runlindsayrun

Birth Story

This is something that I needed to write for me. I wasn't sure how much to post, but I'm going to share it all... It's one of those things that I'm not really ready to talk about yet, but I know that people need to know.

It helped me so much to just get this down on paper, and to give myself some time to actually process the experience (lots and lots of Kleenex involved). So, thank you :)

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I wanted to be sure to capture my memories of Briony's birth, but the truth is that it's going to take some time to sort through all the details. It was one of those deliveries that defied a neat little birth plan (so it's a good thing we didn't have one!) and just kind of goes to show that you can't really count on anything.

Briony was starting to be pretty overdue... My estimated date of delivery was November 3, but nothing was really happening. We chose to just let her be and not intervene until I agreed to a membrane sweep at my appointment on November 13. After that, I felt gross, but I still couldn't quite manage to cross over the line that would take me from feeling gross to feeling undeniable active labour.

We'd decided with our obstetrician to induce on Saturday morning if nothing happened by then on its own. It was a hard decision, because I'd really hoped to avoid the whole induction scenario and wanted to respect our baby and the natural process of pregnancy, but I knew it was time because my own health was suffering. I had a fetal assessment on Friday morning, and everything looked good with the baby - she was strong enough to go ahead with our induction plan, and the doctors hoped that we'd need very little intervention to get things going because labour had seemed imminent for so long.

Apparently, we had many people praying that we'd be able to avoid the induction, because by 04.30 on Saturday I was having strong, consistent contractions around 7 or 8 minutes apart. By 08.30, we were at the hospital, and the adventure began. My labour was progressing steadily but slowly, and we spent many, many hours pacing the halls of the hospital - starting around 4 cm, having my water break around noon, and gradually working up to around 7 cm by midafternoon. I was moved to my LDRP room around 4 pm, and by then - 12 hours into active labour and stuck in the middle of a very slow transition stage - I was no longer able to deal with the pain of the building contractions. I'd been hoping to avoid drugs, but kept it open as a possibility, and by early evening we'd made the call for an epidural after I'd tried some lesser pain management options and determined that - even at those very small 'test' levels - I hated that I was feeling groggy, like I was observing instead of participating. I'd developed a fever and was shaking so badly that I kept on biting my tongue. The nurses tried to start an IV, but blew three veins in my arms while they tried - and eventually, it was started by the anesthesiologist.

The epidural deserves a new paragraph, because it was amazing. I was so determined to make the experience of labour and delivery a positive one, and I'd held on to that for so long on my own - the drugs let me relax and be present in the experience again, which made me really happy. Until they stopped working. We waited for over an hour for the anesthesiologist to come back and assess the situation. In the end, he needed to remove the existing epidural and start a new one, which made me happy again.

At this point, another 'birth plan' item flew out the window as they determined they'd need to start a very low-dose oxytocin drip to speed up the contractions. I was making negligible progress, dilating less than half as fast as I should have been, and my contractions were actually getting farther apart instead of closer together. The oxytocin did its job and I starting making forward progress again - with the stronger, more painful contractions that the drug brings on masked by my new epidural. Which was all good until the second epidural stopped working.

So there we were, more than 24 hours into active labour - EXHAUSTED - and starting to feel more pain than I was equipped to deal with, but so far along that I really didn't have any options left. The nurses did what they could to provide some 'top up' relief, but I never got my pain control back - and it was almost time to push.

Around 05.30 on Sunday morning, it was time to have a baby. Our nurse guided me through my first contraction where I started to push - and I could hear something change on the fetal monitor. The nurse turned down the volume on the fetal monitor. The next contraction came and I pushed again while I watched both her face and Geoff's change into something very scary as they kept their eyes locked on the display that was hidden to me. Then she turned to me and confirmed that the baby's heartrate was dropping substantially every time I pushed, and she'd need to get the doctor in ASAP to determine our next steps. I was given strict instructions not to push and not to panic, and I waited - breathing through contractions that fighting against every natural urge in my body that told me I needed to push - while the room slowly began to fill up with nurses, doctors, and the whispered sounds of urgent conversation. I caught the attention of our nurse, who'd been so funny and friendly and chatty with me all night, and I asked her to please lie to me and tell me that this situation was not a big deal, that they were just being ridiculously careful. She looked at me and said, "Lindsay, I can't do that, because this IS a big deal." She explained that the doctor was making arrangements to have back-ups plans in place - I'd be pushing with everything set up to switch over to a forceps or vaccuum delivery or a c-section at a moment's notice, and that the people setting up in the corner were a special NICU team with everything they needed to give the baby emergency help the moment she was born.

By just after 06.00, everyone was in place and the doctor was ready to go. He explained that they weren't sure exactly what they were dealing with, but that everyone's number one priority was to get the baby out as quickly as they possibly could to make sure that she was safe. He explained that he'd be as low-intervention as possible, but he apologized in advance that things could change at any moment - and I gave him my blessing to do absolutely anything he had to do in order to keep my baby safe. And with all his wisdom and experience guiding the process - and some incredible support from Geoff and the nurses in the room - that's exactly what we did.

Briony Evangeline was born at 06.40 on Sunday, November 16. It was the very best and the very worst moment of my life, because as I felt my daughter entering the world, I could see on everyone's faces that something was wrong. They pulled her out and put her on my chest for a moment while they cut the cord. She had a purple head and the rest of her was chalky white. She was facing away from me, and she wasn't moving at all. Before I could form a coherent thought, she'd been moved to the cart and the NICU team was blocking my view of her completely while they worked on her. The only glimpse of her I had was as they were inserting a giant tube down her throat, through lips that were the scariest colour I could imagine. I don't think that I breathed until she did. It took another couple of minutes before those horrible gurgling, gasping noises turned into her first cry. One of the nurses came and showed her to me for a moment before they took her to the NICU for observation.

The doctor finished with me, including repair work on the episiotomy that he apologized for a hundred times. He wouldn't tell me how many stitches, just that he'd needed to stitch up three layers. All I know is that it took him a very, very long time - and I'm sure as heck feeling it now, but I don't care one little bit because I know that it provided us with the precious seconds or minutes that might have saved Briony's life. Those minutes each lasted an eternity while we waited for news that our baby was okay.

Once Briony was settled into her observation bed - almost an hour after she was born - the doctor came to tell us that things were looking good, and offered to take Geoff to go and see her. There, the doctors and nurses explained that she was stable - and that she was going to be absolutely okay, they were just keeping her a little longer to be extra-careful. He took along the camera and came back with pictures and videos so that I could see our baby girl. It broke my heart into a million tiny pieces to be watching Briony on a tiny screen instead of holding her in my arms.

Less than two hours after she was born, she was back in my room and absolutely perfect - almost as if we'd imagined the entire nightmare that had unfolded there just hours before.

Briony is alert and healthy and strong and beautiful. In the moments when she fusses and cries (and that girl has an impressive set of lungs...), I can honestly say that I don't care at all. I waited too long to hear that cry. Her dramatic entry into the world made me a mom faster than I imagined possible. I am more tired than I can describe, and my body has been through the ringer - between the 'normal' tolls of delivering a baby, the aftermath of the complications, and my arthritis (which is understandably flared up, given the stress I've experienced). But I am so happy. And I'd do it for her again in a heartbeat.

Labels: Baby Talk, Briony

posted by Lindsay @ 7:09 PM