Disclaimer: You'll have to forgive my typo's in this post.. I am writing it while snuggling a sleeping baby :-)
(Pictures and Video at the bottom)
I have had quite a few people ask to hear our birth story so I decided to include it in our blog. I have to preface this by saying I have heard so many "horror stories" about women's births. I have to say I hate those, I hated hearing those and listening to all of the horrible things that happened and how trying to have a natural labor is crazy. I say this because although our labor wasn't how we had planned and hoped for it to be, I don't write this as a horror story. This is not a story about all of the horrible things that happen and go wrong and how birth should be scary. This is a success story of look what your body can do despite some things not being ideal. So here goes...
The last two weeks of our pregnancy seem to crawl by.. then came Johannah's due date, February 2nd.. then it passed.. then more days passed... soon we were almost a week overdue. We had our last OB appointment a few days after her estimated due date. I was to come back in on Monday the 10th for our last appointment and had a tentative induction date set for Wednesday the 12th. I did NOT want to be induced. Despite the risk for pitocin and cervidil, I didn't want to be jump starting my body when it wasn't "primed and ready."
I had scheduled and induction massage on Thursday the 6th. Oh my was it relaxing. I must say, anyone needing a massage.. prenatal or not, Jodi Connolly is amazing! On Friday I began having contractions. They would come and go without any real regularity.
We spent the weekend at my parent's house in Knoxville. There was snow in the forecast and it seemed easier to be 15 minutes away rather than 35 if I were to go into labor. My brother and his wife were also visiting from Ohio, hoping to see their little niece. I must say, I warned them to come later ;-).... maybe arrive on his birthday (Monday,February 10th) instead of leaving that day HA :)
Contractions continued off and on throughout the weekend. They slowly increased in intensity but stayed irregular. Sunday night we stayed up late playing another riveting game of Monopoly. For those of you who don't know, my parents had adopted three teenagers from Ukraine a couple years ago. My younger brothers had discovered the game Monopoly a few weeks before and wanted to play it every day... multiple times ;-). We finally went to bed around 1am. Jake even took a unisom thinking he would try and sleep in and make up for some of our lack of sleep the past few nights, especially since we would be having our daughter any day now. I wasn't feeling much of anything that night anyway. Oh boy would he regret taking that Unisom in just a few short hours :).
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| A very tired daddy-to-be trying to catch a nap before the tough part begins |
I awoke at 2am to use the restroom and didn't feel quite right. I had only been sleeping an hour and went right back to sleep without giving it much of a thought. This repeated itself again at 3 and 3:30 until I finally woke up enough to realize what was going on. I started timing my contractions and they were regular and 3-4 minutes apart. I texted my mother downstairs and woke up Jake. We decided to go into the hospital to get checked. My mother had us fairly quickly and after all the contractions over the weekend we weren't sure if I had made any progress.
After getting checked in, hooked up to the monitor and checked we were told I was only at 2cm but they would watch me for a little while, have us walk, and check me again. After being monitored for a short while we were told that Johannah's heart rate was non-reactive. During contractions baby should have some variability in their heart rate and Hannie's was pretty flat. I had to lay on my side and drink some juice which seemed to help wake her up. I was allowed up and walked the hall for half an hour. We got back to the room and put back on the monitor... same thing all over again...lay on the left, drink some juice.
Dr. Carlstone came in to see us shortly after. Due to her heart rate we were given three options... He knew I wasn't a fan of induction and medications unless it was truly medically necessary. He said we could have a biophysical profile (fancy name for an ultrasound that checks your amniotic fluid levels and looks at the placenta) to see if everything is still okay and have a stress test (where they monitor baby's heart rate and movements over a certain period of time). He would let me go home if they looked okay and I would have to do them at least daily until Wednesday. However, since he heart rate was already pretty flat he wasn't the most comfortable with those options. Our second option was to break my water. Neither of us really liked that idea because I was only 2.5cm at that time and 70% effaced. Her head wasn't pushing down in the right position yet and once your water breaks the hospital generally gives you a time frame to deliver in before performing csection due to increased risk of infection. Third option... start pitocin. We both agreed on the third option.
I had been texting our Doula, Andrea, through the morning and called her to let her know what they were going to do. Pitocin was started around 8 am. I had to have an IV and be on the monitor with the pitocin but was allowed "breaks" about every 1.5-2hours for about 20 minutes so I could use the bathroom, try the birthing ball, walk, or get into the bathtub. I voted bathtub every time!
Contractions got more intense fairly quickly with the Pitocin. I can't remember the time frames exactly but it was within a few hours they were fairly intense. The whirlpool tub felt wonderful.. they still hurt during but between contractions it was very relaxing... it was not that way when I was in bed.
Jake was amazing through labor. I don't think I could have done it without his help as well as my mom and Andrea (our doula and photographer).
I had a lot of pain in my back and hips. I wasn't aware enough to really think through what was going on. In nursing school we had learned signs of malpositioned babies... can you guess what some signs may be for a baby that is occiput posterior (face up instead of face down)? You guessed it... lots of back pain. I never had any sensations in the front of my abdomen or any pressure only a twisting pain in my back and my hips. I'm glad I wasn't too aware of everything going on around me, because later my mother told me how wonderful the nurse I had was and how she could tell she was worried and keeping a very close eye on me.
