Natalie’s Blog

One year ago today, I woke up having contractions. Chris was so excited he said he felt like it was Christmas morning! And only 29 hours later, Natalie was born.

For prosperity’s sake I really should have written this down right after Natalie was born, but I was too busy figuring out motherhood! So on the eve Natalie’s first birthday, I wanted to write down the story of the day she was born.

Just to warn you, this will be long and detailed, but here it is…Natalie’s birth story.

A bit of lead-up….a week before my due date, we had a check-up with the midwife. At that point, I was so uncomfortable that I asked to be induced the following week if things didn’t happen on their own. Then I wised up and realized that induction was not the way to go and should be avoided at all costs. We tried all kinds of things to encourage labor, but it would be WAY too much information to go into to detail about the methods we used! The following Monday, December 4, we had a “non-stress test” which monitors the baby’s movements and heart-rate in a non-stressful situation (ie not labor). They told us that once you get past your “due date” the placenta can stop functioning, you can lose amniotic fluid and the baby can be in danger. Natalie slept through the morning of the test, sending the midwife into panic, so we had to go to the labor and delivery for further tests that afternoon. They threatened to keep us and induce that day, so we went home to pack some stuff. Luckily, after lunch and some chocolate, Natalie was her active self and the midwives let us go home, confident that she was healthy. There were a few scary moments when an inexperienced nurse couldn’t find Natalie’s heartbeat, but for some reason I knew our baby was just fine.

Even though I no longer wished to be induced, I wanted to make sure that a midwife I’d been working with would deliver Natalie. None of the midwives in the practice worked on Friday, and I didn’t want to take the risk of having to settle for a doctor I’d never met deliver my baby. I’d already went through quite a rigamarole the week before trying to schedule the induction for a day when my favorite midwife was on duty. The midwives were willing to work with my request, so the induction was set for Wednesday December 6, at 4 pm. The other reason they were pushing induction was they thought the baby was really big. My belly was huge and all the midwives who examined me felt that it was “all baby.”

On Wednesday when I woke up having regular contractions every 8 minutes, I thought we could avoid the induction. We excitedly timed the contractions, which were much stronger than the Braxton-Hicks contractions I’d already been having for 6 weeks, but tolerable. I took a long bath and walked around and breathed through it. By early afternoon the contractions were every 5-6 minutes and getting stronger. When I called the midwife and told her that I wanted to wait instead of inducing, but she encouraged us to come to the hospital as scheduled to be checked. Chris, having watched his two younger sisters born at home, was more willing to ignore the midwives advice and wait until there was no chance of needing to be induced before going to the hospital. Looking back, I wished I had the confidence to do just that. But I was scared that something would go wrong or that I would miss the window of having my favorite midwife, so off to the hospital we went.

I was hoping I would have an experience similar to my friend Diane, who had her daughter within 7 hours of beginning induction. I figured it would be doubly quick since I was already having contractions. Oh, how wrong I was! The midwife checked me and found I was only 1 cm dilated, after 6 hours of contractions. So she went ahead and administered Cervidil (in the form of a patch that get inserted against the cervix) that is supposed to soften the cervix. She warned us that it can take up to 12 hours, but I still thought that for me it would be faster. By this point, I was hooked up to and IV and two monitors, one to monitor the contractions and one to monitor the baby’s heartbeat. All the nurses remarked about how active Natalie was—every few minutes she would kick, which made a loud noise on the monitor. I wasn’t supposed to get out of bed or move around too much, which made dealing with the contractions much more difficult. I got pretty crabby and snapped at a nurse who said something about “when you go into labor.” I thought to myself, “but I’m ALREADY in LABOR!!!”

