Baby Eva's Really Long Birthday Story

I was due August 13th. 8 days later I went to Scalini's for dinner, knowing I would go into labor the next day, except for then i didn't. i felt so cheated. Nevertheless, my induction was scheduled for Friday the 24th, so they told me I'd be going to the hospital Thursday night to prepare. Apparently Thursday night was a hot night to have a baby so while I was supposed to be there at 7:30pm. They wouldn't let me check in until 11pm due to room shortages. We finally got there, pretty tired ( not recommended to start out tired), and 2 hours later at 1 am they finally put the stuff on my cervix to start things going. Then they said I could go to sleep, but of course they'd come in a lot to make me roll over because that's what the monitors said was in the best interest of the baby.

Around 2:30 am all these nurses come in and bombard my room and put an oxygen mask over my face (for the baby's sake), and then they proceed to take the cervadil out ( mind you it's supposed to stay in for 12 hours). Something about the baby's heart rate dropping. So then we wait and sleep-ish for 2 hours when the dr was able to get there and check on me. I think I was dilated to a big old 1 at this point. The dr decided I should have been induced 5 days ago so he wants to hurry things along and proceeds to break my water and start me on pitocin. About an hour later I ask the nurse for some pain management assistance, I'm thinking something like Tylenol? But then she shoots something into my IV and I feel loopy and instantly go to sleep. It was kind of fantastic. At 6ish am i get the bombardment of nurses again with the oxygen and am too drugged and sleepy to understand anything so I go back to sleep. 8am comes and the new dr comes on rotation to see what is going on with me. He is not happy with what's happened thus far, I think mostly because when the nurses stopped the pitocin at 6am they didn't tell the dr, so I was just hanging out for a couple hours with nothing going on and no one knowing about it. At this point I finally realize they stopped the pitocin 2 hours ago and am bummed because I thought my pain tolerance was increasing because I no longer felt cramps. Aka contractions. i should have known better i guess.

Anyway, they stopped the pitocin because the baby's heart rate dropped again. Now they proceed to restart it and turn it up sloooowly. By the way I am not any further dilated at this point. So it starts again and I am in more and more pain and it sucks. At noon I can't handle the cramps (very low pain tolerance here) and ask for an epidural. They check me out and tell me I'm dilated only at a 2 but agree to give me the stuff. I had heard scary things about epidurals and the needles in your back etc etc, but apparently that was way over-hyped because it was so easy and non painful and I could get epidurals all day long.

Amazingly, my cramping pain stopped, it was fantastic, except no one told me my entire legs would end up uncomfortably numb! Actually they probably did I just didn't pay attention. Is this normal?? Like it was super duper uncomfortable. Whenever they wanted me to turn to the other side or scoot over the nurses would have to pick up my legs one at a time and move them themselves because I was worthless. I was remotely scared I was paralyzed but kept wiggling my toes to make sure I wasn't (and by the way I could only just BARELY wiggle them). Awful. But it beat the pain.

Well I think the pitocin got up to level 7 (i don't know if "level" is the proper word here but that's what i'm calling it) before the baby's heart rate dropped AGAIN and they had to stop it...they kept starting/stopping until about 430pm, when the dr came to talk about options. I was dilated to a "generous 2" after all this uncomfortableness. Go me.

Well he checked internally how the baby was doing and tried to pull it down lower into position because it was still situated high in my belly, and yes I said belly. Then the heart rate drops again, then we sit there talking and the heart rate drops again. He tells me this baby is not tolerating labor well and every time it gets stressed and I should be closer to labor, it's heart rate drops. He thinks this might be because there is a cord wrapped around something, preventing it from coming out, but he can't be sure. He says I have 2 options. 1 is look at the facts, everything keeps happening the same over and over and this baby probably will not tolerate labor, and even if I miraculously ever make it to fully dilated, the pushing could be too stressful on the baby. But it probably won't even get to that point so why bother trying and let's just put an end to this and do a c-section. Oh and by the way I haven't eaten for 21 hours, I am exhausted, I hate my numb legs, I am super duper weak, I keep asking for apple juice and food, they keep saying no, it's really irritating...I'm ready for this to be over because I can't handle it. But I came into this not wanting it to end in c-section, so now we move on to option 2: they would pump my uterus full of saline in hopes that if it is a cord, the saline will allow it to float itself off whatever it is stuck on, and then monitor the contractions internally to see if they're strong enough. Pitocin would be started again as a last ditch effort, and if baby's heart rate drops again and no progress is being made then it ends in c-section. He said this second option would take at least 4-6 hours before we would know if it worked, and I wanted to cry because I can't handle 4-6 more hours.