Our doctor checked on us off and on through the day. I was making progress but slowly. He did comment at one point about her position and how her heat was not fully engaged where it should be and was still trying to turn in my pelvis. He thought she might be facing my side at the time. He did talk to me about an intrathecal injection at one point and thought it would help me to relax better and move things along quicker. He returned a few hours later and checked me again. I was around 6 to 6 1/2. He wanted to break my water and encouraged me again to think about having an intrathecal. I was having a lot of difficulty relaxing at all. My contractions were onto of each other and felt like they usually had two different peaks. They were 1-2 minutes apart at this time. I agreed.
An intrathecal is just a shot in your back and gives you some relief for up to four hours. You aren't numb and can still move. It isn't an epidural where you get a continuous stream of medication into your epidural space and are frequently numb and have to have a catheter inserted. Dr. Carlstone came back in and broke my water. It had meconium in it. This means that baby had had their first bowel movement before they were born. It can be problematic because it means baby is under some stress and could potentially inhale it if it were in their mouth or nose when they were born.
The intrathecal lasted about an hour. I had at least 30-40 minutes where I was pretty pain free and was able to rest. Boy was I going to be glad that I had that half an hour or so of rest. I hadn't eaten in almost 24 hours and I had only slept an hour or two before going into labor (we had a total 20 hour labor). Within an hour, the intrathecal had worn off completely. In another 30 minutes three nurses came into the room, turned me on my side, put oxygen on me and told me to start pushing. I heard one of them say to another "She is 9 with an anterior lip, Carlstone is on his way and said to have her start pushing now." It turns out that Hannie's heat rate had dropped into the 80s after a contraction. I remember thinking.. but I don't have any pressure or urge to push?
I pushed for three hours. It felt nothing like what we had learned in our natural birthing class we took in Des Moines or any of the books I had read about unmedicated birth. When a contraction started I would have pain in my groin/hip area and it would wrap around the front of my pelvis and into my back. I would push and it would only increase in intensity. I had to have someone on each side push on my hips after a contraction ended to help ease the pain of them. In a normal unmedicated birth pushing usually feels better. You will frequently have an urge to push and your body will often "take over" and start pushing automatically even if you aren't trying to.. you can't stop it. That didn't happen... ever.
About two hours in Carlstone mentioned a vacuum assist and episiotomy. He knew that she was occiput posterior (face up) and would have some difficulty getting through the pelvis. When babies are positioned face up instead of face down their chin isn't tucked to their chest and it is difficult for them to turn and navigate through the pelvic opening. Their head is frequently extended instead of tucked down. Her head doesn't push on the normal areas that it would push to help labor and pushing along. Dr. Carlstone knew I didn't want any intervention that was truly medically necessary and we had even discussed episiotomies and he had agreed that they normally don't need to be performed and doesn't like to do them either. He also told me with a vacuum assisted birth you normally get three tries to help baby out then it warrants a c section. I got to push for another hour.
I'm not sure how long she was crowning but I remember them have me feel her heart two or three times between pushing. He did do an episiotomy and used the vacuum to help her out on one final push.
Finally she was here!
Jake later said he couldn't believe I didn't cry. I am a crier... I cry at commercials, I cry at movies, I cry at heartfelt stories in church, I cry for no reason if I am overly tired... but when my baby girl is born? Nope! :-) I think I was in such shock that she was finally here and she was mine!
I ended up with a third degree tear. Ouch! I knew it couldn't have been good when Carlstone keeps asking for extra packs of sutures...
As I said in the beginning... this isn't a story that is mean to make birth scary. Birth is natural. God created us and our bodies to make and have babies. Do things always go as planned? No. But being educated and prepared help to reduce the risk of interventions and things going wrong. I remember thinking part way through labor.. "where are you God?.. I don't feel you here with me at all and this hurts and it is scary.. I know something isn't quite right.." I was later told by different nurses and my physician that babies that are born in Hannie's position usually are not born vaginally and end up being born by emergency csection. I can see why... especially if someone has an epidural. Pushing was hard enough doing it naturally.. I can't imagine how someone could push out an OP (occiput posterior) baby after having an epidural! Looking back I can see God was there the whole time. I had some amazing nurses and a physician who knew what I wanted and did his best to prevent any interventions that weren't truly necessary. He gave me time to push (the nurses told me most mom's do not get to push that long and usually end up not being able to make progress soon enough to keep pushing).
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| Johannah Ruth Stielow born on February 10th at 9:42pm. 7lbs 8oz and 20 3/4 inches long. |
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| Hello world! |
Moral of the story... even when things aren't ideal you can still have (or at least close) to having a normal/natural birth. Be educated at what medication and interventions could potential do.. do they increase your risk of csection? Would they put you or baby at risk for blood pressure issues or heart rate problems? Education and preparation make all the difference no matter what type of birth you are hoping to have.
Here is our amazing birth video that Andrea did.
Watch Johannah's Birth Video Here
