californiafrog7905: Hannah's Speedy Delivery

Posted Thursday, December 17, 2009 11:33 AM

"Someone kept saying, 'Ring of fire, ring of fire!' but I really only felt a strong burning sensation one time; mostly I wanted my midwife to stop touching me, so I pushed to make that go away...!"

Early arrival

My water broke one Tuesday while I was driving back home from Dahlonega on the GA 400, about an hour away from our house. I was going 85 mph, talking on the phone to a friend of mine, when all of a sudden….WHOOSH!  I’d lost my mucous plug that morning, so we knew something might be happening soon, but I figured we had a couple of weeks, or even a few days’ notice. Not! It felt SO strange; not like water gushing at all at first. Naturally, I freaked out, being a month away from my due date. I called my husband Trey and as calmly as I could, told him what had happened and to meet me at the midwife's office. I wasn’t sure whether they’d send me straight to the hospital or not at that point.  Throughout all of this, my wonderful husband’s main concern (God love him) was what condition the leather driver’s seat was in, since I’d just gushed amniotic fluid all over it. (“Is it on the floor?  How bad is the seat?  What about the seatbelt?”)  Gotta give the guy props for focusing on the important details! 

When we got to my midwife's office, she checked me and I was only 1-2 cm dilated, 70-80% effaced at about 4:30 p.m. that afternoon. We got to go home, but with strict instructions to come to the hospital by 6 a.m. the next day (which also happened to be my birthday, of all the days this month!). I was told that since my water broke early, I only had about 24 hours to deliver the baby before they would move to a C-section. So I spent all night long trying to encourage my contractions to get closer together, and ended up exhausted with contractions 4-5 minutes apart but having made NO progress by 7:30 the next morning.  I did, however, spend lots of time on the phone with a friend/nurse-midwife in California, walk the dog up and down the street about 50 times, pack and unpack and repack my hospital bags full of unnecessary items, drink castor oil (NEVER AGAIN), and smile a whole lot, despite the contractions.

Getting to the hospital

Once we checked in and got set up in a L&D room, our midwife convinced me to start Pitocin, since we were on the clock and time was running out. Ugh. NOT in my birth plan. I'd already had to reconcile myself to not getting the waterbirth I wanted, since the baby was ever-so-technically pre-term (by 18 whole hours). But by that point I was completely exhausted, falling asleep talking to people, and really scared that I wouldn't make it through the rest of labor with no energy.  Got the Pit, contractions got more intense, and the nurse suggested she give me a shot of morphine/phenergan(?) so that I could rest for a few hours before I moved into active labor. (This is where things start to get hilarious...)

Fast and furious!

So our doula Tracey said that 85-90% of women who get the morphine shot get to sleep some, their contractions are dulled, and it takes about 4-5 hours for active labor to start. Well that SO wasn't the case for me! An hour after I got the morphine shot, I'd dilated from 2 to 10 cm and was feeling TONS of pressure and wanting to push. Trey and the doula were BOTH out of the room (thinking nothing would happen but more intense contractions for hours), as was the midwife (and everyone else!); but all of a sudden they rushed in along with about 10 other people, and I was off and running. I pushed through about 5 strong contractions for 15 minutes (someone kept saying, "Ring of fire, ring of fire!" but I really only felt a strong burning sensation one time; mostly I wanted my midwife to stop touching me, so I pushed to make that go away, never mind the baby!), and out she came!  Made it through with no epidural, too, which was one of my bigger goals, aside from not having a C-section.

We're overjoyed, overwhelmed, and beside ourselves with happiness, to say the least. Granted, I got NOTHING done ahead of time (Trey put the car seat in the day after Hannah Claire was born, and the nursery is still a complete mess), but she's SO worth all the effort. I actually miss being pregnant a little bit; got cheated out of those last 4 weeks of torture so I can't even say I suffered a lot in the end!  We've taken a zillion photos so far, of course. In between naps, that is.

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