Labor and Delivery

About a week after my “due date,” I decided I was done being pregnant and ready for an induction. I felt guilty about it, though. Like I shouldn’t force my body to do something it wasn’t ready to do. I wanted to be one of those people who listened to my body and toughed it out until my body told me it was time. But when I talked through my mixed feelings with S., she said, “knowing that you are done with being pregnant and want an induction is you listening to your body.” That sealed it for me and I decided to serve the eviction notice.

We went to the hospital on a Sunday. A midwife inserted a catheter into my cervix and filled the balloon inside with water so it would expand, putting pressure on my cervix, and hopefully dilating it. Before getting pregnant, I thought I’d want to do a natural home birth. But after the pain I experienced with my IUIs and embryo transfers, I decided I wanted all of the drugs. So I said yes please to the nitrous oxide mask. I had a great time and would give it a 10 out of 10.

After that, we went home. My plan was to labor at home for as long as possible before going to the hospital. To my surprise, my contractions started on the drive home. I feel 99% confident that somewhere in the birth class that I took, conversations with our midwives and doula and the books I read that someone had told me contractions would start after the cervical balloon was inserted, but I somehow forgot that or blocked it out. The pain was bearable on the ride home and S and I were AMPED.

When we got home, S made dinner and we ran across a documentary about the ocean narrated by Obama and I thought, “what better way to start labor than listening to Obama’s soothing voice?” During one of my many trips to the bathroom, I noticed some clear fluid in my underwear. I assumed the balloon was leaking a bit, so I put on a pad, but when I went back to the living room and sat down on our low footstool, I felt a huge gush of water. I put on an adult diaper that had been recommended to us and immediately soaked through two of them.

At that point, we texted our doula and called the hospital to let the midwife know that my water had broken. S told us that we should come in the next morning at 8am instead of 10am (my scheduled induction time). I also asked if we could come back to the hospital earlier if the pain got too bad and I wanted IV pain medications. The answer, thankfully was yes.

After a few more adult diapers and learning about the Pacific Ocean, S and I decided to attempt to sleep, but 30 minutes in, I decided the pain was too much and I wanted drugs. We giddily loaded up the car, texted our doula and our dog sitter and drove to the hospital around 11pm.

At the hospital, I got IV pain meds and was able to sleep for awhile. Around 4am, my cervical balloon was removed and the pain meds started to wear off. Normally they’d give the catheter a tug and if your cervix was dilated enough, the balloon would easily slide out and if it didn’t, then they’d drain the balloon and pull out the catheter. When the midwife tugged on my catheter, I told her I felt resistance and she said she did too. I assumed that meant that they were going to drain the balloon and then pull it out, but without warning she gave it a very big tug and I felt a surge of pain and yelled out. The balloon popped out and the pain receded. At the time, I didn’t think much of it, but looking back it was pretty fucked up of her not to ask me if I wanted her to force my cervix to dilate by yanking the balloon out or giving me the opportunity to do it myself and explaining that it was going to hurt. Either way, it was over with and my cervix was 4-5cm dilated.

Sometime later, the midwife and nurse asked me to get up and move around. S put on music and we danced around the room, I sat on a pregnancy ball and bounced on it while continuing to breathe through contractions and watch the Oceans documentary and later Mrs. Doubtfire. We also listened to the person next door scream while they went through what I’m assuming was an unmedicated labor. This was an excellent reminder to me to not wait too long to request the epidural.

I have no concept of when I got the epidural, but my best guess is late afternoon on Monday. The anesthesiologist had me sit on the side of the bed with my legs dangling over the side. The nurse made S sit in a chair directly in front of me because they’d had one too many partners pass out during the procedure. The anesthesiologist gave me lidocaine injections and then told me that if I felt the needle, to the right or left of my spine or any pain, I should tell him because it meant he was in the wrong spot. It took him at least 5 sticks to get it right and it was incredibly painful. I was grimacing and groaning and he kept thinking it was because of contractions while S, the nurse and I told him over and over that it was him putting the needle in the wrong spot that was causing the pain. While still trying to find the right spot, the anesthesiologist speculated that the reason he was having a hard time was because I was too tense anticipating the injection. Leave it to a man to blame you for his screw up while you are in labor…

Eventually, the epidural worked and at some point there was a midwife and nurse shift change and our doula arrived. The midwifery practice we’d been visiting has several midwives and they encourage you to meet with each one prior to labor. The week before I induced, S and I met a midwife we hadn’t seen before and we immediately clicked and laughed throughout the appointment. I told her I wanted to induce on Sunday if I hadn’t gone into labor by then and she told us that she’d be working on Monday so hopefully she’d be the one to catch our baby.

Our nurse was phenomenal, too. She mentioned her husband, but we were getting queer vibes from her. Then at some point, she mentioned that she taught pole dancing classes and later worked into our conversation that she had an ex-wife. I wanted to yell, “I knew it!” but contained my excitement. Our doula is queer and non-binary, and together this group of people helped me and S navigate the scariest hour and a half of our lives with overwhelming love and care.

