The night before Gabriel’s birth I had a major energy surge. After weeks of pre-labor and total exhaustion, I was filled with adrenalin. Because of this, I had a feeling that things were going to start happening very soon. I had a blast with all that get up and go and scrapbooked several design team assignments between the hours of seven pm to 2:30am. I did lay down a few times during this, logically realizing that I needed some rest, but I was so wired that sleep was just not possible. I had contractions, and they were slightly stronger than before, but still very erratic and nothing special. At 2:30 I was finally able to lay down just as Chris was getting up. I warned him that I thought labor was imminent, and told him to get showered, shaved and sexy so he was ready to go if I needed him. No sitting around in your pajamas on your night off tonight. Then I fell asleep.
At 4:45 a contraction woke me up. I groggily opened my eyes and thought, “huh. . .that hurt. And that was kind of. . .damp. . .” and then I fell back to sleep.
At 4:55 another contraction woke me up and I thought, “huh. . .that hurt. And that was kind of. . .damp. . .WAIT A MINUTE! CONTRACTIONS AREN’T DAMP!” I was completely awake now that that connection was made in my still sleeping brain, and I realized that my water had broken. I quickly got out of my bed so I didn’t wreck the mattress. I walked to the bathroom and soon discovered that I was definitely leaking, but it was only a little.
I waddled down the stairs and found Chris sitting at the computer watching a movie. He was showered, he was shaved, and he was sitting there in a bath towel! I said, “Chris! Showered, shaved, sexy!”
He said, “I can get dressed.”
“My water broke.” You have never seen a man turn off a movie and jump up so quickly.
At this point I decided to take a shower. I was contracting about every six or seven minutes, and the hot water felt wonderful on my lower back. I stayed in there much too long, and realized that when I found myself on my hands and knees allowing the heat to pour down onto my back during a rather painful contraction. Unless I wanted to have this boy dripping wet, it was time to get out of the tub.
I toweled off and started to blow dry my hair. I know it seems silly to be in labor doing your hair and make-up, but I really can’t stand my hair when it is dirty and stringy and in my face, and getting ready for the day is so much better than sitting around watching the clock and waiting for another contraction to hit. Plus, the only position I had felt comfortable in throughout all of this pre-labor was bent over at a 90 degree angle. I spent days leaning over my kitchen counters and with my head on the bathroom sink and embarrassing my children while I hunched over a shopping cart in public because it felt that good. Bent over and blow drying my hair was a very nice way to work through these contractions that were coming a little harder now. I finished drying and then started to put on some make up, stopping every four or five minutes to sway my hips through the painful contractions.
At six o’clock I decided I had better call my friend Mari to come watch the kids so Chris and I could go to the hospital. Then I decided that I had better eat something because they do like to starve laboring women at the hospital. I had a big bowl of raisin bran and a banana, and joked with Mari that I would probably be throwing all of this up pretty soon, but I really wanted to eat. I was doing all of this while seated at the computer updating my blog with the news. The contractions were much harder, and every three minutes I was brought to a complete stop while the pain coursed through me. It was time to go.
While we drove I called Labor and Delivery in between contractions to let them know that I was on my way, I was in labor, this was my third baby, and they needed to call my doctor. Chris pulled up, dropped me by the main doors, and went to park the car. I waited for him in the lobby and we rode the elevator up together. I could not walk through these contractions, so when we arrived at the fourth floor Chris had to hold the door for me until I got through a contraction.
We walked to L&D and buzzed to be let in. It is 6:55. Just after we were let in, I had a big contraction and I must have stood by the door for two minutes until it passed. After that tiny storm, I walked quite calmly up to the desk, let them know who I was and what was up. They brought me to a triage room and gave me a hospital gown and told me that I only had to take off my bottoms. I looked at the girl like she was crazy, and then stripped completely down since I’d have to do that in a few minutes anyway. She hooked me up to several monitors, and then said they would be back to check and see if my water really had broken. I had a few good contractions during this, but no one paid them any attention, and they all left.
My back was killing me. Strapped to a bed is a horrible way to do labor, and it is an even more horrible way to do back labor, which I was now 100% certain was what was going on here. Every contraction felt like my lower back had been lit on fire and like someone was wringing my spine out like a wet dishrag. I squirmed through every contraction, telling myself to relax my muscles and be calm. I was planning on natural childbirth again, just like I had experienced with Maggie, but this back labor business was just a whole ‘nother story. I decided that if when they checked me I still had hours to go I was getting an epidural because THIS WAS INTOLERABLE.
During this painful fifteen minutes, Chris and I were alone. No one even checked on us, and I started to gripe about it to Chris in between contractions. Chris, being much more patient and kind and in a lot less pain than I was, made excuses for them about the shift change and them being busy. I finally snapped at him to go get someone NOW, and he meekly went out and informed the nurses that his wife was having an awful lot of back pain.
