Birthed

Well, I'd apologize for not posting for so long, but it seems no one reads these posts, so it's not even like my apology would fall on deaf ears (blind eyes?). Ah well, saves me from feeling guilty about it.

So, to finish the labor story. I labored for a long, long time. This baby was taking his time. I was progressing, just really, really slowly. Once the contractions started in earnest, or really, once the baby moved down to a certain point, I couldn't keep anything down. Every time I'd try to lay down, he'd apparently hit my vasovagal nerve and I'd suddenly throw up. You know this nerve - remember when Bush swallowed a big piece of pretzel and passed out? Same nerve at work. Sometimes even when I would turn a certain way it would happen. It was totally sudden and disconcerting. I think I've said before that I rarely throw up. And, it's not like I was continuously feeling nauseous at all. Just, get in the wrong position - Boom! Gross.

This led to an even more irritating phenomenon - heartburn. I have a low-grade, chronic acid reflux problem for which I take a certain purple pill every morning. On the purple pill, fine. Forget to take the purple pill and by about noon I have the worst heartburn. I was in labor for a total of 54 hours, during which time I neglected to take any purple pills. I wasn't planning on being in labor that long people! So after a day or two of throwing up at regular intervals and no purple pill, my esophogus was burnt. Should I ever be in labor again, I will have a designated Purple Pill Person. It will be their job to make sure I take the purple pill, and to have on hand a supply of low-acidity beverages. Fran had told me to have a couple quarts of juice on hand. I did. I was ready. I had about 5 quarts of juice on hand, weeks in advance. Are you kidding? Give me a list and I will have every item crossed off by the deadline. I was juice-ready. I was well-supplied with orange/pineapple, grapefruit, and cranberry juice. Yeah, that's right. All my favorite juices, to be sure, but not so good with the heartburn. Look, I had no idea, that I was

a) going to be throwing up all the time.

and

b) going to be in labor for 54 hours.

Why didn't somebody go out and buy different juice? you might ask. Yeah, I don't know. I think when I decided that I could keep something down it was very late at night. I'm not sure, honestly.

Anyway, all that aside, I labored, and labored and labored. I spent quite a bit of the first two days in the tub. We had a lovely old claw-foot, cast iron tub in that house. The side where you sit back was angled at the perfect angle. It was quite deep as it was, but Orion also caulked around the fixtures so that you could fill it to the rim if you wanted to. I spent hours in there. I even fell asleep a couple of time between contractions on the second day.

*sigh*

I miss that tub.

Throughout this long labor, the baby was fine. We'd listen with the doppler and his heart rate was perfect. Turns out, he was facing sideways. Once he got down far enough that Fran could feel his head, she announced that he was facing to my left. This is probably why the labor was progressing so slowly. In retrospect, I was having typical labor for a baby in this position. I would have one strong contraction followed by one or two weaker ones. I had lower back pain, whether I was having a contraction or not. Classic signs, apparently.

After about 40 hours, we had a discussion about whether I should go to the hospital. Heartburn aside, I was feeling pretty good, and the baby wasn't in distress, so we decided to stay at home. Fran gave me some herbs to slow the labor down temporarily so that I could try to get some sleep. I guess I did sleep for a couple of hours before the contractions woke me up again. I really hated that feeling, being woken up by a contraction. I wish I'd had someone with me monitor when I was about to have a contraction and then wake me up before it did. It was one of the few times I felt overwhelmed by labor, waking up in the middle. It made me resist falling asleep.

After another 12 hours or so of labor, Fran said we should talk about going to the hospital again. She was concerned that I was becoming exhausted, after 2+ days of very little sleep and nothing except a little bit of honey to eat. She said that if the doc at the hospital could turn the baby's head with forceps, he'd probably pop right out. I didn't really want to leave home, but we'd always said that if things pointed in that direction, we'd go to the hospital. I still felt like I could work through it, though I was pretty tired. By this time I could feel the top of the baby's head with my fingers, which was exhilarating, but I also really, really wanted to be done. Like, a lot. Seriously.

Maggie'd told me months before that if for some reason I needed forceps help, to not let anyone except Dr. Bruner near me. She called him "The Wizard With Forceps". Apparently, they don't really teach the proper use of forceps in OB/GYN schooling anymore. Nowadays, anything goes slightly out of the ordinary and *bang* you get a C-section. Dr. Bruner was older, had been well-trained, and knew what he was doing, by all reports. It was about 10pm by this time, so I had someone call the hospital to see who was on-call for deliveries. If it was anyone else, we were staying home and would just work through it, but as luck would have it, Dr. Bruner was the doc on call, so we decided to go ahead and go in.

That was a seriously uncomfortably car ride, though thankfully a brief one. I was still having regular contractions, and I'd progressed enough that these were the pushing kind. It was a slow walk into the hospital with regular stops for breathing through contractions. I told the nurses on duty how far along I was, but they totally didn't believe me, probably because I'd just walked in. They were a bit patronizing, like, suuuure you are, pat my hand. They led me into a small exam room to check me out, felt the top of the baby's head, and kinda freaked out. It was pretty funny. I felt a contraction coming on and got up so I could deal with it standing (my preferred position at this point) and one nurse was all, "You can't stand up! We don't want the baby to fall out onto the floor!" Hah. I just looked at her and got up. I reminded her that I'd been pushing for hours and if the baby was going to come out that easily, we wouldn't have been there. She came to her senses and was like, "Right, ok."

We all moved into a big labor and delivery room. Dr. Bruner arrived about 10 minutes later, checked out the scene and said I was lucky it was him, for all the reasons I've already enumerated. There was a brief discussion about whether or not I wanted an epidural. I asked him if the forceps were going to hurt. He said, "Not any more than regular contractions." Total. fucking. lie. I don't know what I was thinking, trusting someone who'd never been in labor, let alone had a forceps delivery. Orion stepped forward and said that I didn't want an epidural. This was one of his jobs. We'd talked a lot about it before and I made it clear that I did NOT want anyone sticking anything into my spine. I'd had a lumbar puncture in the past, and until The Procedure, it was the worst physical experience of my life. I'd asked Orion to advocate for me because I might not be able to do it myself. I'm glad I did, because I was seriously considering it. I was tired, and tired of being in pain, but I didn't really want an epidural. He was a champ.

Now, having said all that - If I had known how much the forceps were going to hurt, I would have demanded pain meds. I'm not kidding. I felt every bit of those forceps the whole way. I'm glad, in the end, that I didn't have an epidural, but I would never go through that again without some pain relief. Fortunately, it was quick. Forceps in place. Turn in one contraction. About 3 more contractions and the baby was out. From begining to end, my labor in the hospital was about half and hour long. Of course, Linus was all red and gooey and squishy and half-baked-looking. We toweled him off, I popped a boobie in his mouth, and he nursed away for quite awhile.

So, I ended up giving birth in exactly the position I didn't want to be in - that is, feet up in stirrups - but I don't really care. I'm glad I labored at home. I could do what I wanted, and I was surrounded by the most loving and supportive crew. If I'd been in a hospital the whole time, there is no way they would've let me labor that long. I would have ended up having a C-section. No doubt. As it is, I had a drug-free birth and the baby came out healthy and alert - pretty much just as I'd hoped.

If I ever get pregnant again, I plan on trying home birth again. The only thing I would do different is spend more time walking in my ninth month, and a lot of time on my hands and knees in the last weeks of pregnancy, to lessen the chances of the baby being in the wrong position again.

Oh yeah, and have different juices on hand. Maybe, apple?