Over the next few hours, our doula did everything they could to make me and S comfortable and help me get some sleep. I think they opened and closed the blinds 10 different times because I couldn’t decide if I wanted to nap in the daylight or the dark. They brought me and S popsicles and introduced me to the most delicious beverage I’ve ever had - a combination of ginger ale and apple juice. They made sure that S went to the cafeteria and had dinner before it closed for the night and told her to go for a walk outside. They also encouraged her to drink water after realizing that I needed 0 water drinking encouragement. I had a catheter in my bladder because of the epidural, so we could all see exactly how much water I was drinking in the bag hanging on the side of my bed, which we affectionately called my piss purse.

Throughout labor, our nurse was taking my temperature every 30 minutes to an hour and one time when she took it, it read 102.3. She thought it was a mistake so she took it again and it came back the same. She asked if I felt feverish and I told her I had for awhile, but I figured it was one of the medications or just being in labor so I hadn’t mentioned it. After consulting with our midwife, they treated me for an infection called Chorioamnionitis with antibiotics and IV Tylenol for the fever.

Eventually my fever went down and I started to feel better, but there was a greater sense of urgency to get the baby out because of the infection and by this time it was late Monday night. I had been jokingly telling S that I was going to hold our baby in until just after midnight so he wouldn’t have a 4/20 birthday and it was looking more and more like I was going to succeed.

Our midwife told us that the doctors at the hospital were pushing for me to do a C section soon if we didn’t make progress. Our doula had me turning like a rotisserie chicken trying a ton of different positions to get our baby to move down in my pelvis, but he was pretty content to hang out right where he was. Eventually, they had me get on all fours while S jiggled each of my butt cheeks to try to loosen the facia which could help the baby drop lower. S was obviously elated to have this job and honestly it felt great until all of the sudden I started feeling feverish again. The nurse took my temperature and it was back to up 101 and I started shaking uncontrollably.

At first we thought the shaking was due to the fever, but when I told our doula that I felt like I was going to throw up they excitedly exclaimed, “Yes!” because it meant that the shaking was because my cervix was dilating. During the 30 minutes of shaking, I went from 5(ish) cm to 9.5 cm. The shaking was one of the worst feelings I’ve ever had. I’m at a loss for how to explain it. My whole body was convulsing uncontrollably and my teeth were smashing together so hard I asked S to give me my night guard because I was worried I was going to chip one. To help with the shaking my doula and S put a heaping pile of heated blankets on me. It didn’t stop the shaking, but it did make it more bearable.

In the meantime, our nurse told our midwife that my fever was back. When our midwife came into the room she told me that I’d had the max does of Tylenol already so to lower my body temperature and keep our baby safe, we needed to use ice packs. I didn’t see our midwife’s face when she pulled off the pile of heated blankets one by one only to realize that our doula and S had also put heat packs under my armpits to help manage the shaking, but I’m told it was pretty priceless and she was not pleased.

When the shaking finally stopped, I told our doula that I didn’t think I could go through another shaking episode. They said that it was possible it could happen another time or two and I said that I was considering a C section to avoid it. I wasn’t ready to make the call yet, but wanted to make sure everyone knew that was on the table.

Sometime later, our midwife came back and said that normally, they don’t have people start pushing when the baby is still as high as our baby, but she could only hold the doctors off for so long and she thought I was strong enough to get our baby out. It was decision time - try to push him out or go for the C section. I decided to push. The pushing wasn’t as hard and fatiguing as I thought it would be - maybe because in comparison to the shaking, it felt easy and like it was at least something that I could control. Our doula had me on my back, then on each side and eventually I used a squat bar on the bed. They had their hand on my stomach to feel for when a contraction came and it was time to push. At some point they had to tell S to stop making me laugh so much because they couldn’t tell what was a laugh and what was a contraction.

As our baby continued to move down, his heart rate continued to become erratic or drop. The doctors were worried enough that they sent a doctor into the room (only the second time one had come into my room since we’d arrived now a day and a half earlier). She told me that they were considering an episiotomy and a vacuum to get our baby out ASAP and I started to see NICU medical staff come into the room in case our baby needed help once he was born.

Around that point I asked for a mirror so I could see where I was pushing. I’d heard that that can help focus the right muscles when you are numb after an epidural. Our midwife warned me that it was a huge beauty and the beast-like mirror and she wasn’t lying. They wheeled in a full length mirror with a thick wooden frame. It helped though and after pushing for close to 2 hours our baby had moved far enough down that I could reach down and feel his head. I was numb so S guided my hand. When my hand felt a full head of hair, S said, “That’s not your hair honey, that’s our baby’s!”

The last few pushes when his head was partway out but he wasn’t fully born felt like it took an eternity, but eventually he entered the world. S had been in the position to catch him, but the cord was wrapped around his neck which is pretty common, but meant our midwife had to catch him and flip him onto me to untangle the cord and that’s when things got very scary.

