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My Birth Story (Crazy long and detailed)
Here is my birth story. I wrote up everything in a Word document and am copying and pasting it over so the formatting might be a bit wacky. I wanted to write it out in a lot of detail. There was a lot (especially during the pushing stage and intense contractions before that were blurry so I had to ask DH tons of questions to get the whole thing down. Some stuff is still a bit of a blur like when we actually first attempted Breast Feeding).
Mackenzie Brynn?s Birth Story ? Friday September 30th, 2011
My birth plan was to have a natural pain-med free birth in the hospital. I started drinking about 3 cups of Red Raspberry Leaf Tea at about 36 weeks and also taking Evening Primrose Oil capsules ? one orally in the morning and one vaginally at night at 36 weeks. In the week or so leading up to going into labor I felt a lot of period like cramps but very slight, not strong at all. Did lots of walking and swimming as well in the weeks leading up to her birth. Noticed decreased movement, actually went into the hospital for a NST the Wednesday before she was born and everything was fine, I just wasn?t feeling her move.
I started having contractions on Thursday night when I laid down to go to bed around 11 pm. They really mostly just felt like bad period cramps. I timed them for about an hour and they were about 7 minutes apart. I got out of bed and went downstairs and they pretty much stopped so after another hour or so I went back to bed. I was woken up a couple times in the night from the contractions, but wasn?t timing them and they were still just strong period cramp type pain.
In the morning I sent my hubby to work thinking that this could be quite a long drawn out process. I had blood tinged mucous when I went to the washroom throughout the morning, which I?m assuming was my ?bloody show?. I started timing my contractions using the ap ?Full Term? on my iPhone and they were ranging from 5 minutes apart to 7 or 8 to sometimes 10 minutes apart and not overly consistent although usually about 45 seconds to a minute long. I took a shower, puttered around the house, called my parents to give them a heads up that there may be a baby in the next couple days or sooner, still not really sure if this was the real deal or not. Every couple hours I?d email my husband the contraction list so he could see frequency, duration, etc.
Around 12:30 the contractions started coming more consistently every 4 to 5 minutes, lasting about a minute each, but were getting quite painful. I would have to stop what I was doing, lean over the bed and just kind of breath through them. So at 1:10 I texted my husband and told him ?I think you should come home?. He was home within about 15 minutes and less than 10 minutes after he walked in the door my water broke.
I felt/heard a ?pop? and then had a small gush while standing in the kitchen. I immediately ran into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet. The contractions started getting quite a bit more intense and closer together so we decided to head out right away for the hospital. I had a couple of really strong intense contractions in the car and on the way from the parkade up to the maternity ward.
We arrived at the hospital at about 2:00 pm. They took me into assessment and had me leave my pad to check for amniotic fluid. I was contracting quite intensely and almost hyperventilating through them, my hands kept going numb so the nurses kept telling me to slow down my breathing. They called my doctor while a resident doctor checked me and I was already 5 cm dilated. They were trying to do some of their paperwork, asking me questions, etc and monitoring the baby. I couldn?t really focus so DH had to answer most of their questions. I hated being hooked up to the monitor it felt so tight on my stomach and restricting. I kept asking them to take it off but they wanted to get a good listen to the baby first. My contractions were really intense. I told my husband I didn?t know if I could do it without any pain medication, but wanted to hold out a little longer. About 10 or 15 minutes later they checked me again, because I was having so many intense contractions so quickly, and I was already 7 or 8 cm dilated so they decided they?d better tell my doctor to get here asap and get me into a labor and Delivery room.
They brought in a birthing ball, as I had indicated I might want to labor that way in my birth plan, however I never even had a chance to use it. I had a few more really strong contractions while standing up in the room leaning over a counter they had in there, and then leaning on the bed which the raised up for me. Suddenly I felt like I had to push and told the nurses and resident that. They told me not to push so I tried to resist but did a small amount, my body would literally just take over. They had me get up into the bed so they could check my cervix again. I was 9 cm dilated with just a small lip left on my cervix. Waiting to get fully dilated while trying not to push was really hard. They told me not to push until the lip went away.
I asked them to bring in the Entonox (laughing gas), because that was the one pain relief that I was willing to try as it is instantly metabolized and doesn?t affect the baby. I never did use it during my labor and delivery.
