Gotta Start Somewhere, Let's Talk Birth Stories

Holy cow, the weeks are flying by now that Lochlan is here. I've got to get caught up before I forget about posting some of the important stuff that's been happening the last few weeks.

So, post number 1.  Lochlan and how he finally came to be born:

A little backstory. I have never been a person who had regular Braxton Hicks contractions. If I had anything, they never even resembled contractions. I've had some crazy crampy stuff, but that's the extent of it and it's only been a little bit here and there. The last 2 weeks of Lochlan's pregnancy, I had what felt like real contractions many separate times, but at least 3 times that I was certain they were the real thing and made the trek  all the way to Boise, a 45 minute drive, from our house. Each time, I waited a little longer to verify that they were real. The last time we went in, I was having very real contractions and some serious achiness that felt as if I had just given birth.  My muscles and abdomen were SO sore the following morning, but I had nothing to show for all the work my body was doing, just a lot of sore muscles. It was the last time, when I was 39 weeks and 5 days pregnant that my midwife said, I can induce you tomorrow or the next day if that is what you want. I think maybe she was getting tired of all the early morning/late night phone calls from the triage in labor and delivery about me from the nurses there. Ha ha!!
     At first I was resistant to the idea of being induced when there was no reason, clearly my body was trying to go into labor! I finally let go of my pride and stubbornness and just relented to the whole guessing game being over and just knowing that Lochlan would finally be born. I decided to just do the induction the very next day, just to get it done and over with as soon as possible.
   Reed and I were surprisingly excited driving to the hospital the next morning after dropping off the girls at his parents house. It was nice because of Mirren's induction, knowing what to expect and not feeling like there would be any surprises. Little did I know there would be lots.
   The gel that I can't remember the name of but is just like prostaglandin gel, was placed around 8 am by my midwife. I had no concerns or anything as they placed it, I was expecting contractions to start slowly and to just be like every other labor I had had.  That dream lasted all of 10 minutes when all of a sudden a crampiness like I've never experienced before started. It started out light but swiftly became a horrible side cramp on my right side that increased in pressure and pain. I started telling Reed "oh crap, this really hurts!"  which is so not like me. I don't like to say crap or to give in to the idea of something REALLY hurting during labor unless it REALLY really hurts. And oh boy did this really really hurt. For the next 20 minutes, I gritted my teeth, tried to breathe through the pain that had now spread over my entire abdomen and into my low back and did everything I could to just survive flat on my back in a hospital bed in a great amount of pain.

