Meet my friend Brittany, we met years ago when she was a patient at the Doctors office I worked at...she used to get me in trouble all the time because I would be useless while she was there...I would just talk to her and play with her adorable little boy! Brittany and I became instant friends and we share a similar sass, sense of humor, attitude...whatever you want to call it (You'll see what I'm talking about when you read her post, lol). We were pregnant at the same time in 2012 and In an ironic twist of fate she actually had her baby girl early on my original due date and I had my son 2 weeks late on her due date! Due dates are dumb...
I am so thankful Brittany shared her story and I think you will be in awe of her, as I am, with the incredible strength this woman has... She went through the ringer for these babies and came out a champion! It just goes to show that you never know what hand you'll get dealt.
D-Day
“It’s time for me to call it, Babe.
We need to start thinking about a c-section.”
“No, no, no!” I sobbed. “I don’t want a c-section!”
“Why are you crying, sweet girl?” my OB asked, coming to sit
next to me on the hospital bed and holding my hand.
“Because the recovery will be terrible and I won’t be able
to hold him or breastfeed!”
“Oh that’s not true!” she assured me as she hugged me and
rubbed my back.
She was right.
24 hours earlier
I was 37.5 weeks pregnant with my
son. I was nearing the end of my first pregnancy and it had been a difficult
one in many ways. From severe, persistent morning sickness to ovarian cysts to
gallbladder removal at 33 weeks to preeclampsia at the end, I strongly hoped
that I would catch a break with an easy labor and delivery. My husband and
I took Bradley classes. I dragged my husband to the instructor’s house every
Sunday by the hair of his head. He did NOT see the point in being prepared for
something my body would “already know how to do”.
After telling my OB I wanted to try
a natural delivery and that we were attending Bradley classes, she remained
open and supportive. I love her. We discussed what I wanted and what I wanted
to avoid and she assured me she would be happy to let me “do my thing” as long
as the baby was fine. With each issue that popped up during that pregnancy, we
got to know each other more because of my frequent appointments and I found
that I really trusted and respected her for many reasons. She was incredibly
supportive and she listened to me while also making me feel that she was very
pro-baby and above all wanted my child to get here safely. Have I mentioned
that I love her? In Bradley class, our instructor talked repeatedly about how
important it is to have a doctor who listens to you, respects your wishes, and
whom you trust. I lucked out because this lady felt like a good friend.
As my due date approached, I
thought that I couldn’t have been more prepared. I took the classes. I had the
knowledge. I had an amazing doctor who didn’t treat me like a crazy person for
wanting to pass a watermelon out of my lady parts without any pain meds. All I
had to do was wait for my precious baby boy to decide it was time to come out.
Then I got preeclampsia and had to give him an eviction notice instead.
At what ended up being my last
prenatal appointment, I was surprised and disappointed when my OB told me I had
pre-e and she was going to have to induce me. I knew it was what my son and I
needed in order for both of us to be healthy because preeclampsia is not
something to mess around with, but I was not thrilled about everything I was
about to go through with the induction process. If you’ve ever taken a Bradley
class or watched “The Business of Being Born”, you understand. I was pretty
sure Pitocin was the devil and I knew I didn’t want it in my body. I kept
telling myself everything was going to be fine and I could still deliver
naturally. We had a couple come to our class one Sunday who had been induced
and the mom was still able to deliver without any pain meds. (She is now one of
my best friends and has done this TWICE, people. She is amazing. Seriously.) I
thought, “If she can do it, I can do it.”
As I got settled into my bed over
in L&D, my OB came in and told me about Cervadil. It’s supposed to “ripen
your cervix” and “help you dilate”. She
explained that she was going to leave it in me for 12 hours, and then they
would start Pitocin the next morning. She then hugged me and told me to get
some sleep. Have I mentioned she has a great sense of humor?
Within the hour I started
contracting, which she told me might happen because of the Cervadil and because
she was messing with my womanly bits.
No
big deal. I got this. I will handle these one at a time and I have my labor
coach to help.
My husband slept on the couch.
So I contracted all through the
night, with the contractions steadily getting stronger and longer. I tried to
remember what I learned in Bradley classes and stayed focused, relaxed, and
worked with my body. The next morning my OB came in to remove the Cervadil and
check me. I thought, “With all of that
contracting, surely I will be half way done and I won’t need much Pitocin. I
still have a shot at doing this naturally!”
Wrong-o.
I was dilated 2cm according to my
OB. She was being generous I was later told by my nurse. So they started
Pitocin, but I asked them to increase it slowly (a suggestion from my Bradley
teacher via email) because I wanted to deliver naturally. At first, I thought
the Pitocin contractions weren’t so bad. I was able to breathe through them and
focus. An hour or so later my OB came back and checked me again. She said I was
“still at a 2” and she wanted to break my water to see if that would help speed
things along. She knew I wasn’t very happy about that because it went against
what I learned in Bradley class, but with the pre-e and my blood pressure
rising, we were working against time. I agreed and she broke my water. I would
like to describe that feeling as accurately as possible, but since I’m fairly
certain this is a g-rated blog, I will just say OUCH.
