I am a planner.
According to my husband, I have a hard time "just letting things happen." Although I love modern conveniences and am so glad we have the technology in the medical field, I have a tendency to lean toward the natural side of things. I was totally ready! I had discussed my birth plan with my husband, midwife and doula and knew how my birth was going to go down to the last detail! I was going to have a natural birth with lots of walking and laboring in the tub. I was going to listen to my body and roll with the waves of contractions. No Epidural, no pitocin, delayed cord clamping, no staying in my bed, baby rooming in with us and no doctor telling me what to do!
I had my husband's and my bag packed, I had outfits for my baby ready, we had just moved closer to both of our parents and was on my last week of work. I had made it! Baby was due to come any day (in my mind) and I was headed to my checkup. Since a lot of our belongings were in boxes and my husband and I were about 2 hours apart while I was finishing up my job, I thought it would be a good idea to just keep our bags in the car... just in case.
Once I was at my appointment and we went through the motions of a normal appointment my midwife told me "Everything looks good. We'll see you next week!"
That night, I had gotten a call from my midwife and she said... "We detected protein in your urine. Your blood pressure isn't considered high so your not considered pre-eclamptic, but you need to go on bed rest and come back in 2 days and you'll need to pick an induction date in 2 weeks."
I immediately was calling my husband, doula and best friend nearly in tears. This was not suppose to happen to me!! I have boxes to unpack, food to cook, floors to vacuum and dishes to put away! I have nesting to do in our new house and I had been talking about my natural birth for months! I was NOT having an induction!!
Fast forward to a little less than two weeks later on October 4th. This was my third 3 1/2 trip that week to the doctors office for a urinalysis, blood pressure check and baby monitoring. I made one final plea for putting off my induction. My midwife said that if my blood pressure still wasn't high, she would present my case for me to the OB/GYN. The nurse came in and took my blood pressure and it was high. With a horrified look on my midwife's face she said "I'm going to walk out of the room and come back in 10 minutes. You need to take a nap while I'm gone." After a few minutes went by she sent the nurse back in and took my blood pressure again and this time it was higher!
My midwife left and after fifteen minutes returned and said "Um, well I talked to the OB and... not only is she not going to let you move your induction further out, she says you need to be induced tonight at 5."
So after texting my husband and telling him I wasn't joking and calling my doula to get on her way it was time to have this baby!
Thursday night they started me on magnesium sulfate and gave me a cervical softening pill because I was hardly dilated... Go figure! I had mild contractions through the night and we started the dreaded Pitocin at 7AM Friday morning. With that the contractions got stronger but I was still able to doze through some of them. I was bed bound with minimal movement because of my bp and the magnesium sulfate. Along with the baby's heart beat could only be found when I was on my back or my right side. Stinker!
After laboring for a lot of the day my midwife finally decided to manually break my water. Then came the strong contractions. And boy were they strong. After 8 hours of laboring at 4 cm that I thought I saw 8 come from her mouth, a couple painful trips to the bathroom and a lot of moaning and breathing, my midwife suggested an epidural. Although I was ready, THIS WASN'T IN MY PLAN! In fact, nothing so far had been a part of my plan!
Luckily with the epidural I was able to sleep for a couple of hours and regain some fight. After the couple of hours of sleep my epidural was starting to wear off and I could feel A LOT of the intensity of contractions. Meanwhile my midwife pulled my husband aside and said if I wasn't progressing, they were going to take me in for a C-Section! The time came for my check and I had progressed to 8+!! Yay! After a couple more hours it was finally time to push!!
With my epidural they weren't sure if I would be able to use the squat bar or not, but thank goodness I was able to!! After pushing for about and hour my midwife pulled my husband aside and said if baby wasn't here by 5AM we were going to have to do a c-section. Then she asked how mad I was going to be when she told me that I was going to have to have a c-section. My husband told her not to mention it. HA! Good man! After I finally got the hang of pushing and we were nearing the end, my midwife said my little bundle would be here in 15 minutes. I said, "How about 2!" And she was! My bundle of joy was born at 4:52 AM!
After a moment of skin to skin they took her to the warming table for an evaluation. Anticipating my baby to be the expected weight of almost 9lbs according to the last ultrasound the nurse called out a weight of 6lbs 11oz. WHAT?! Then after nursing my bundle, she had to be taken to the NICU for monitoring because of low blood sugar. It was official: Nothing went the way I thought!
I had wanted a natural birth and mine was far from it. Although my birth wasn't what I thought, it was still my birth. I felt empowered and like my body had just done one of the most amazing things that God ever intended for a woman to do! I hope that my next birth will go more "according to plan", but if it doesn't, I'm confidant that I will feel just as empowered, because I had a plan.
~Jayna
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