I started working on the birth story in the hospital, but once I got home, all hell broke loose (thanks, by the way, for your comments, emails and messages about my last post -- more on that another day). It's been hard to carve out blocks of time where I was unterrupted, sane, and in the right headspace to dig back through the memories. So time has flown by, my sweet baby girl is now one month old (!!!) and I'm just now publishing the first in what is turning out to be a multi-part story. I'm taking my time with it, because I want to get the details right, both for my future reference, and so that our story might help some future mama who's faced with a similar situation.
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The first thing I want to fess up to is that, somehow, when I agreed to an induction, I had no idea it might take more than 24 hours for the process to take hold. I knew that inductions failed, but I felt that my body was ready enough (my cervix was dilated 1 whole centimeter!) and would certainly respond to the induction process, particularly if they brought out the evil drug Pitocin, of which I'd heard and read so much. Looking back, I can only shake my head at how much I didn't know.
Here's how it all played out:
Friday night, we arrived at the hospital for a midnight induction, only to find that the baby had shifted back to her favorite sideways position. Argh!!! This meant we had to schedule an external version, which had to be done on an empty stomach. Earlier that evening, I'd been keeping my nerves calm by eating ice cream, so we couldn't begin the process until morning. They offered to send me home, but I couldn't see the sense in that. My mom was at our house, our son was asleep in his bed, the drive was 30 minutes each way, and we had just hauled a ton of stuff in from the car. Nope, we'd just sleep in the L&D room for one night. (Oh, how naive we were ...)
The nurse completed the lengthy admission process, then they sent in an anesthesiologist to go over info about epidurals, general anesthesia, etc. Somewhere after 1:30am, the Mister and I finally settled in to attempt sleep. The Mister was on a windowseat/couch with a hard cushion and some sheets and blankets the hospital provided. He (who actually enjoys sleeping on floors) was as comfy as comfy could be. I, on the other hand, couldn't have been less comfortable, since my bed was designed for delivering babies, not for sleeping with a baby inside of you. I was hooked up to monitors, which would basically not be unhooked until the baby was born several days later. Had I realized that then, I would have advocated for no monitoring that first night so I could get a more comfortable night's sleep. As it was, the nurses also took my blood pressure every hour or so, ensuring that I started the journey in a fully sleep-deprived state. Again, if I'd known what I was in for, I would have insisted that they just let us be that first night. In the end, I didn't get any real sleep for another 4 days.
Saturday morning, they added an IV port to the array of equipment attached to me. The day shift nurse was one of my favorites from previous L&D test runs, but she blew through the vein in my left arm, meaning that I spent the next few days with my right hand dragging IV tubing along with it. Because, y'know, that's convenient for a righty. The morning dragged along while they waited for the lab to confirm my blood type (even though we all knew what it was, sigh). I was hungry, thirsty, and bored out of my mind. And, of course, I'd only had a few hours' sleep the night before.
Finally, a youngish and very persnickety male OB came in to discuss the external version process with me, emphasizing the dangers (uterine rupture, placental abruption (a strong possibility, given my anterior placenta), stressed baby, water breaking), any of which would require an emergency c-section and, thus, general anesthesia -- which, of course, would mean my carefully prepared birth plan would be tossed to the side with the daily trash ... so wouldn't I like to schedule a nice planned c-section instead? Um, no thanks. (This, by the way, would be only the first of many many times I was offered a c-section in the next few days.)
They then injected some sort of asthma medication into my IV. This drug's purpose was to relax my uterine muscles, much as it relaxes the lungs of someone having an asthma attack. The downside? It's also a stimulant, or, as the OB snarkily remarked, "It's like 2 espressos and a shot of Red Bull." So my uterus was ready for a nap, but the rest of me (which hadn't touched a drop of caffeine for the past 9 months) was in full-on fight-or-flight mode.