After assuring me she was not, in
fact, checking my tonsils, my OB told me she wasn’t sure if she “got it”
because there wasn’t a gush of fluid. We waited for another contraction and
then there was a small trickle. I asked if I needed to be worried and she said
probably not, but she wanted to put in an internal monitor just to make sure
baby was okay. Up to this point, many things had been done that went against
what I was taught in Bradley class, but they were for my or my baby’s well
being, so I felt okay with all of them. After all, the ultimate goal was to get
my son out safely. I was very grateful for the relationship I had with my OB
because if I hadn’t trusted her, I would probably look back now and think all
of those interventions cost me my natural delivery.
Here is where it got fun I
decided I couldn’t do it. Shortly after breaking my water and increasing the Pitocin
again, my contractions started getting longer, stronger, and having triple
peaks. Just when I thought it was going back down the hill, the monitor would
show my contraction peaking again and going down, then one more time before
finally ending. I was trying my best to relax and breathe through each one and
“just tackle one at a time”, but holy moly the pain was intense. I started
crying and my husband came over to me to ask what was wrong.
“I don’t think I can do this. It
hurts so badly! I’m so sorry I made you go to all of those classes for
nothing!” I cried.
He assured me they weren’t for
nothing and he was perfectly okay with me getting pain medicine if I needed it.
Then my nurse came in and said she had been watching my contractions.
“You still want to do this
naturally?” she asked.
I had another contraction, cursed,
and said no. She had the anesthesiologist waiting outside my door. I could have
kissed her.
The relief was very quick and I was
a new woman. I felt somewhat like I had failed, but I wasn’t going to beat
myself up about it. I could still have a vaginal delivery.
Several hours went by and my nurse
had me sitting up rocking, laying on one side, switching to the other, etc. to
get my son to move down and my cervix to open up. She checked me every few
hours, but I was stalled at 4cm. My OB came in and after checking me and seeing
no changes said we needed to talk about a possible c-section, but my nurse
asked her for a few more hours to work with me and try to get the baby to move.
My OB agreed and said she would be back at 4pm to see if things had changed.
More flipping and up on all fours in the bed and rocking my hips for the next
two hours. My OB came back and checked me. I was still at 4cm. I had lost. I
knew it. I felt defeated and crushed and angry. Why can’t my body do the one thing it was made to do? I have prepared
for this! That’s when she said it
was time for a c-section and I got really upset. She walked me through it,
assured me several times everything would be okay, and went to get ready in the
OR. My nurse, who was also wonderful, kept talking to me very calmly as she
prepped me for surgery.
Once I was on the operating table,
I was really nervous and scared. Since epidurals are affected by gravity and I
had been lying mostly on my left side, my right side was not completely numb.
The anesthesiologist mentioned that he might have to knock me out and I begged
him not to. After everything I had been through up to that point, all I wanted
was to hear my son’s first cry and meet him as soon as I could. He said that he
would give me another dose of medicine after my son was out and I thanked him.
My awesome nurse held my hand until they let my husband in (they didn’t let him
in until after they got started). I felt every cut on the right side and my
right leg kept jumping. My nurse kept my attention and told me to relax and
helped me think about my baby, and then my husband took her place holding my
hand and continued to do the same.
Before I knew it, the doctor was
telling my husband to get the camera ready and after feeling lots of pressure
on my abdomen, I heard the most beautiful sound in the world.
My son came out pissed. Screaming
mad. All I could think was, “His lungs work! He can breathe! Thank the Lord!” I
was worried he would possibly have issues because he was two weeks early and
the amniotic fluid level had been so low.
Weighing in at 5 pounds and 3
ounces, my tiny Aiden Oliver was born at 5:29pm and he was healthy. I got to
hold him (with a little help from my husband) while I was on the operating
table and I nursed him in recovery with no problems at all.
In his first pictures, my son
looked like he lost a boxing match. One of his eyes was swollen and he had a
small knot on the top of his head that looked like a fluid filled blister. My
OB came to see me the next day and told me the reason I stalled at 4cm was
because my pelvic inlet was too narrow for babies to pass through. That’s why
my son had a knot on his head! He was trying to fit through a very small hole
and was being beat against my pelvis by the Pitocin. She told me that next time
we would schedule a c-section and I wouldn’t have to labor before having
surgery. This time, she was wrong.
Let’s fast-forward two and a half
years to the week of Thanksgiving 2012. I’m 37.5 weeks pregnant with my
daughter. Other than the terrible morning sickness that was my faithful partner
the entire pregnancy (and I mean ALL DAY ERR DAY) and a bout with kidney stones
halfway through, my second pregnancy was easier compared to my first one. My
husband and I went to the movies to enjoy what we knew could possibly be our
last date before the arrival of our princess. After we got home, I had the
worst heartburn of my life. He went to bed; I stayed up and had some milk and a
heartburn pill. Then I had some contractions. It was 1am. I didn’t think too
much of it because I had experienced prodromal labor several times already
during this pregnancy.
