Evanina’s Birth Story Part 1
After all the trouble with this pregnancy, getting her here was much easier than I expected. Nothing went as I had originally planned, but in the end, it was as smooth as it could possibly be. Due to gestational diabetes, severe swelling in my feet, legs and pretty much everywhere else, and other issues, we decided to encourage her to come into the world 10 days early. I had been having contractions for a few hours a day most of the week, but they never settled into real labor or caused any real dilation. There were plenty of signs that labor was coming, but it just wasn’t happening yet.
I was supposed to check into the hospital at 9 PM. We were 3 hours late since I really wanted to get as many orders out as possible so I could relax.
Within minutes after arrival, I was hooked up to the fetal monitor on one side of the bed and an IV pole with several bags of meds on the other side of the bed. That pretty much rendered me immobile. I really, really hate needles so getting an IV is very stressful for me. The nurse tried to put the IV in my arm, but her first attempt to find a vein was unsuccessful (ouch!) so she put it in the back of my left hand. So, now I was immobile and one-handed.
Suddenly my arm started to hurt just above the IV. The pain was unbearable. It was all I could do not to rip out the IV or scream, my husband had to call the nurse for me. Apparently this is a “normal” reaction to penicillin IVs. Once the solution was diluted a bit the pain slowly went away. It happened a few more times during the night and the next day, when the solution got too strong again, but never got that intense again.
They then gave me cytotec to start getting things closer to labor. I didn’t realize it at the time, but it actually started my labor very quickly after the first dose. I knew I was in more pain with each contraction, but I never really caught the moment when things went from “prelabor” to “labor.” Even going to the bathroom was difficult because my back was giving out and each trip meant getting a nurse to unhook the monitors and help me move the heavy IV pole to the bathroom. Eva would not stay put on the monitor, so they were not able to get a continuous heart rate for her.
I had studied the Hypnobabies childbirth hypnosis course, but I never spent the time on it that I should have. First, I got the course later in my pregnancy than I planned (around 28 weeks). Then, once I found out I had gestational diabetes the course was very hard for me to stick with as it is very pro-natural and by that point I knew I was looking at a lot of interventions. I did find the CDs helpful for relaxing during the early hours of labor, but I was not disciplined enough to use them after things really got moving.
Knowing that my body does not react well to starvation, I had packed some small snacks. I did not want to spike my blood sugar and have the nurses freak out, but I also knew that going that many hours without food was going to wear me out and make it harder for me to do what I needed to do to deliver this baby. So, I had a small amount of cheese and a few crackers a couple of times during the night – despite the hospital’s outdated rule against any food for laboring mothers. I really believe this helped keep my sanity when my blood sugar started to drop.
Around 3:00 AM the nurse tested my blood sugar. It was at 76. I already knew that around a blood sugar of 80 I get very emotionally unstable. I asked how much lower they would allow it to go before they did something about it (at this point I was getting insulin, saline, and penicillin, but no glucose to counteract the insulin). I knew my blood sugars were going lower, I could feel myself losing my ability to cope. By 4 AM when she came back to test me again, my blood sugar had dropped to 74. She did not mention doing anything to help, just told me what it was and left the room. Thinking I had another hour of this getting worse before they tested me again and finally DID something to help, I started to panic. The pain was getting worse and no one said anything about me actually being in labor at that point, I just felt almost continuous pain. I started crying. This woke my husband (I had asked him to try to sleep so he would be better able to help me when I really needed it). He started looking at the monitor and told me that he could see the contractions were 3-5 minutes apart and getting stronger. Suddenly it clicked that I was actually in labor and that is why the pain was getting worse. Listening to the Hypnobabies CDs at this point did relax me some, but not enough to sleep.
Around 6 AM the nurse came in and told me she had spoken to my doctor and that they were going to rupture the membranes so they could place an internal monitor. Did I want the epidural before or after they ruptured my membranes? I was hungry, had been awake for more than 24 hours, and the pain was already reaching the point where I was struggling to deal with it. I decided not to get the epidural. At 7 AM the doctor came in and ruptured my membranes. I was still just barely more than one centimeter dilated, after all those hours of labor.
I got up to use the bathroom and found I was barely able to move because the contractions were so strong. I decided to get the epidural. I knew that things would only get more intense once they started the pitocin. Of course, by that time the anesthesiologist was in surgery. The contractions started to come so fast they were less than a minute apart. With no amniotic fluid to cushion things, the pain was unbearable. I rolled onto my side and asked my husband to push on my back during contractions. Since the were so close together, he was not able to leave my side to even get me ice chips from the other side of the room before the next contraction started up. When he had to use the bathroom I was only able to rock back and forth to distract myself from the pain as contraction after contraction hit me. This was not what I had envisioned, and I knew I needed that epidural. I
At that point I accepted the nurse’s offer of an IV drug to relieve the pain somewhat. She warned me that it did not really help with the pain, but that patient’s described it as more of a “I don’t care anymore.” Thankfully, it made me drowsy and actually did seem to shorten the contractions a bit.
Finally, about 9:30 AM the anesthesiologist was able to come in. By then I was exhausted and unable to hold still while he put the needle in. He was really good at what he was doing, but I was struggling to hold still during the nearly constant contractions. His first attempt made it feel like there was electricity shooting down my left leg. The second attempt ended up in a blood vessel. The third attempt finally worked and I could feel the numbness starting as they helped me to get back into a reclining postion. Soon I was dozing off between the blood tests and other things the nurses were doing. I actually managed to sleep on and off through most of the day until the nurse told me I was fully dilated.
