Camilla was due on April 20, 2010. I always sort of expected
she would come late—partly because she was my first baby, and partly because I
didn’t want to get my hopes up that she would come early and live through
torture every week she didn’t come. I also did not want to be induced. This is Ithaca , New York
After a week and a half of thinking labor would come any day
(I was dilated to almost 4 cm after all), I started to get REALLY tired of the
surprised looks I got from people when they realized I hadn’t had my baby yet.
My midwives were also surprised I hadn’t had her yet, and said they would need
to induce me at 42 weeks. By then I was fine with that, but also glad that they
thought just breaking my water would be enough to push me into labor.
On Monday, May 3rd, Mark and I went to the
hospital at 8:00 am and my midwife, Molly, broke my water. That was the
strangest feeling ever! I couldn’t believe how hot the water was, and I was so
happy that it hadn’t happened while I was out in public somewhere. What a mess
that would be! Molly had about 6 other women in labor that day, and I was the
only one who hadn’t requested an epidural the minute I walked in the door. Mark
and I spent the next few hours walking around as much as I could, trying to
encourage the baby to come down and speed things along. We even visited Shelley
(our AXiD chef) who was just down the hall being treated for lymphoma. Things
moved pretty slowly most of the day, and I didn’t really start having pain
until the late afternoon. I don’t remember very much from that day except that
I decided moaning was the best way to deal with contraction pain. If I covered
my ears to block out any noise and moaned, it distracted me from the pain and
made it tolerable. I honestly didn’t think it was very bad pain, although the
few times Molly came and checked me I wasn’t making a ton of progress. I
believe around 5:00 I decided to go get into the whirlpool tub. That was
definitely a nice way to labor, but mostly it was nice to change things up a
bit from time to time. At one point my dinner was delivered to our room. I had
asked for pizza and had been craving it most of the day. Mark went to get it
for me, and my nurse was horrified that I was considering eating. I thought it
was very sweet of Mark to stand up for me. He told her I’d been craving it and
brought it to me anyways. She said I’d throw it all up eventually, but
fortunately I decided to ignore her advice. It ended up being the only meal I
ate for about two days.
I remember going back to our room for awhile because the
whirlpool started getting hot and uncomfortable. We watched Chuck at 8:00,
though I had a hard time focusing on the show. Things were starting to really
pick up in intensity. I wanted to go back to the tub, but felt so bad for Mark
because he’d had to sit around all day with nothing he could really do. I
waited until the show was over before asking to return to the tub. Later that
evening a nurse wanted to check all kinds of vitals and such, and it turned out
to be such a pain that we just went back to our room. She brought me the big medicine
ball, and that’s how I spent the next few hours of my labor. It was amazing how
it relieved so much pressure from the contractions, and I tried to get a little
rest by laying my head down on the bed between contractions. Mark got about an
hour’s worth of sleep while I continued to wait.
Around 3:00 in the morning I decided that things were just
getting intolerable. I told Mark if nothing was progressing (i.e. if I wasn’t
close to delivery time) that I wanted to get an epidural. I was a little afraid
to ask for one because Molly had been so proud that at least one of her
patients was attempting a drug-free, natural childbirth. They came and checked
me, and I was dilated to 8 cm. They brought in another doctor to try to figure
out how my baby’s head was positioned because it didn’t feel like it was in the
right spot. She tried to do an ultrasound to see the head, but it wasn’t very
conclusive (which in retrospect was probably because the head was too big to
come down where it should have been at this point). She told me I was only
dilated to 6 cm, although she checked during a contraction. My nurse told me
that an IV would probably help me feel better because I probably was dehydrated
(I had been drinking water all night—nobody bothered to tell me that I should
accept the soda they offered because the sugar was important). I didn’t really
believe her, but it really did help a bit when they put that in. Molly
suggested we should start up a little bit of pitocin and get an epidural going
as well. I was happy to agree with her. Around 4:00 in the morning, a grumpy
anesthesiologist showed up. I could have kissed the man. He took a look at me
and decided to give me both a spinal block AND an epidural since it takes
awhile for the epidural to kick in. I guess I looked like I was in enough pain
that he thought I could use something right away. I was so grateful. I leaned
against Mark while he put in the epidural so he could help me stay still like
they needed me to be. After a little bit of watching needles go in and out, and
tubes go in and not come out, and having not eaten dinner or slept much for
many hours, Mark just about passed out. He had to go sit in the corner while
they finished up with me. I mostly felt bad for Mark (who in turn felt bad for
me).
Finally! I was comfortable enough to get some much needed
rest. Mark and I went to sleep, and I woke up around 6:00 am. I was on my left
side, but my right leg would NOT move. I couldn’t even wiggle my toes. I
couldn’t roll myself over. I was hooked up to tubes and monitors and felt
completely overwhelmed. I had a bit of a panic attack. The anesthesiologist was
called again, and he had them turn off my epidural so I could get feeling back
in my legs. It took awhile, but gradually I started to have some feeling again.
Another anesthesiologist came by later and turned my epidural back on to a
lower setting so it would help with the pain but not block out sensation
altogether.
The rest of the morning I just laid in bed and waited for
something to happen. Eventually I started feeling more contraction pain and was
checked again. I was somewhere around 9 ½ cm and fully effaced. They estimated
I would have my baby by noon. Around noon, a new midwife, Marie, showed up. She
told me I was ready to go, but was concerned about the epidural because I
needed to be able to feel when and where to push. She told me she wouldn’t turn
it off unless necessary, but to let her know when I felt the urge to start
pushing. I had felt it a couple of times already, so she decided we should go
ahead and get started.
