The Birth Story

Here's a copy of what I sent out to our birth class. It pretty much preserves how the labor went and how I now feel about the epidural. Nicht gut.

Stacie went into labor on Sunday, October 14 at 5:00 p.m. She was woken up out of a nap with sharp pain in her lower back. The pain remained in her lower back throughout . . . total back labor. At around 1:30 a.m., we called the doctor to ask if contractions lasting almost 4 minutes but still about 15 minutes apart were worth coming to the hospital for. The doc said "no" just as we suspected, but the contractions were very strong.

Stacie was already 9 days late on Sunday, and she had an appointment at her doctor's office for a general check at 11:15 a.m. on Monday. Stacie called the doctor at around 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning in great pain. The contractions were still 10-12 minutes apart but were lasting 3-5 minutes. The pain she was experiencing was convincing me that Stacie is not someone who conforms to the 4-1-1 rule. The doctor "worked her in" early, around 9 a.m., and discovered she was 4cm and still smiling (during the 10-12 min between contractions). The doctor seemed a bit baffled and immediately sent us to REX.

We arrived at REX and were in the delivery room around 11:00 a.m. (Yes, it's Monday now, 10/15). By the time Stacie was examined at REX, she was 6 cm, contractions now about 8-10 min apart.

We reviewed the pros and cons of an epidural at the hospital, the doctor said it would alleviate pain and was as likely to speed labor as it was to slow it. I raised the questions about slowing labor, losing control, greater risk of tearing or C-section, etc. The doctor was quite dismissive of my questions. Stacie's pain was getting pretty intense, she made it to 7cm well before 12:30 p.m. w/o the help of drugs.

We decided on the epidural (dad still had reservations; Stacie really was doing quite well, breathing well, controlled). The doctor said that at the rate Stacie was progressing that we'd be holding Elizabeth no later than 4 p.m.

Labor stalled.

Pertossin was added to get labor going. Nothing.

Eventually, the epidural somehow worked its way out of Stacie's back. All of a sudden, Stacie is having VERY HARD and FAST contractions because they are being augmented with Petossin, and she has NO EPIDURAL in. Great Googly Moogly.

Suddenly, Stacie is battling labor WORSE than it would have been and with no drugs. Crazy! This ultimately proved to be a mixed blessing. If this had not happened, Stacie would have stayed stalled at around 7 cm. Instead, she went from 7 cm to 8.5 cm in a jiffy. They administered an emergency epidural in the midst of all this, but we basically learned that Stacie can do the hardest labor w/o the epidural. MENTAL NOTE FOR NEXT TIME.

At 9:14 p.m., Elizabeth Hannah Palmer was born. Stacie's doctor, Dr. Jacokes, delivered her; the first doctor, Dr. Moore, had her shift end at 7 p.m. Every risk that I asked about, with the exception of a C-Section, came to fruition. The epidural 1) dramatically slowed labor, 2) precipated a loss of control for Stacie resulting in some less than wonderful results, and 3) ALMOST led to a C-Section.

The doctor had to use an extractor because Stacie couldn't feel her contractions and she wasn't able to push Elizabeth's head around the pubic bone. The extractor left some pretty horrific marks on Elizabeth's head (it popped off once!), but those marks are all but gone now. The doctor said she wouldn't use the extractor for more than 6 contractions before considering "other options" (this was clearly code for "C-Section").

On the final push (third) of the 6th contraction, with dad praying and mom pushing like crazy, Elizabeth Hannah Palmer was born. There was a special unit in the room because of the extractor, and this proved to be very important because it took a long while for Elizabeth to breathe on her own. It was quite tense for about 7 minutes. By the two-day check up, she was back to her birth weight, and everything looks great. . . and mom is finally getting a little rest. Shwew!