’t this supposed to be more painful? It was nothing like the movies—no heavy breathing or pacing or squatting. In all honesty, we just sat and watched Friends the entire time. The doctors came in to check my dilation. To my complete dismay, I was still at one centimeter. At this rate, I thought, the baby will probably be here in a couple days.
The nurse told us that the doctor wanted to break my water to help speed up the process. Doing this would most definitely cause the contractions to become significantly more painful, so she suggested getting the epidural beforehand. (It’s worth mentioning at this point that I am 100% team epidural. May as well take advantage of modern medical advances, you know?). We agreed, and she put in the order for the epidural.
11:00 a.m.
Once the anesthesiologist was free, she came up to our room to place the epidural. She had Austin leave the room to keep the field sterile (although all of my other mom-friends say that their significant others were able to stay in the room with them, so I think my situation was an anomaly). I sat on the bed with my feet dangling off the side, back hunched, with the anesthesiologist kindly narrating each move she made. At one point, she had to stick me with a needle to numb the area. It will feel like a mosquito bite, she lied. Thank goodness my contractions were still barely noticeable because I don’t think I would have been able to stay still otherwise. It felt like maybe one or two thousand mosquito bites at once, and I had to reach out to the nurse in front of me to squeeze her hands. I like to think I have a high tolerance for pain, but for about three solid seconds, it was almost unbearable. But quick as it came, it was gone. Then she threaded the epidural into my spine, which felt as weird as it sounds, but not painful. Once it was in place, the effect was immediate. Before she even cleaned up her work area, my feet were going numb. The nurse placed a catheter since I could no longer walk to the bathroom, and Austin returned to the room so we could await the doctor’s return.
11:30 a.m.
The doctor arrived to break my water, resident intern OB in tow. They asked if it was okay if the intern could be the one to break my water, to which I agreed. He used a tool that looked like a crochet hook, but struggled to get it past my cervix, which was still at one centimeter. After a few painfully awkward minutes, he folded, apologizing and asking the doctor to break my water. The doctor took the crochet hook, and seconds later my water broke. My lower half was so numb that I couldn’t even feel the “water”. The nurse mopped me up and stuck a towel under me, because apparently I would be leaking continuously for the rest of the day (turns out your water breaking isn’t a one-and-done deal). Before leaving, the doctor said that he would check in later that evening, but that at the rate I was progressing (or not progressing, I should say), baby likely wouldn’t make an appearance until well after midnight.
Then the waiting game began. By this time, I was starving, so I convinced Austin to feed me a small bite of a pretzel or a single peanut every couple hours. Don’t tell the nurses…
1:00 p.m.
After the doctor left, I was able to nap for about an hour. Never would I have thought that napping in the middle of labor was a thing, but alas, here we are. The contractions definitely got stronger after my water broke, but there was no pain at all. It just felt like a slight squeezing sensation in my uterus—kind of like mild period cramps. The monitor behind me indicated when the contractions happened. Occasionally I would interrupt our hundredth episode of Friends to say, “Oh hey, another contraction. That’s nice.” It was all very low-key. Then the nurse came to check my dilation: three centimeters! Only two centimeters of progress in the last hour and a half, but that’s more than could be said for the past month! Now, time to take another nap.
3:00 p.m.
Around this time, there was a shift change with the nurses. Our new nurse was a hilarious old lady who definitely knew what she was doing. Since I was making slow progress, she rolled me on my side and put a large peanut-shaped exercise ball between my legs. “We’ll see if that does anything”, she said, and I resumed my nap.
5:30 p.m.
I was on the phone with my best friend when our nurse came back into the room to check my dilation. I quickly ended the call so I could hear if I had progressed at all. I thought I heard her wrong when she said I was at seven centimeters. Excited was an understatement. The contractions just felt like little squeezes in my uterus every few minutes—still no pain. The doctor popped in before heading home to tell us that he would be back as soon as I was ready to start pushing. Since I was progressing well now, he estimated that that should be close to midnight. He left, and I went back to sleep, peanut exercise ball still between my legs.
6:20 p.m.