Five minutes later a nurse comes in and decides to check me. It is 7:25 am. I am at eight centimeters. No wonder I’m in so much pain!
You should have seen the nurses hop to it to get me out of triage and into a delivery room! I found out from one of the techs a few hours later that they all figured they would be sending me back home. Not a one of them believed that I was in active labor, let alone in transition and close to delivery.
In the delivery room the contractions began to dog pile. I would not get in the bed, and labored over the bedside tray table which was the perfect height for me to bend over at a 90 degree angle. Of course, I’m wearing the backless hospital lingerie, and some kind nurse tries to help cover my rear by fastening the gown better and I inform her that it is my third child, and I really don’t care. After all, it is going to be bottoms up in a few minutes anyway.
A doctor comes in who is not my doctor. She apologizes and lets me know that my doctor, the Col. in charge of Family Medicine is currently at Commander’s Call and will likely not make it for another hour or two. I don’t care. I am sprawled on this tray table while a nurse heplocks my arm. The doctor asks me if I have a birth plan, and I sum it up as best I can by saying, “Basically, leave me alone unless I ask for help.” I am doing this naturally and I don’t want an IV, I want intermittent monitoring and I do not want to be strapped to the bed. They shoot all of this at me and I agree, and we are all on the same page except for one thing.
“She is in so much control,” the doctor says, “too much control for eight.” They all agree that I am way too calm and controlled to be at eight. I am writhing over my tray table and wondering what in the heck out of control looks like! The doctor fills a few more spots in on the computer and asks me if I am going to have my tubes tied. I look up from my table, incredulous. Who asks this of a woman who is about to give birth?
“Probably,” I gasp, and then the doctor realizes what she just asked me and rephrases to ask if I had done the paperwork to have one done today, and I say no. Once again, there is much commenting on my amazing control, and speculation by the younger techs that maybe the body just acclimates to the pain by the time you hit your third baby. I do not feel acclimated to the pain. I feel like I am in more pain than I have ever been in and that I am completely and totally not in control of any of it. I am beginning to whimper through these contractions.
The doctor decides to check me to find out if I am really an eight. It is about 7:45. Laying down in the bed is agony. Having her check me is worse, but the news that I am at a nine is good, indeed. This baby is coming fast she says. Too late for an epidural, I say. The doctor is apologetic and says that she doesn’t think my doctor will arrive in time, and asks me if it is ok if she delivers, or would I like to try and wait to push. Are you kidding me? I don’t care who delivers. Get the cafeteria busboy, just get the baby out!
Because I am already on the uncomfortable bed, they decide to do a quick baby check and find that he is not doing well. His heart rate is very low, in the sixties. Because of this, I am now strapped to the bed for monitoring, and the pain is indescribable.
They pull me and push me and make me have oxygen and lay a certain way and pretty much do everything that I didn’t want them to do, but he is doing very poorly and I am scared for Gabriel. I am thinking that after all of this pain I am going to have a c-section, and I really don’t want one. The logical voice in my head informs me that if I have an emergency c-section they’ll have to put me under for it, as there is no time for an epidural. I am in so much pain that unconscious sounds pretty darn wonderful and I decide that if they are going to do it, they should do it now. The doctor says the head is blocking the amniotic sac and if she breaks the water, the baby is right there and will come very soon. She breaks the water and it gushes.
The pressure in my back and bottom is unbelievable. I am on fire and feeling like I may actually explode, and I can’t even feel the contractions in front because of the contrast of the pain elsewhere. I am complete and ready to push, and I don’t know why I didn’t realize that that huge pressure I was feeling was the head, and that it is right there and I am about to have a baby, but all I can think about is how much it hurts.
I have delivered two children before this one and done natural childbirth with one and endured an induction with the other. I delivered these two with little more than quiet puppy dog whimpering. I am quiet. I am internal. I am focused. This time, I am screaming.
I am not a screamer, but the noises coming out of me are expressions of agony so deep that I couldn’t make noise like that now if I tried. I am driving myself crazy because I have always thought that screaming was such a waste of energy, energy better used for pushing and focusing your muscles. I am also scaring the heck out of my husband, who has never seen me like this, even during natural childbirth. I give these primal wails and then try to focus them into effective pushes. I am not hysterical; the sound just has to come.
The doctor is very worried about the baby and decides to try to do a vacuum delivery. She says I can try to push. I have no idea she is doing this, only that she is down there and it hurts and I am still screaming. I push once and scream, then refocus, push again and he emerges all at once, head, shoulders and bottom in one spectacular push that startles the doctor and she scrambles to catch him, and I am relieved. He is out, and he cries, and I am shaking and so, so relieved.
It is 8:03 am. Gabriel Brian Killian has arrived and he is lovely and pink and perfect in every way.
