Labor and Delivery from the Mom's Perspective

TGM was born early Thursday morning after a much shorter labor than I was told to anticipate. From the birthing class we took to the midwife, we were reminded repeatedly that for the first delivery, labor averages 12 -18 hours. Well, I obviously hit the shorter end of that--and you'll hear NO complaints from me.

Tuesday evening there were a couple of symptoms of early labor. Looking back, they are identifiable as such, but at the time, they could've been blamed on clogging and other activities.

Wednesday afternoon, there were additional signs of early labor (verified by the midwives), but no regular contractions. The contractions that were picked up by the monitor, I generally wasn't feeling unless I was very specifically thinking about it. A sonogram to measure the amniotic fluid on Wednesday afternoon also indicated that the fluid was lower than expected--about 7 instead of 10 centimeters, as they measure. The midwives said that usually with that level, they would want to induce immediately, but they would "compromise" and schedule an induction for 7:30 the next morning. In the office, our gut reaction was that we didn't like that idea. At this point it was 5:00, so the midwife encouraged us to go home and talk about it and contact the midwife on duty with any further questions. We went to supper at Panera's and talked about it. Jesse felt they were over-reacting. My gut feeling was that labor was imminent (the midwives weren't convinced that my signs of early labor would be progressing into real labor) and I didn't want an induction hanging over my head or forcing something that would be happening naturally anyway.

After supper, we went walking (that encouraging labor thing!) and I called the midwife on duty to let her know that we would not be coming in for an induction on Thursday morning. She made sure I realized that we would be going against their advise--which was intended to ensure both healthy baby and healthy mother. I didn't change my mind, but I did agree to call the office first thing in the morning to see if we could arrange another sonogram to re-check the amniotic fluid level. That was around 9:00 PM. I still wasn't particularly noticing any contractions.

Once home from the walk, I knew that Dorinda and Greg would be arriving to stay at our house the next evening. Since there was a chance and a hope that I would be in labor by then, I decided to make sure that they and Jesse would be able to find everything they needed, specifically clean sheets. I worked on a couple of loads of laundry and pulled out the storage tote of sheets and blankets to find what would be needed. (In the process of pulling things out of the totes, I discovered that there was only one way I would fit between the closet door in the baby's room and a pile of boxes--back to the closet door and belly over the top of the boxes.) As I was working, I started noticing the contractions. At first, I wasn't sure if it was because I was hoping and thinking about it more or if they were getting stronger. By 10:30, I knew they were definitely stronger and pretty regular (though I wasn't timing them specifically). I made a goal finish what was most important and head to bed by 11:00.

When I headed to bed around 11:00, I figured that change would either stop a false labor or hopefully allow me to get a bit of rest if this were real labor. I was curious how regular the contractions were, but didn't want to interrupt my rest with checking the clock, so I started counting my contractions while listening for our clock that chimes every 15 minutes. I figured that if they were 5 minutes apart, I'd have 2 or 3, maybe 4, contractions between chimes. So when I first counted 5 contractions between chimes I started thinking maybe I'd dozed off and missed a chime. But then I had 4 or 5 contractions between the next set of chimes. When Jesse came in around 11:30, I asked him to time them a bit more closely. Yes, they really were 3-4 minutes apart.

He put a few things together in a bag (since I hadn't packed a bag already) and reminded me that we could very well have several more hours of these types of contractions and there really wasn't a hurry to get to the Birthing Inn--just to hang around there having contractions. We tried to relax and sleep a bit. I didn't feel like I got any sleep--just about the time I'd doze off, another contraction would hit and wake me back up. But I think it did help pass the time, because when we did decide to head to the hospital, I was surprised that it was already going on 3:00 AM.

During admission, I was measured at 7 cm dialated and almost completely effaced.

When the nurse was putting in the IV, I knew she had inserted the needle between contractions. In the middle of the next contraction, I suddenly heard her say, "You made me poke through the vein. You are going to have a bruise." I'm still not sure what I did that made her poke through the vein, but I'm assuming I must have jerked my arm. She actually inserted the needle and IV during the next contraction.

They didn't even ask me to try to walk to the labor and delivery room from the area where they do the initial evaluation--they just wheeled me there on the bed. Once in the room, they asked whether I could walk between the beds, which I was able to do between contractions.

From that point on, I was pretty much zoned out to everything that wasn't directly relevant to me in the delivery.

Shortly before the midwife arrived, the nurse asked if I would give consent for a vaginal delivery to be performed. There was a form I needed to sign, but verbal consent would be sufficient until after the delivery. Good thing verbal consent would work, because me signing forms was not going to happen at that point! (I later wondered what would've happened if I hadn't given consent--vaginal delivery was going to happen whether I gave my consent or not.)

Once the midwife arrived, we shifted to pushing almost immediately. In the next almost 3 hours, we changed position between side and back a couple of times. There was some concern over the baby's heartrate and I was eventually given some oxygen between contractions. At some points, I realized that hours had passed and I wondered why things weren't going faster. In other ways, as I felt the baby progressing towards the outside world, it didn't seem like it was taking unusually long.

Nearing the end, for a contraction or two, it felt to me like I could feel her nose was stuck just inside--perhaps I was just a bit afraid to push past that stuck feeling. Once I did, even though I "knew" that the head was the hardest part of the delivery, I was still surprised at how quickly the rest of the delivery happened--the midwife worked the shoulders out and then the baby just slid out and I was holding her on my chest and touching her with my hands! It seemed almost no time after that when Jesse was asked to cut the umbilical cord. The next hour or so--holding her, letting her go for weighing, getting her back and feeding her for the first time, and naming her--all seemed to take so little time. It was an hour filled with relief that the delivery was past; wonder that she was ours; gratitude that she was safely in our arms and healthy; and JOY!

They brought me breakfast while I was still recovering in the labor and delivery room. At that point, it was more than 24 hours since I'd slept and nothing on the tray was food that I'd favor to eat on an ordinary day--coffee, oatmeal, eggs, french toast. I took a couple of bites of the french toast and decided I'd rather sleep.

While I'm thinking about it, I would like to publicly thank my wonderful husband for being there through it all. I'd also like to say thank you for not preempting our naming process by announcing a name the first time you called our parents to announce the news. We heard enough stories of similar things happening--husbands announcing/determining the name while the wife was unavailable after delivery.