Lila Avery – born Wednesday, July 15, 2009 at 3:33 pm; weighing 8 lbs 5.5 oz and measuring 21 inches long with a big ol’ 13″ head. She’s perfect. And we’re so in love.
(photo by Kate McElwee)
The story begins with our routine 40 week appointment at 8:30 Tuesday morning, where the doc told me I was still only 1 cm dilated. Fortunately she knew about, and was very sensitive to, our timing and scheduling issues with work so she said that if a room and a nurse were available on the labor & delivery floor she would try her hardest to get us in for a semi-induction. I say semi- because she wasn’t willing to just start me on pitocin. Instead she suggested a drug called Cytotec (Misoprostal) that, while originally designed as an ulcer medication has been discovered to have powerful ripening effects on the cervix. (Sidenote – I will forever find it amusing that they refer to the effacing and dilation process as “ripening”.) It can often kickstart labor. But not always. So we left her office hoping to get a call saying to come on down and give it a try. And if they couldn’t get me in that day, an induction wouldn’t be scheduled until the following week. By 5:00 or so on Tuesday afternoon, I’d given up on hearing from them. But a little before 8:00 our doctor called and said they’d have room in a couple hours, so have a good dinner, rest up and they’d call back when they were ready for me.
We got the call around 10:30 pm and made it to the hospital a little after 11:00. We checked in and settled into our room hoping to decompress a bit by watching the 7th season of Friends on DVD that I had so thoughtfully packed because we were told that all the L&D rooms had DVD players. As it turns out, they all do… except #9… our room. (Some previous patrons had donated 8 DVD players to the hospital for the L&D floor at some point. Why 8? Would the 9th one have killed ya?) Oh well. We had my laptop, so we just popped the DVD in there and hunkered down.
It was 1:30 am before they administered the Cytotec. We were preparing ourselves for the possibility that it not work at all and we’d have to just go home, but fortunately, my body reacted perfectly to it. By 3:00 am I was contracting every 2.5 minutes. They weren’t painful yet, just uncomfortable. When I was checked at 5:30 am I was 3 cm dilated and 80% effaced and the docs and nurses were pleased with the progress. When I was checked again at 9:30 am (still contracting every 2.5 minutes or so, the contractions themselves being only slightly more painful than before) I was still 3 – 3.5 cm and 80% effaced. (Though, it turns out different docs have different criteria for giving percentages to effacement. So I had actually progressed farther in that arena.)
They started me on a very light pitocin drip and things took off from there. The contractions got increasingly more painful for the next couple hours and were getting fairly unbearable. I asked about an epidural, but then decided I’d try sitting in the tub first. I only lasted for a couple contractions in there before deciding to get out. Then I tried a couple contractions standing against the husband and then one on the birthing ball. Each one was worse than the last and I finally said I wanted the epidural. And, um… NOW please.
Within minutes, the anesthesiology team was in place and got to work. Now, because we were at the University hospital – a teaching hospital – every procedure involved an attending overseeing, a resident actually doing and an intern watching. Everything went smoothly, but it did take an agonizing 40 minutes or so from start to finish.
When they were done, my progress was checked again… 9.5 cm! At 1:00! A mere 3.5 hours after being only 3-ish cm. Turns out that I went pretty much from early labor to transitional labor, almost skipping active labor entirely. The docs were all amazed how quickly it had gone. So, with the epidural started, it wasn’t long before I felt a serious need to push. Actually, it was pretty immediate. But I didn’t say anything about it at first, because the drugs hadn’t actually kicked in yet and I did NOT want to start pushing without them.
I did notice, however, that I had to pee. When I voiced that, the docs were like, “um, you shouldn’t be able to feel your bladder,” so they ordered me more drugs. Thank god, because apparently the dosage hadn’t been nearly enough the first time. An extra dose and a urinary catheter later, it was on.
The first hour and a half of pushing wasn’t so bad. (Sounds like an oxymoron, huh?) The combo of the drugs plus the relief I felt just from pushing kept my spirits up. I was actually joking with everyone between pushes. They had me trying many different positions – on my back, on each side, sitting up on the end of the table, and actually squatting on the table against a squat bar.
The next hour was a whole different story. Everything is a bit of a blur as I try to recall the details, but I do know a few things. First, they placed a mirror at the end of the bed so I could see the progress everyone else was seeing. Not so much. Since my eyes were squeezed shut during the pushing and would only open after each push, I hardly saw ANY of what they were seeing. With each push they’d all comment on what they could see and how much progress I was making, but when I’d open my eyes everything would look just the same as it had previously. Pretty discouraging.
Toward the end of that hour, I was literally sobbing from sheer exhaustion between each push. I have never worked so hard in my entire life. But right about the time when I simply thought I wouldn’t be able to finish what I had started (uh, a little late for the, eh?), little miss Lila finally got her head past my pubic bone and I was able to get her out.
All told, it was 12 hours of labor, 2.5 of which was pushing. Quite a day. Actually, the whole thing went much quicker than I anticipated. And overall, it honestly wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. Well… the pushing was. But the laboring part while dilating, because it went so quickly… let’s just say that I’m really proud of how I handled it. And without drugs! I never thought I’d get to 10 cm without any pain meds.
(photo by Kate McElwee)
(photo by Kate McElwee)
(photo by Kate McElwee)
(photo by Kate McElwee)
