Labor

It seems I cannot talk about my labor without injecting how I felt about it. I will try to separate the two as I write. Here is the timeline: at 11:30 pm Thursday night I was laying in bed and felt a strange sensation.. like a snap. I went to the bathroom and I suspected that my water had broken. I wasn't sure. I laid down again and started to feel mild cramps. These went on all night. At 7 am, I called the midwives who advised me to go into group health so they could check if my water had broken. I went to group health, they checked me and put me on a fetal monitor. They determined my water had broken and my contractions were happening about once every 5 minutes. They asked me if I wanted to check in. I didn't. I said I'd return once the contractions were closer together.

I went home, packed my things and cleaned the house. By 11:30 the contractions were about every 3 minutes and I couldn't talk very easily through them. So ryan and I went back to the hospital and we were admitted.

The contractions moved along until about 3pm when they basically stopped. By that time, my doula, tami, had arrived. We waited around until about 7 but still nothing was happening. Tami and Ryan went home. Leslie the midwife decided that at 10pm they would give me cervidil which she hoped would make things pick up. It worked.

At 11, ryan and tami returned. I was having continuous contractions with no breaks so Leslie removed the cervidil. Tami and Ryan sat with me as I moved around in all different positions trying to endure the pain. A few hours later, we went to the tub where I stayed for several hours. Around 3:30am, I started to feel a lot of pressure. I got out of the tub, went to the bed, and started to push. I pushed for a long time and I wasn't really progressing. At 5 Leslie decided to give me Pitocin to help the force of my contractions. That also worked although I didn't really feel the increase. I pushed and pushed and pushed and finally, another hour later, jack emerged and they put him on my chest. He cried and cried and so did I.

I was prepared for the pain of labor. Between the birth classes and many years of yoga, I knew if I just stayed focused and did not resist the pain, I would get through it without drugs. I also chose an amazing midwifery group, a great doula, ryan, and then had the luck to get a phenomenal nurse. I knew I would need them and they supported me every moment of the process.

I was not prepared for pushing. The most difficult part of it was that I did it for so long and I didn't progress. I never felt fear. I just felt despair. During the pushing I asked for surgery, an episiotomy and forceps. During the pushing, I decided natural childbirth was not the right way to go. However, at that point, it's too late to give any drugs.

When it was over, I didn't feel joy. I felt nothing but relief that it was over. Only a few hours later, Jack was diagnosed with hypoglycemia and words like "brain damage" and "intensive care" were thrown around so I can't separate the feelings I have for the labor with the fear I felt once they told me he was sick. The only cause they could come up with for the hypoglycemia was the stressful labor. (Probably as a result) I wish I'd scheduled a C-section. I don't see any value in the way I went through the labor. I wouldn't advocate for it and I resent people who are so militant about it. I wish I felt differently.. and maybe later I will.