Good Grits in the Heartland: Birth Story

Bonnie Faye's birth story...

With Bonnie I was originally given a due date of 1/1/2011, cool right? Well half way through my pregnancy they changed it to 1/3/2011 which ended up being the day she was born.

I guess I should start by telling you that the Sunday after Christmas (12/26/10) I started having contractions around 11:30pm and they were consistently 3-5 minutes apart and 1-2 minutes long. Well, They were getting stronger so I called the labor & delivery unit at our hospital and the nurse said not to some in until I couldn't walk or talk through them anymore. So I decided to go to bed and I eventually fell asleep (around 3:30am.) When I woke up at 7am my contractions had subsided so I went on in to work. (12/27/10)

At my OB appointment on Wednesday (12/29/10) the midwife told me I was 100% effaced and 3-4cm dilated, oh, and my blood pressure was up. She said we wouldn't even make a follow up appointment for the following week b/c the baby would be born by the weekend and she said she was surprised that I was up and walking around and hadn't had anymore contractions. So I called my parents and the whole family decided to come up so they could meet Bonnie once she'd been born. They would get here Friday and my dad, brother & sister would drive back down to Atlanta on Sunday and my mom would stay with us for another week to help out. Well, my family arrived, the weekend came and went (along with the posibility of having a baby on 1/1/11) and Sunday my dad, brother & sister disappointedly headed back to Atlanta. No baby.

I called the obgyn Monday morning (1/3/11) to make another appointment for Wednesday and they put me on hold for a while. When they got back on the phone they said I should come in that afternoon. When I went in for my appointment I was 5-6cm dilated-still 100% effaced and not having any sign of a contraction. My blood pressure was even higher than my previous appointment, so the midwife asked how I felt about an induction. There was concern regarding the potential for pre-eclampsia so we talked it over and I agreed to letting them break my water (hoping I wouldn't need pitocin.) She stripped my membranes, I went home, called our doula, grabbed my suitcase and Paul & I headed back up to the hospital.

My doula was great and at the time was training another doula, so we basically ended up with a 2-for-the-price-of-1 kind of deal. The midwife checked me again when we got to the hospital and said I was 7cm, she broke my water around 6:30pm and I walked a few laps around the Labor & Delivery floor as my contractions got started and then got stronger. Pretty soon I couldn't walk anymore and ended up on a birthing ball. I had Celtic harp music in the background (that I barely remember hearing, ha!) and I had at least 2 sets of hands on me pretty much at all times massaging my back and neck, etc. They did have to put me in the bed to do 30 minutes of monitoring the baby but then we headed into one of the jacuzzi tubs to labor. I started getting the urge to push in the tub but I knew you weren't supposed to deliver in the jacuzzis and the birthing tub hadn't been totally filled yet. My midwife told me to push anyway and said if I was to deliver in the jacuzzi too bad. (Loved her!)

A few minutes later they came in and said the tub was full and they got me out of the jacuzzi and I had to walk (quickly) down the hall to my room. I got into the tub on all fours (this just felt right to me- I had been on all fours in the jacuzzi too) and they had me push as much/long as I felt like I wanted to. This was one of my least favorite parts. I'd had several women tell me while I was pregnant that they loved pushing and the feeling of relief it gave them so I was thinking it would be great! I just felt a lot of burning and stinging and it made it hard to keep wanting to push but what choice do you have? (In hindsight, Bonnie came fast and I was tearing so that explains it!) After a few pushes Bonnie was born at 8:47pm and they had me pull her up out of the water onto my stomach. I tried to get her up to my chest but her umbilical cord was too short. After Paul cut the cord, they took her to weigh her (7lbs 6oz) and measure her (20 in.) and got me into the bed to deliver the placenta. (Side note, when you deliver via water birth they have to get you out of the tub pretty quickly b/c they have to be able to monitor how much blood you're losing and they can't do that in the water.) I delivered the placenta within about 10 minutes and then the midwife had to give me a few stitches. I ended up with 1st degree external tearing and 2nd degree internal tearing. Then they brought Bonnie back over and I nursed her.

All in all it was crazy! Fast and furious. Just over 2 hours but really I never really got to experience any of the easier early labor that is supposed to build up into transition and hard labor(unless you want to go back to December 26th when I originally had my first contractions), it was hard labor within about 10 minutes of them breaking my water. They did the transitioning for me! So just 2 hours of hard labor, then pushing and it was over. It was more painful than I had expected. I mean, I knew it would be but it still caught me off guard. I remember that night Paul was asking me how many kids we wanted to have and I told him I was not ready to talk about it. Honestly, I could easily have told him "just one" in that first 2 days and meant it. Ha!