At first, it was just me, Marie, and Mark in the room, and
she had him holding up one of my legs while she held the other. I felt
concerned for Mark at that point because I knew he didn’t really want a front
row seat to the event. Eventually they brought in a bar in hopes that I could
lean on it and bear down and push. However, though I had feeling back in my
legs, I couldn’t put weight on my right leg. I just collapsed when I tried to
stand. Marie and my nurse tried all kinds of different tricks to make me
comfortable and make the pushing more productive. She told me over and over
that I was doing a good job, that I could do this, then tried to steer my
pushing in the right place. I kept thinking she would tell me she could see the
head, but she never did. I didn’t know if I was pushing the right way or not,
but I did know that I was running out of steam and that my baby still had a
long way to go. I threw up once, so they gave me something to settle my
stomach. I ended up just throwing it back up, and then once more during the
pushing phase. At some point I requested that they cut off my hospital bracelet
that had been attached WAY too tightly the entire time we’d been there. Later I
threw my hospital gown off completely. I sincerely kept trying to push, but
broke into tearless sobs between every contraction.
Finally Marie said she was going to bring another doctor in
to check me during a contraction. I asked if there was any way they could put
something in there to pull the baby down, but they said she was up there too
high. That was the last straw—I had made almost no progress after all of that
work. I asked if they could give me a C-section. Marie was hesitant, and wanted
the doctor to check me still. But once he had, he agreed that a C-section was a
good option at that point. (A few weeks later I realized I had been almost
completely naked when Dr. Gelber came in. Nothing but a sports bra I’d brought
for the hot tub. Obviously I didn’t care at the time, but in retrospect I was a
little embarrassed by my complete lack of modesty.)
They still had to set things up for a C-section, and in the
meantime I was still having contractions right on top of each other. The only
thing I could do was to push through them, and that brought other discomfort as
I moved the baby ever so slightly down. I was worried about how I would get to
the operating room without being able to pull my legs up and push. I may have
scared a few people while they wheeled me down the hallway as the only thing I could
do was return to moaning through the pain. I have no idea how loud I was, and
at that point I didn’t care at all.
Marie said she wasn’t sure how they would give me
medicine—through my epidural or another spinal. I was horrified at the thought
that I might have to wait for another epidural to set in before I had any pain
relief. My fears went out the window, though, when we got to the OR. They
lifted me to the operating table, and I thought they had put me on a wet table.
My legs felt like they were in a pool of water, and it started spreading
upwards through my body. Then I realized it was the wonderful, wonderful drugs
setting in. At some point I started to shiver uncontrollably, and the
anesthesiologist in the OR told me it was normal and that I couldn’t make it
stop even if I tried. He’d given me adrenaline and epinephrine and probably
some other magical concoctions. Mark was sitting near my head, and again
started to feel dizzy. He said he might have to leave the room or something,
and at that point he looked so ill and scared and I felt so good that I told
him he should just go. He sat in the corner for a little bit, and once they put
up the shield so he couldn’t see what was going on around my stomach he felt
much better. While the doctors were prepping me for surgery, Mark quietly gave
me a blessing.
I remember thinking that a C-section must be really
uncomfortable with the pulling and tugging and knowing what it is they are
pulling and tugging on. However, I was so grateful that they were getting my
baby out of me that I really didn’t care. It did feel weird, and it was strange
to me how they had to fish around for my baby, but it didn’t bother me at all.
Mark heard the baby cry and asked me if I’d heard it. Honestly I don’t know if
I did or not. They brought this crying, bloody, strange little creature to me
and shoved her head in my face so I could give her a kiss. Then I had to ask
Mark to clean the blood off of my lips. I could sort of see them out of the
corner of my eye cleaning my baby off and weighing her, then hearing them say
she was 9 lbs. 9 oz. I’d had 4 different medical professionals estimate an 8 –
8 ½ lb baby, which the anesthesiologist laughingly said was a very conservative
estimate. I could see she had big, saggy cheeks (which I knew were from me) and
also a cone-head. I knew that C-section babies usually look prettier because
they’re not deformed, but it was sort of nice to know that I HAD been pushing
her out the right way. She just had too big of a head. She wasn’t coming down
straight, she was face-up instead of face-down, and her head measured 15 ¼ in.
(13 is fairly typical, and 14 is considered large). Mark stayed with me while
they took Camilla off to wherever they take a newborn baby, and it just didn’t
really feel real to me yet. My teeth started chattering uncontrollably after
she was delivered and everybody thought I was cold. I was plenty warm, but I
couldn’t make it stop. When they took me to recovery, Mark went to be with
Camilla. I spent about 3 hours in recovery, and at one point they brought Mark
and Camilla to me. I couldn’t really interact with her yet because I was on all
kinds of monitors again and extremely tired. They went back to our room and
spent some time together, and eventually I got to come back to them. It was at
that point that I really got to see my baby and hold her and look at her. That
was when I finally felt the reality of it wash over me, and could feel happy to
meet her instead of just relieved that she was out.
We spent the next 3 days in the hospital getting to know our
little girl. She had a tendency to throw up a lot (typical of C-section babies)
but she was so calm! We heard other babies crying up and down the hallways, but
Camilla never really cried. She would get upset when her legs were unbundled or
her diaper was changed, but mostly she would just squeak a bit here and there.
We decided she was the best-behaved, most beautiful baby ever. And even after
32 hours of labor—20 without drugs, 2 ½ hours of pushing, and an eventual
C-section—I know it was so incredibly worth it. Neither of us have ever been
“baby people,” but we are absolutely in love with our little girl and feel
incredibly blessed.
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