They had me try a few different positions like on my side and to get on my hands and knees to see if that different position would cause my cervix to finally fully dilate. The doctor tried to manually move the lip while I pushed a little bit to get it to move. I then pushed for a little while in the bed. While I was pushing the doctor was applying a warm compress to my perineum to help soften things up for the birth. Things were not progressing overly fast once I started pushing. They wanted me to try to empty my bladder to see if that could help move things along a bit. I went into the bathroom and tried to urinate, but even though I felt the urge was unable to get anything to come out. I pushed for a few contractions on the toilet while holding onto my husbands arms and pulling them towards me. They then had me move back to the bed to give me an ?in and out? catheter to empty my bladder. The resident tried for quite awhile but they couldn?t get at my urethra because of the pressure/swelling. So just let it be.
I then pushed on the bed on my back pulling my knees up to my chest. I generally got about 2 or 3 pushes per contraction and would move the baby down the birth canal with each push, but when the contraction was over I could feel her move back up each time. This went on for about an hour or so. They had me move onto my side to see if that would help get her past the point of not slipping back up the canal. During this time my contractions were spaced quite far apart, almost 5 minutes. It seemed like forever waiting for the next contraction to come again so I could push again. I mostly just laid in the bed with my eyes closed regaining my breath and strength between the contractions. The nurse suggested I turn over onto my side for some pushing to get her to stop moving back up after contractions so we did side pushing for a little while.
Eventually she stopped moving back up each time. I probably pushed through about 6 or 7 more contractions before she was actually born, getting quite frustrated. I remember saying ?I can?t get her out?. And having to wait so long between contractions to push again was frustrating as well. The doctor then thought she might do an episiotomy to help get the baby out and I guess she had the scissors in her hand. The nurse told me this because she knew in my birth plan I had said I?d prefer to tear than have one. She asked me if I heard the doctor and told me to push that baby out with all I had. I really appreciated her respecting my wishes and doing what she could to keep the doctors on board.
Mackenzie Brynn was born at 4:38 pm on Friday September 30th. When she was born she came out all at once. There was no break between her head and the rest of her body being delivered. She was immediately put onto my chest and toweled off. My husband and I both cried tears of joy. We delayed the cord clamping for about 2 minutes and then my husband cut the cord. They left her on my chest for quite awhile. They gave me a shot of Oxytocin in the leg (as I didn?t have an IV) to help deliver the placenta. I could feel my doctor and the resident pulling on the umbilical cord to deliver the placenta. I?m not really sure why they had to pull it out versus me push it, but perhaps because of my tearing. The doctor figures it was her hasty birth that resulted in me ending up with a third degree tear. I can?t remember if I attempted breastfeeding right away. It was a bit of a blur. I think I did, but she wasn?t really taking to it so well. They then took her to weigh her and do some initial assessments.
For the repair of my tearing they gave me local anesthetic and I remember asking for something stronger, but because I didn?t have an IV started already they said it would take too long to kick in. So they gave me a local anesthetic to numb the area and I used the laughing gas. My doctor started to sew me up but decided due to the severity of my tearing that she wanted to call in the obstetrics specialist. He was 20 minutes away so I just laid in the hospital bed with my feet up in stirrups waiting for him to arrive. The repair was extremely painful. I remember crying through a lot of it. They gave me as much local anesthetic as they could, and then actually even gave me more a while later after they said that they had given me the max. I also used quite a lot of laughing gas. I tore through the muscle layer as well as externally. It took the obstetrician about an hour to finish sewing me up. My husband held and cuddled with Mackenzie while this was occurring and they also gave her the Vitamin K shot and eye drops then too. (We had asked that these procedures be delayed until we had a chance to bond, however with me in so much pain and in no real state to hold her, they did them while my husband held her).
After the repair was finished, they gave me some supper, the nurse even brought my husband a sandwich and some other snacks as we hadn?t eaten since lunch time. Then they had me take a shower in the delivery room and then moved me into my recovery room. I was almost completely numb so didn?t feel much pain for several hours afterwards. It was about 9 pm by the time we got into the recovery room.
