The Unexpected Birth pt. 3

Warning, again: are you still reading? I'm describing the experience of birthing my child. Get out now if you can't handle the heat.

On a scale of 1-30, a level 4 of Pitocin is small. Theoretically, the next dose to level 6 wouldn't be that big of a pain gap - right? The pain gods reign over me as the jump from 4 to 6 units is immeasurably large. My husband fans me down with the rainbow folding fan I bought just for this moment. It's not working. He opens a piece of peppermint Extra gum in hopes that chewing it will cool me down and give me something to focus on. This isn't working either. I can't determine length of time between contractions, but it has to be every 60 seconds. 20 seconds on, tensing my entire body and groaning in intense pain. 40 seconds off, I catch my breath and close my eyes in relief. Just to do it all again. For the next 2 hours.

It's the witching hour, 3 am. I'm 8 cm dilated and 80% effaced. I ask for the nitrous gas. The anesthesiologist gives me a nasal mask. All I have to do is bring it to my face and breathe in whenever I want. I attempt to retrain my brain to "handle" the contractions by minimizing how often I breathe in the nitrous oxide. It works, but not really. I lay on my right side, desperately pulling the mask to my face as a contraction comes on, and finding a small nap of relief before the next contraction. In this natural and chaotic episode of birth, I still manage to step out of the experience to try to solve something via logic. Poor logic, at that. All the reading, all the mental training... I'm supposed to embrace the experience. Why can't I do that?

I want to proceed as natural as possible. But, I'm ready to give birth. One of the residents comes in to chat epidural and I am resistant. Many birthers before me have been unmedicated - shouldn't I be able to do this without medical intervention too? The resident, tiresome, reminds me we began methods of induction to have my baby sooner than later and that we chose induction because of my preeclampsia diagnosis. Part of that process involves the epidural. Plus, I'm ready, aren't I?

We move from OB triage to Labor and Delivery. My husband packs our bags. He calls our doula. The residents and nurses tell me my baby is coming. The hallways are a never ending maze of cold fluorescent lights and blank, lifeless walls. I'm unbelievably worn.

My new room has a bigger bed with fancier bedside buttons, a bare minimum convertible couch, and my own personal bathroom fit with a peanut ball and special squatting device. Oh, the AC is better and a nurse locates a fan to oscillate by my bed.

Our doula is here and she gets straight to business as my husband is relieved of support. She massages my low back, helps prop me up. We try the peanut ball between the legs and some internal rotation of the hips. She gets me out of bed to wobble around and squat. The anesthesiologist is back. It's time for drugs.

He positions me seated on the side of the bed. A nurse stands in front of me to not fall forward as the doctor tells me to round my back. Round more, he says. How am I supposed to flex my spine more? I have a giant baby in my belly! Well, he figured it out. After a cooling spray to the area, he finds the insertion point between two vertebrae and inserts the mile long needle. I, shockingly, hardly felt it. I had built up an entires life worth of anxiety for this moment and the cooling spray numbed me.

RELIEF. The absolute wave of the fentanyl cocktail to each limb. It's been 12 hours through the night of no sleep, after a long day of being super pregnant, on top of a prior night of disrupted sleep. I, unfortunately, am still not able to drift off, but I can at least soften my body.

The next 22 hours read like a labor just beginning. My doula encourages me to mobilize. She helps me squat, stretch, and massages me again and again. The nurses help us prop the bed up for an upper body supported "hands" and knees position. I have complete feeling and sensation in my arms and legs, full mental awareness, and am simply worn from pregnancy. No notes.

The crunchy moms and natural moms all tell you to avoid the epidural. They warn you, "it will delay your labor!" Although my science based books said this can happen and is not necessarily always true, I did join the statistics of a delayed labor. The good news? My epidural did its job. The monitor around my stomach reports wild contractions but I didn't feel them. Over the next and longest 22 hours of my life, I would stare at the clock to hit my little fentanyl button every hour, on the hour.

Stay tuned for part 4.