The next 30 minutes were a blur and I only remember snippets of visuals and parts of conversations. The first visual I have of our son entering the world is our midwife flipping him onto my stomach and seeing his purple limp foot flop onto me. Then I remember NICU staff who I hadn’t met gathering around me and him. Our baby hadn’t made any noise yet. We had wanted to delay the cord clamping, but I heard the sense of urgency in the voices of the NICU staff when they said we need to cut the cord now and instructed S on how to do it. Then they ushered him away to a small bed on wheels with a heat lamp in our room. S was still with me for a few more seconds before our doula told her she could go be with our baby. From where I laid numb from the waist down, I could see what seemed like a flood of doctors, I caught glances of them holding his feet up and flicking the bottom of them, but I couldn’t see his body or his face with all the people surrounding him. I heard urgent calls to other NICU staff to come to our room ASAP. I heard S singing him the song we’d been singing to him during my third trimester. At some point, I realized that our midwife had gotten my placenta out. I remember the NICU doctors looking at it and saying “that’s a lucky kid.” I heard a big suctioning sound and our doula said with relief, “That’s the sound of baby being successfully suctioned.” But we waited for the cry and it didn’t come. I could see S talking to a doctor and I was straining to hear, but felt helpless because I couldn’t stand and was in the process of getting stitches. The snippets I did hear were scary “preserve neurological function” and “hypothermic coma,” but I didn’t know what was actually happening.

Eventually a NICU doctor came over to talk to me and S together. They told us that our baby was not very responsive, needed help to breathe and his muscle tone was limited. When they picked up his arm or leg it limply dropped back down to the bed. They hypothesized that his brain didn’t get enough oxygen during the delivery and to preserve and to reset his neurological function, they would need put him in a hypothermic coma for 3 days.

As the doctors were about to wheel our baby out of the room and to the NICU, our doula interceded and asked if they could put him on my chest first. The NICU staff was hesitant, but said yes just for 10 seconds because they’d need to take off his oxygen mask to do it and his mask was turned up to 100%. They put him on me and S and I put our arms around him and hugged and kissed him. And in those seconds that we got to hold him for the first time he let out his first cry in the 30 minutes since he’d been born. It wasn’t the newborn heaving cry where everyone in the room breathes a sigh of relief. It was a combination of a tiny cry and a newborn squeak, but it was enough to give us some much needed hope that he’d be okay.

The delivery room went from being packed full of people and noise to silence with just me, our doula, midwife and nurse. I was in a daze and lay there wondering if this was really happening and if we were about to leave this hospital without our baby. I remember the doula telling me that the NICU doctors go to the absolute extreme for every one of their patients and prepare you for the worst case scenario even if that’s not what’s likely to happen. That was comforting to hear. Our midwife asked me if I wanted to see my placenta and it was a good distraction. They showed me that it had an attachment at the side instead of the middle. The cord was also split into 3 at the attachment site and had a sack filled with amniotic fluid. We got lucky that that sack didn’t burst because if it had, then the placenta would have detached from him.

It seemed like I was laying in room for hours for hours waiting to hear how our baby was doing, but in reality, I think S returned 30-45 minutes later. She told us that he had perked up, was breathing on his own and was crying. They weren’t going to have to put him in a coma and he’d be okay after a couple days in the NICU. S and I held each other and sobbed. I’ve never been so relieved in my life and thinking about it and looking at the photo that our doula captured of us hugging and crying still makes me tear up. I’ll be forever grateful to our doula for urging the NICU team to let us hold our baby before they took him. When a baby lays on their parent’s chest after birth it helps them regulate their body temperature, breathing and heart rate. That’s when he let out his first cry and I know that was the turning point for him.

After another hour or two, my epidural wore off and S and I were able to transfer to the room where we’d stay for the next couple of nights. We hugged our doula and midwife goodbye and said thank you. Our nurse took me and S to the NICU so that we could see our baby. He was hooked up to an IV and a few different monitors, but he was alert and pink and breathing on his own. We got to hold him and we cried more together. It was a good thing our doula had told her to hydrate so much.

Eventually, we went up to our room to get some much needed rest. Our baby was transferred off the NICU after a day or two and we got to take him home. We both cried some more as we drove away from the hospital with him. I felt like we’d gotten away with something and expected a nurse to chase us down and tell us that he needed a few more tests before we could leave.

A few days later, I got a MyChart notification with the results of the placenta biopsy. It showed that throughout the pregnancy, my body had been attacking my placenta like a body rejects a donor organ. I sent a message to our midwife to get more information on what that meant and then obviously googled it while I waited to hear back. It turns out that most of the people who have this type of complication have a late-term miscarriage or a still birth and the only way to diagnose it is with a biopsy of the placenta after the miscarriage or birth. If I decide to get pregnant again, then the pregnancy would need to be closely followed because it would be high risk. I hadn’t planned on getting pregnant a second time, but I feel like the choice was taken away from me, and I am mourning that.

Our baby is 6 weeks old now and is the definition of a velcro baby. Our doula says that he’s making up for the day and a half that he spent in the NICU away from us. He will only sleep soundly if he is being held. I’m currently holding him and writing this via a very quiet voice note on my phone. It’s exhausting, but I know that I will miss this when he grows out of it so for now, I’m soaking up every moment with this Velcro baby before my parental leave ends.