For those who don’t know what
prodromal labor is, let me define it for you:
Cruel.
A tease.
Mother Nature’s way of paying you
back for all of the terrible things you’ve ever done in your entire life.
I would have hours of strong,
painful, regular contractions (also known as labor) without any cervical changes.
Then, they would slowly taper off and stop. This happened several times.
Let me tell you how much fun it is.
Spoiler Alert: It’s not any fun at all.
Seeing that I was only 37.5 weeks
along, I figured this was another episode of prodromal labor, so I just stayed
up and waited. I noticed the contractions were getting closer together and were
strong enough that I had to squat and rock my hips back and forth to get close
to being comfortable. “Maybe this is the
real deal?” I thought. I waited until 6am to wake my slumbering husband.
The following conversation is one of those that didn’t strike me as funny at
the time, but looking back I can laugh.
“Babe wake up, I think it’s time”
“Time for what?” he replied.
“Seriously?” *squat and breathe through a contraction* “I
think I’m in labor. Get up. We have to go.”
“Go where?”
“Robert I am not kidding. Get up.”
“Well did you at least make some coffee?”
“No, I’ve been a little busy.”
“Yeah. Busy not making coffee.” He finally sat up and looked at me. “I’m
just kidding babe, I’ll get up.”
When we got to the hospital at 7am, I noticed my c-section scar was
burning. I was still having contractions 2-3 minutes apart, not super strong,
but I couldn’t talk through them. The nurse hooked me up to the monitors and
told me she was waiting on the OB to get there and figure out what to do with
me because I was definitely contracting, but I was not dilated (this was not
surprising to me because of how things went the first time with dilation and my
narrow pelvic inlet).
The on call OB who treated me
during the kidney stone stuff walked in and said “Hey girl!” I told him what
was going on and he asked me if I thought I was in labor. “I’ve never gone into
labor on my own, I was induced last time.” He did a bedside ultrasound to see
if my daughter was head down and said that the burning sensation at my scar
worried him a bit. My daughter’s head was pushing on my old incision line.
After asking how far along I was, he said it was time to have a baby. I
honestly thought he was going to send me home! I wasn’t as nervous the second
time around in the OR because I knew what to expect, or so I thought. I got a
spinal instead of an epidural, which worked faster but made me puke everywhere.
At least I didn’t feel any of the cutting that time!
At 11:01am my Amelia Claire was born, but she did not come out screaming
like her brother had. She took a minute to start crying, longest minute of my
life, then she let out a soft, raspy cry and she pinked right up. She weighed
exactly 7 pounds and was blowing bubbles when the nurse handed her to me. After
they took her to the nursery, I threw up some more. One of the nurses even
joked that I was doing my own fundal pressure with all of the heaving. Lucky
me.
I asked the anesthesiologist for Zofran, but he said he couldn’t give me
anything and that the nausea would go away soon. He lied, my friends. He lied.
I got to recovery and had a very hard time sitting up high enough to
breastfeed my daughter. Funny difference between spinals and epidurals that no
one told me about; you cannot sit upright for several hours after a spinal
without suffering. If I sat up too far, the room would spin and I would throw
up again, so I had to stay reclined and try to feed her. My daughter’s nurse
came to get her for her first bath and I asked if she could do it in the room
so I could watch. I didn’t get to see my son’s first bath because at the time I
didn’t know I could make such demands. She seemed a little put out, but
relented and went to get the stuff to bathe my daughter in the room with me.
Thank you Bradley classes for teaching me it’s okay to have a voice in the
hospital! My daughter screamed and I puked the whole time she was being bathed,
but I was happy I got to see it since I couldn’t bathe her myself.
The recovery from my second c-section was so much better than my first
one, for many reasons.
One, I didn’t have hours of induced labor beforehand. Pitocin is the
devil.
Two, I got up and walked AS SOON AS THEY WOULD LET ME. After my son was
born and the nurse came in to get me out of bed I told her, “No. I don’t want
to.” I knew it would hurt. But you know what hurts worse than walking after a
c-section? Having gas build up in your abdomen after a c-section because you
didn’t get your stubborn butt out of that bed and walk!
Three, I used a belly binder. Let me just say if you are on the fence
about a belly binder, GET ONE. This cut down on my pain and allowed me to get
off of the pain meds much faster than the first time because it gave my abdomen
support when I walked and sat down/stood up. I seriously wish I had used one
the first time because I know my recovery time would have been shorter. I
didn’t buy the expensive one that celebrities use, I bought the Gold’s Gym gray
Velcro one from Wal-Mart for under $10. WORTH EVERY PENNY.
Even though I didn’t get the natural childbirth I originally wanted, I am
still glad I took Bradley classes and I don’t feel like a failure. I learned
what to expect during labor and delivery, I learned how to advocate for myself,
and I learned how important it is to have a supportive doctor that you trust
completely. My labor and delivery stories are less than ideal, but they both
have happy endings. I have two beautiful children who were born healthy and
safely, which honestly was all I really wanted all along. ~Brittany
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