On Thursday evening, September 22 Eric and I sat talking about whether I should go on the women's overnight retreat the next day. We figured that it was very unlikely that I would go into labor so decided I should go and enjoy my last time for a while to be able to be on my own. That night, however, I woke up feeling contractions that seemed to me to be a bit stronger than the Braxton Hicks I had been feeling the last several days.
In the morning, I asked Eric to stay home just in case this turned into the real thing. I spent the morning trying to take care of some things (like finally packing a labor/hospital bag) and cleaning the house. Took the girls to the library to get some books returned and to get us out of the house. Things hadn't changed really with the contractions so I was figuring that this probably wasn't it. But since Eric was home, he went ahead and came with me to my non-stress test (NST) and midwife appointments. (I had been having weekly NSTs because of worry about Sadie's size) We threw the hospital bag and bag of food for the hospital in the trunk of the car, just to have them there and ready.
My NST appointment was taking awhile, they weren't getting the heart rate accelerations they were wanting, but sent me over to the midwife with instructions to come back afterwards to monitor Sadie some more. My blood pressure was also a little high while there so they recommended the midwife check again. The midwife was concerned when my blood pressure was still high when she checked it so she wanted us to go over and check into Triage at the hospital to do another NST and also to monitor my blood pressure for the next couple of hours. Eric and the girls walked me over and then left to go on a walk while I got started on the monitoring.
Things seemed positive when the midwife was happy with the non-stress test. She was talking about sending me home,but then started to review the blood pressure reading and looking back over my last few visits.Turns out my blood pressure had been high the week before and two high readings at least 6 hours apart are enough to diagnose you with Gestational Hypertension. So when she saw that, things suddenly changed. She no longer wanted me to go home but recommended that I check into Labor and Delivery right away and be induced to get the baby out in order to prevent and avoid the possibility of the hypertension developing into Preeclampsia.
So all of a sudden I was faced with a development that I had not expected or planned for, and definitely did not want. A completely natural birth was my plan, I was supposed to have the baby at the birth center in the hospital (not quite the out of hospital birth center experience like I was blessed to have with Abby and Rua, but a similar environment with midwifes, no medication or IVs, water tubs, etc). Being induced, along with this new diagnosis which would require extra monitoring, disqualified me from the birth center. I felt overwhelmed and was in tears. I did not want this, this is not the birth I wanted and visualized. I had such beautiful birth experiences, especially with Rua's and I wanted that for Sadie too. The midwife (all while handing me tissue after tissue, I was a real mess) helped talk me through my fears, one of the main ones being that I would not be able to labor naturally without pain medications because of being induced. She reassured me that she saw women do it all the time and that I could do it too if that's what I wanted. She also told me that she felt it would go pretty quickly since I was already 80% effaced and 3cm dilated, that the Pitocin would just kickstart what my body was already starting on it's own.
She offered to strip my membranes to see that would start things, saying that we could give it a couple of hours. She also did say I could refuse the treatment and go home, but that she wouldn't recommend it. I knew the big risks and possible complications of preeclampsia and that wasn't a gamble I felt comfortable taking so I felt that I just needed to trust her and move ahead.
She stripped the membranes and then I told Eric to come back. The girls were still with him and we all went over to our room on the labor and delivery floor. By this time it was about 6pm. I called my mom and asked her to head down to stay with the girls. We tried to think of who we could have the girls go stay with until she got there. The fact that this happened to be the same night as the women's retreat was unfortunate since all the ladies on our list to call were gone. Thankfully we were able to get a hold of our friend Eleanor who graciously agreed to take the girls very last minute.
So Eric left to take the girls there and I stayed in my room pacing in circles, trying to talk my body into just going into labor right then and there. The midwife came in around 9pm and said that the stripping of membranes obviously hadn't worked and that instead of waiting until 11pm to start pitocin like the first midwife had said, that we should get it going sooner. Our nurse came in to get the IV put in, but was unable to get it, so then brought another nurse who was also unsuccessful, and then finally a third who was able to get one in.That was super super painful!
So at 10pm,with IV finally placed, things got started. Pitocin was started at a low dose to see if it would just kickstart things. The contractions got more regular, about 3-5 minutes apart and stronger. I spent time walking around the room, sitting and leaning on the birth ball, and laid down for a while trying to rest. But at about 2am, the nurse said we need to up it to get things going. I told her I felt like it would get there in the next several hours with where we were at but she said that the whole reason they were inducing me was to get the baby out quickly not in several hours. Boo. So up it went.
A little after 3am she upped it one last time and all of a sudden the contractions got strong, really really intense. Almost unbearably so. At about 4:15 my water broke it a big gush as I was on my hands and knees on the bed during a contraction. I told the nurse and the midwife came in saying she felt it was really close. She checked and I was at a 6-7. This was disheartening because the way I was feeling was like how I felt during transition, right before pushing with my other two. I didn't know if I could keep going. But the midwife still felt it was really close and started to get things ready. So just a few minutes later when I told her I felt like pushing she told me to go for it. So leaning forward against the propped up top of the bed and on my knees, I went for it.
She kept encouraging me through each agonizing contraction as I pushed, just wanting so badly to be done and get away from this pain. She said the head was crowning, and then another push and out came my little girl. The midwife passed her through my legs right away to me and I turned around and laid her on my chest. My beautiful little Sadie, born 4:59am. I loved those first moments with her.
When they weighed her a couple hours later, she weighed in at 6lb 9oz,
Although Sadie's birth did not play out exactly as I had hoped, even though I had more interventions and monitoring than I had wanted, things went better than I had feared going into it. I was able to get through my induced labor without any pain medication, I had a wonderful midwife, my husband was there with me, and in the end I was blessed with a sweet little baby girl. And both she and I were healthy. So a different experience than my two birth center births, but still special and beautiful.