It soon got to the point that sleeping was no longer an option. The contractions were getting uncomfortable and I could feel a large amount of downward pressure (baby’s head, no doubt). It wasn’t painful, but it felt like someone was wringing out my uterus every couple minutes. The nurse was in the room checking my vitals and said that they would check my dilation in a little bit. “Um, I feel like I could start pushing. Could you check me now?” She did. “Yep, you’re fully dilated.” I was in shock. Three centimeters in almost an hour. She recommended that I “labor down” before pushing, and I asked what that meant. Since I was making such good progress and was comfortable for the most part (thanks again, epidural), I would just keep laying on my side with the peanut ball between my legs and let baby keep slowly progressing on his own. This would slightly lengthen the labor process, but it would likely shorten the amount of time I spend pushing. This sounded like a fair trade, so she left me to labor down. It was not comfortable, but it wasn’t painful either. It was probably the equivalent of the worst period cramps I’ve ever experienced, but with the added sensation of a bowling ball pressing down on my cervix.
7:30 p.m.
The nurses changed shifts yet again, so I had a new nurse come in to do my practice pushes. She held one leg, Austin held the other, and she instructed me to push with the contractions. As a contraction would come on, I would push as hard and as long as possible, take a deep breath, push again, take a breath, and push a third time. Then I would take a break to catch my breath. To be completely honest, it just feels like you’re trying to push out a big poop. Sorry, but there is truly no polite way to phrase that last sentence without compromising its accuracy… After about 15 minutes (I think? I wasn’t exactly paying attention to the clock), we stopped with the practice pushes because apparently I was doing too well, and if we kept going, the baby would be here before the doctor. So we waited about 10 minutes for the doctor to arrive. I was afraid that during this time, the nurse would tell me not to push until he arrived (since this is what I hear in stories), but that was not the case at all. “If you feel like you need to push, you go ahead. The baby won’t come out, don’t worry.” And it’s inevitable at this point—when a contraction comes, you have to push. So I did.
Finally the doctor arrived, and the real pushing began. It wasn’t painful at all, but I wasn’t so numb that I couldn’t feel anything. In fact, I could feel everything—I felt baby’s head move downward more and more as I pushed—just minus the pain. I think the fact that I could feel baby slowly coming out actually helped make my pushes more effective. Regardless, the whole thing was exhausting. After every set of three long pushes, I would catch my breath, feeling like I had just sprinted an entire mile. I will say this—it was nothing like the movies. No screaming, no squeezing of hands, no noise at all except for the nurse and doctor consistently doling out words of encouragement. Big push while holding my breath (x3), a few seconds to rest silently and take a sip of water, repeat.
8:11 p.m.
Just 40 minutes after we began our practice pushes, Lincoln was born. The doctor pulled him out and set him on my chest. He cried, I cried. Then they took him away to be cleaned up and whatever else the nurses had to do (I was most definitely not paying attention to what they said they were doing). Then the doctor said that I had to do one more big push to deliver the placenta—although a big amount of pressure was relieved when Lincoln was delivered, I could tell that the placenta was still causing some pressure. Sure enough, one big push later, and the rest of the pressure was gone. I laid back and let the relief wash over me. The nurses placed Lincoln back on my chest while the doctor stitched me up. When he was done, I handed the baby off and turned on my side so the nurse could remove my epidural. Then the pain kicked in.
Never in my life have I felt such excruciating back pain, and we had no idea what was causing it. The nurse gave me an ibuprofen, I sobbed uncontrollably, and Austin gave me a hand to squeeze. The feeling was coming back to my lower half, and I told the nurse that I thought I had to go to the bathroom. She had me try and lift my legs one at a time to show that I could walk, but I was only able to lift them one or two inches. Wait a little longer, she had said. So I waited and wept.
About 10 or 15 minutes later, she came back and I insisted that I wanted to get up to use the restroom. She and Austin helped me out of bed, I did some practice steps in place, and then they guided me to the bathroom. After sitting on the toilet awkwardly for a few minutes, I admitted to the nurse that maybe I was wrong and didn’t have to go. “It can take a bit to go for the first time after having the baby. Just take your time,” she said. Needless to say, she was right. As it turns out, my extraordinarily full bladder was the source of my excruciating back pain (in retrospect, this makes sense because I would often get uncomfortable back pain when I was pregnant and really had to pee). After returning to my bed, we waited an hour or so until it was time to transport us to our recovery room.
This entire time, Lincoln was either in his warmer or being tended to by the nurses. Austin would go back and forth between comforting me and checking on Link, but I just took advantage of this time to rest. Lincoln was wheeled behind us as we moved to our new room. Once we got there, the nurses left us alone. Just me, Austin, and our new son.