He talked a lot and a lot about the pros and cons of each option and how they both were correct and if it was a colleague's daughter in my place he would probably send them straight to c section because most likely nothing would change in this last effort and it would end in c section anyway. For a moment I wanted him to tell me he wasn't giving me a choice and that he'd put me on the operating list so it'd be over sooner. But then he gave me a choice and I don't know how I said I picked the saline pumping option because I really didn't want to. But I had to know that I tried everything possible (nothing against c-sections by the way, I just want a lot of kids and was scared it wouldn't be possible if I had my first by way of c-section). Oh and this whole time he kept saying I hadn't even started active labor yet and I was so irritated because what WAS I doing if it wasn't active labor! So I like to think that it was. Also sometime during all of this I could feel my contraction cramps again and that wasn't cool with me so they had to get the anesthesiologist to come back in and bump up my epidural. I told them not to make it go to me legs but they said not possible.

They waste no time in starting to pump fluid in me, then an hr later start the pitocin again, then some time later the doc checked me and I was at a 3 and much more effaced than I had been previously, so he was super duper surprised and said this might actually work, let's stick with it. He comes back a few hours later and I am at a 7! Everyone's excited and now he really thinks this might work. They stop the pitocin for an hour or so I don't remember why but they come back and I'm at a 9 and the baby's dropped into position finally, so we're getting real close. They turn the pitocin back on to get my contractions closer together and stronger and now I'm really nervous because I don't have any strength in my whole body and there's no way I can push anything out.

About 12:20am they decide I'm ready to push. And so I do some trial runs and the nurse keeps pushing on me stomach in between pushes, which by the way pushing makes you get a terribly awful stomachache and if I were one to vomit I would've thrown up easy. And she said throwing up is good because the force makes you push hard, so then I knew she was pushing my stomach to make me vomit even though I told her I don't throw up ever! I kept making sure she knew I hated it but she refused to stop and it was so mean. And then she kept laughing because she could feel the baby moving so much and then I knew she was just doing it because she selfishly wanted to feel my baby. Unreal. But she was really strong so she did a great job lifting and moving my legs wherever they needed to go.

I'm pushing for a while, with nothing happening except for what little strength and power i have left is deteriorating rapidly. i know that the baby will stay inside me forever because I'm not strong enough to get it out. The dr then talks vacuums and I don't object because I know that is the only way I stand a chance at finishing this. Then all the nurses start calling their buddies on different floors to come into my room to watch because a vacuum will be used. Oh what a fun party! I'm pretty sure there's at least 10 extra people there and they all are encouraging me and telling me I can do it, but its too hard and I don't think they understand that. Well on the 4th try with the vacuum I see a head come out and it's grossly misshapen- I had no idea vacuums could misshape your head THAT much! So that was weird. And then I said do I have to push anymore and the dr said no he could pull the rest of the baby out and the placenta would deliver itself so I was all done. As the baby was coming out they told George to look and tell us all if it was a boy or girl, and he said girl and nobody saw that coming. Even the nurses would tell us only boys are this stubborn, and she had a low heart rate the whole time in my belly, so apparently that's not an accurate wives tale. But the Chinese calendar was right on so I guess they know what's up.

Then they stitched me up and I had my baby girl and she was 7#12oz, 19.25" born at 1:10 am on Saturday August 25th!

A few days later we decided to name her Eva. And now she is a month old and super chubby (12 pounds), and even though George and I never liked babies, we love this one!