    Things get pretty foggy in my memory as far as the order of it all because the pain was just so intense. The nurse came in, whether we beckoned her or she just came in I'm not sure, but as soon as she came in and asked me how I was doing, I started telling her how bad the cramping was. I asked her how to tell if the gel was stimulating too many contractions, and if that was the case, how to get them to stop. The nurse didn't seem to want to answer that question I'm thinking because I asked her the same question many times and never got a straight forward answer from her. I also asked her if my hands were supposed to be tingly. They were VERY tingly. Another nurse came in at some point and put my hand over my mouth to try to slow my breathing because she thought I was breathing too quickly/hyperventilating. And the baby's heart rate was being affected by the cramping/pain/rapid breathing going on as well. The nurses were VERY concerned about his heart rate because it kept dipping.
      Very quickly I was racking my brain for any kind of pain relief that I could have. I remembered my midwife telling me about laughing gas now being available at the hospital, so I asked for it. I was desperate for anything to just get me through the cramps I was sure would be stopping anytime. The gas was set up fairly quick-ish, and I was grateful for it. Except it was in the form of a face mask that went over my mouth and nose and when I was breathing it in for a full contraction, it made my voice change. Also, the dang thing vibrated when I breathed through it and it was mildly irritating to me and distracted me from trying to relax through the contractions that had now started and the cramps from H-E-double hockey sticks. But otherwise I was grateful because it took the edge off the cramps and the contractions that were not giving me ANY breaks in between.
        Sometime around this time, I finally managed to get out of the bed to help the baby's heart rate get higher and to help me cope with the contractions better by standing, and my midwife made it back into my room. I finally was starting to come out of the painful haze I had been in for maybe only an hour, the cramps were finally starting to be less painful, but the contractions coming so fast with no breaks were getting hard to deal with. I asked my midwife why the breaks weren't longer between the contractions. She said "well, your body was just ready to have this baby with all those contractions you've been having."  That's what I was thinking too at this point and cursing my body for being so ready because it was hurting pretty badly.
        Around that time I decided it was time for the tub. The warm water and the jets usually make hard contractions pretty manageable for me and that sounded really good with these contractions that were so awful.  I felt like I was only in the tub for around 20 minutes, Reed claims it was closer to an  hour. Whatever. I'm not sure. But after what felt like a short time, I said, "holy cow, these contractions are hurting more and I'm feeling pressure. I think it's time to break my bag of water. I think I've got to be at an 8 or so."
         Oh my. If only. By this point, my stomach and back muscles were so shot, I couldn't even manage to get myself out of the tub. Thankfully Reed was willing to help life me out but as he did so, he said, "uh oh Alysa, you're bleeding!"  I just calmly told him I was sure it was because I was going through some huge cervical changes which cause bleeding. Except when I sat back on the hospital bed so my midwife could check me, I felt a big gush of something. I quickly told my midwife and she said, "oh, it's blood."  She handled it all very calmly, but looking back now I see that she was very concerned. She checked me and informed me I was a 5. I started shaking my head in disbelief. She then said, I'm sure to calm me down, that going from a 3 to a 5 was a lot of cervical change and that was probably why I was bleeding. Except that I kept getting little gushes of more blood and that was concerning to us all.
           Things get a little hazy again here because we were trying different positions to try and get the bleeding to stop and those positions were none too comfortable when I was still having contractions on top off each other. I think it was also at this point that my midwife suggested I get an IV put in to help re-hydrate me because I hadn't been drinking water through all this time and she was worried that if I lost a lot of blood and didn't have enough water that things wouldn't be looking so good. And it was shortly thereafter that she told me she thought that I might have an unidentified low lying placenta and that my placenta could be starting to pull away from the uterine wall, otherwise known as a placental abruption. That's about when things started to get very real and scary. She recommended that I get an epidural in case we needed to rush me to get a c-section if anything happened with the placenta and the baby. And she also said she was going to have the Dr. in her office come and take a look at me and give her his opinion on what to do for me. He quickly came and examined me, VERY PAINFULLY, agreed with her assessment that it was a placental abruption and suggested that we break my water and have me lay somewhat up and only lay on my back so that the baby's head could come down and push on the placenta and hopefully help stop the bleeding. He also said that the good thing was that usually with a placental abruption the body would labor more quickly than normal and we had that in my favor. And when he checked me he said I was a 5-6.  So we adjusted my position on the bed and waited for the anesthesiologist to come in to give me my epidural. At this point my body was so tired of the back to back contractions, the worrying about the baby being okay and the whole labor going so quickly and painfully, I was ready for the relief that I knew the epidural would bring from the pain.
         The anesthesiologist came in and I got myself situated on the bed. The contractions were so bad I didn't know how I was going to get through the whole "curve your body around the baby and hold still so I don't stick this big needle into your spinal cord" thing. I made Reed sit in front of me because I absolutely HATE epidurals, mostly the big needle and anything that scary being near my spinal cord. I was breathing my gas the whole time and made it through it all. I still had about 5 minutes or so of painful contractions before the epidural kicked in. After the epidural kicked in, my teeth just kept chattering and chattering. My midwife said it was because the contractions were coming so close together that it was causing an adrenaline rush and that was what was causing the chattering.
        It seemed like not much longer that I started feeling pressure. The pressure of what felt like the baby's head pushing against something, almost like it was stuck. I had 3 good contractions that felt that way, but around the 2nd one I made Reed push the nurse's button because on top of everything else I was scared the baby was stuck. LOL  A different nurse came in and I informed her I was worried about the baby, that it felt like his head was hitting something and I was feeling pressure to push. I was crying during this whole speech, and I finished off the whole thing with "I'm probably in transition because I always cry when I'm in transition."  And I kind of laughed about that because I didn't believe that could actually be true. That I could actually already be in transition. Luckily my nurse and my midwife showed up shortly thereafter and my midwife checked me. But not before I informed her that I thought it was time to break my water and she told me that the Dr. had already broken my water. Reed and I both laughed and were in disbelief because neither of us knew that it had happened. So my midwife checked me and said I was a 10. I couldn't believe it! Neither could Reed, who said disbelievingly, "it's time to have a baby!!". My midwife swiftly got things ready because I had also been having blood gushes again so she wanted the baby out as soon as possible. She put my numb legs up in stirrups and 2 contractions later with maybe only 2 good pushes from me, Lochlan entered the world, swiftly followed by my detached placenta.  I was just so grateful that he was finally out, that I knew he was going to be okay. He was breathing fine and other than the placenta chasing him out of my body, neither of us had any complications. What a blessing.

     My whole labor, from start to finish, was 3.5 hours. Which beat my previous fastest labor by a good hour and a half. Lochlan made it into the world before lunch! Looking back on the whole morning, I was so so so grateful for a nurse and midwife who were able to be there the whole time, who were such a great team and who both took such great care of me and Lochlan. We were so blessed that my placenta hadn't detached at home, that we both were okay and that it all happened in the hospital and we had such competent people caring for us who caught the problem and helped come up with a plan that got Lochlan there safe and they were able to keep me from losing too much blood as well. There is no way I can think of the whole event and not know thoroughly how much Heavenly Father's hand was in the whole thing. I feel so blessed and watched over and I'm so grateful.