The hospital policy is a 24 hour stay for a vaginal delivery. The doctor decided to keep me for two nights though just because of the traumatic delivery and to keep an eye on my tear. Breastfeeding was really rough in the hospital. She would not latch on. I had to express colostrum and feed it to her from a syringe and then ended up pumping some the next day as well. There were a lot of tears and frustrations, but the nurses were awesome and there was a lactation consultant on Saturday who helped me out a lot and spent a lot of time with me. The head nurse on Sunday was also a lactation consultant and she helped us out some more as well. Mostly she just wouldn?t wake up enough to want to eat and no amount of tickling, cold washcloth, etc, could get her interested. We managed to get a couple good feeds in finally at the hospital though before we came home on Sunday afternoon. The first feed attempt at home was horrendous, but after that and ever since she?s been nursing very well.
Re: My Birth Story (Crazy long and detailed)
Thanks for sharing! I'm glad you were able to have the medication free birth you wanted. Hope the tear is healing up for you-it sounds painful!
Ahh, raspberry leaf tea! I have been drinking it since 20 weeks, 2 cups.day until 25 and now at least 3 cups (trying for 5) daily thanks to the hemorraging I had with Anders. I'm so stinking sick of the stuff!
I had this exact same experience. Getting stiched up was extremely painful. It still hurts to have sex now because of it.
I drank the tea and downed primrose oil too!
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Ohhhhh thank you! Perhaps I will look into getting me some of that when the time is near
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You can start now with a couple glasses a day and work your way up to 4-5 a day. That is what I did.
I was pretty sick of the tea by the end. Had to force myself to drink it. Even worse that it was still really hot here in the late summer/early fall. I don't think you are supposed to start EPO until you are 36 or 37 weeks, close to "term".
This exactly!
You just have to be careful which positions you use. I have to admit, my periods hurt so much more now after tearing like that, but as long as we're careful sex generally doesn't hurt.
I was really lucky that I had the epidural for the actual delivery, I didn't start feeling the stitching until about half way through, and I was so out of it afterwards I could hardly even notice the pain.
Thank you for sharing! That was a lot of detail!
Did they mention if having the episiotomy would have prevented such a bad tear, or been easier to stitch up/heal? Why did you elect to tear naturally? I don't have any concept of what's good or bad, so just curious!
They said that there was really no way of knowing whether an episiotimy would have made it better or worse. I elected to tear rather than be cut because tears are supposed to heal "better" than a straight cut. Also, there is the concept of once you start something it is easier for it to rip further so often times with episiotimy you could tear further than the cut.
#1-BFP 08-22-09 ~ M/C 08-31-09 at 5 weeks 6 days
#2-BFP 08-6-11 ~ Due 04/18 ~ born via c-section April 22, 2012
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I remember saying ?I can?t get her out?.
I said "Where IS he?"
KR also came out in one fell swoop as well. It resulted in tearing-I don't know how bad, my doctor wouldn't tell me. HOWEVER, I did not go without pain meds! You are a crazy one!
Congrats! She's so beautiful!
When I had my two girls (1986 and 1987), episiotomies were standard. They didn't want you to tear because it was easier to fix a cut. With my first baby, the doctor cut me really deep. I was never the same after that. I don't think he needed to cut me that deep. It resulted in me having a rectocele. It's uncommon to have a rectocele and not also have a cystocele. I had a second degree rectocele and dealt with it for 20 years mainly out of embarrassment. I finally had surgery at age 38. I had a hysterectomy and rectocele repair. The recovery from that surgery was horrible. I hope they are repairing you girls after birth better than I was repaired.
Wow, thank you for sharing. It sounds like she came out really quickly which is a bitter sweet I guess? I'm sorry that you had such a bad tear, I do hope that you heal quickly and well. She is really beautiful.
I do have a question for you and Tara, I know nothing about this so it's just out of curiousity. Do you guys think it was a coincidence that you both took the Primrose oil and you both had really "quick" babies? Or does that have nothing to do with it?
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If anything it would have been the raspberry leaf tea (which is supposed to tone your uterus). Evening primrose just softens the cervix to help it dilate. Fast labours run in my family though. Mine was the longest out of me, my mom and my sister. That being said I still pushed for a good hour and a half, so it didn't speed up that part!