The external version was weird and just this side of Very Painful. More like Incredibly Uncomfortable with a side of If This Lasts One More Minute I Will Have to Start Yelling, and the increasing drug-induced panic attack in my nervous system did not help me enjoy it at all. Thank god for my yoga practice and dabblings in meditation! The only thing that kept me from freaking out was serious deep breathing and focusing on getting through the experience one breath at a time. The doc got one hand on the baby's head, one on the baby's butt and puuuuuushed her around in a counter-clockwise motion. He was really straining, and I was glad that he was the OB on call that day, as I'm not sure any of the very nice but not so obviously strong female OBs would have had the hand and arm strength to move the baby while keeping just enough control to avoid harming the placenta.
The next ultrasound showed that the version was a success, and they quickly bound my belly in a giant elastic girdle to keep the baby from turning again. That was particularly uncomfortable, as the baby monitors (which, for the uninitiated, are each about the size of a hockey puck) had to be placed against my skin and, thus, under the girdle. The monitors dug into my skin and sometimes caused incredible itching. Once the girdle was in place, they waited another half-hour to make sure the baby stayed put, then started the Pitocin drip.
The original plan had been to ripen my cervix with Misprostol before using the Pit to start contractions. But, now that the baby had been officially declared an "unstable lie," there was much less emphasis on making sure I was ready for labor, and much more emphasis on making sure the baby didn't turn again. Because, after all, if I went into labor while she was in any position but head-down, we'd be headed for a c-section. The Pitocin would (presumably) start hard contractions that would help drive the baby's head into my pelvis, and if my cervix wasn't ready to have a baby's head pounding against it, well, that was just too bad. Once the baby was engaged, the chances of her turning would decrease significantly, and then we could decrease the Pit and give my cervix time to ripen. That was the plan, anyway. (Of course, we all knows what happens to the best-laid plans ...)
They started the Pit at the lowest possible level and gradually increased it. I spent a full day attached to the IV -- which I dubbed "Stanley" -- getting my vitals checked every half hour or so, and watching the number on the Pit IV increase. They had me on the wireless monitors, so I could get up and roam around the room, dragging Stanley with me. Good ol' Stan was plugged into the wall, but he had a battery pack so I could make short trips from my bed. Oddly, although walking the hospital halls is a time-honored method of getting labor going, I didn't leave the room, as I fully expected to be going into labor any minute (hahaha!). The farthest I went was my in-room bathroom. By the end of the day, the Pit was dripping at the maximum rate (or, as I learned later, as maxed as they wanted to go at that point), and the monitors showed that I was contracting regularly, but they certainly weren't anything like the Pit contractions I'd read so much about. Rather than writhing in excruciating pain, I couldn't feel a damn thing. Yet, the Mister and I remained stupidly optimistic, while watching Portlandia episodes and IM'ing with our doula and a friend who used to be a midwife.
I should add that, from the moment I entered the hospital, I was texting my three BFFs who I've known since grade school. Because it was a holiday weekend, they had time to write back, and their emails were my primary lifeline to the outside world. They're also the only record I have of how I spent that time. At 5:07pm on Saturday night, New Year's Eve, I sent the following: "I just had a grilled cheese sandwich and the most painful cervical exam ever (not at the same time). Not dilating, grrrr, so they're taking me off the pitocin and putting me on misoprostol to ripen cervix. Which means very unlikely baby born today, sigh. On the plus side, baby is still head down. Definitely don't want to turn her again. Getting really tired of hospital!"
[To be continued ...]
I have to tell you, I'm reading with hesitation. My girl finally turned head down last week (at 32 weeks 4 days), and so far she's stayed. I'm studying hypnobabies for this one, and I long, long, long for a successful VBAC since Lizzy was breech and I had a planned c-section last time. I've switched doctors and hospitals mid-care so that I could have a doc with a 90% VBAC success rate and one that does not induce or interfere until after 42 weeks. I'm hopeful. I'm going to read these installments with eagerness. I'm happy to hear your meditation and yoga skills helped to keep you calm during the ECV. Did they help with the rest of your labor (or as they say in hypnobabies "birthing time")?
Posted by: fiddle1 | February 01, 2012 at 11:49 AM