At 10 pm, the Cervidil came out and the midwife came back to hospital (she’d gone home) to check me. The nurse “let” me take a shower before the midwife got there, which really helped with the pain. The midwife found that after 6 hours of contractions every 5 minutes, with Cervidil, I was still only 1 cm dilated! At this point I got really discouraged and doubtful that I could continue to deal with the pain while confined to bed. Pat, the midwife, told that us everything was normal and we were making progress, even if it was slow. She suggested I take some pain medication (I think Nubain) so that I could get some sleep since tomorrow was likely to be a long day I would need strength and rest for the delivery. Since the labor was already sooooo different from what I’d written in my birth plan (my plan was to have a completely natural, no interventions labor) I consented.

While she left to write the prescription, my water broke. I was surprised by how much fluid there was—like a damn breaking! That explains why my belly was so huge. It made me wonder how any woman could ever question whether her water had broken, since for me it was so obvious. I felt encouraged that at least I was making some progress. But then after that I was even more uncomfortable, because with every contraction, more fluid came out. I went through several disposable bed liners. Gross, but true. (I warned you there would be details!)

Chris says I was sound asleep the second they put the Nubain in my IV. We both slept for about 2 hours. Then the Nubain started to wear off and I woke up about every 15 minutes, sitting up in bed and throwing off my covers. Pretty soon I was waking up with every contraction, which was every 5 minutes. I really regretted taking the Nubain, since it didn’t work very long, but made me really confused and out of it. I kept asking the same questions each time I woke up and was really groggy and just plain felt weird. Poor Chris stayed up the rest of the night and helped me through each contraction, putting my covers back on when I threw them off and answering my nonsensical questions.

By the morning, my brain felt clear again and I was ready for the epidural, especially because they were going to give me Pitocin to speed up the contractions. I’d heard that Pitocin contractions are more painful than natural ones and I figured since they had me on monitors and confined to bed anyway, I might as well be numb. The nurse checked me and said I was only 2 cm dilated and would have to wait until I was 4 cm to get the epidural. Only 2 cm after 24 hours of contractions!?!?!? Thank goodness for Joanne, my favorite midwife, who came on duty that morning. She examined me and said, “How’d you get 2? I’d call that 4 cm!” I think she took pity on me and didn’t want me to go through the pain of Pitocin.

So the anesthesiologist came to do the epidural and Chris was in charge of holding my shoulders still. I winced when he gave the initial shot of local anesthetic and the doctor scolded me and yelled at me not to move. Chris got queasy half-way through and the nurse took over. He was freaked out about the idea of a needle being stuck in my spine, plus he hadn’t eaten or slept in a while. It was such a strange sensation—you know how depictions of our nerves look like tree-roots? I felt every nerve on my left side as the needle went in and totally understood why that tree-root image is so accurate.

After the epidural was in, I was much more relaxed. In fact I hadn’t realized how tense I was, which was probably preventing me from dilating. Chris and I both took naps and visited with our moms and Smoky, who were there for the birth. I think I did a cross-word puzzle.

By 2 pm, 4 hours after the epidural went in, I was 10 cm dilated and ready to push. They turned the epidrual off so I could feel when to push and where to direct my energy. Again I had high expectations and thought I would push for a few minutes and the baby would be out. But it actually took a little over an hour. The nurses and the midwife were very encouraging, but unfortunately I had to have an episiotomy. By the end, I was begging for them to use the vacuum to suck the baby out. The doctor came in to do the vacuum (midwives aren’t allowed) but ended up cheering me on until Natalie was born. I remember being surprised that a baby came out of me…even after 9 months of pregnancy, hearing the heartbeat, feeling the kicks, and seeing the ultrasounds, it was still a shock. I was even more shocked that Natalie has hair…I totally expected her to be bald. And despite what the midwived predicted, Natalie was only 7 pounds 6 ounces.

Looking at this picture, Natalie was well worth the effort!

Natalie Caroline
December 7, 2006
3:15 pm
7 pounds, 6 ounces
21 inches long

P.S. Please email me any corrections—I’ve been writing for a little over an hour and am too tired to edit. And it’s 11:20 and I really want to publish this while it’s still the “eve” of Natalie’s Birthday.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 6th, 2007 at 11:21 pm and is filed under Birthdays, Growing, Photos. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.