FTM, Induced, Heart Rate Complications, C-Section

It’s been a little over a week and I wanted to share my birth story. Being a FTM, I spent a lot of time in this group reading stories and trying to imagine what the process would feel like. I wanted to share my story to help others do the same!

We chose to schedule an induction when I was 40+2. The doctor did not have a significant reason, just told us that there are studies that say inducing can help reduce the risk of a c-section, which I very much wanted to avoid. So we trusted him and scheduled for 7am Monday morning, November 4th.

When I got in and they hooked everything up, they said I was having some contractions but was not dilated at all. They decided to give me citotec to start things moving. The OB resident who came in to insert the pill was EXTREMELY rough. Most doctors will approach slowly at first, even if they have to really get up in there. He put his WHOLE FIST in without any warning and TWISTED aggressively for several minutes because he “couldn’t find my cervix.”

Once the citotec was in, the contractions started kicking up a notch and I needed to breathe through them, though it wasn’t anything I couldn’t handle. They waited a few hours and checked me again. I had dilated to a “tight 1” but was having very consistent, strong contractions. They decided to hold off on pitocin and wait to see how much more I would dilate. A few moments later, the nurse came back in to check something on my monitor. She very calmly got on her phone and asked for some help. She was so calm and chill I didn’t think anything was wrong until several doctors and nurses swarmed into my room.

They quickly said that baby’s heart rate was too slow and they needed to get it back up. They flipped me a few times and waited to see if it would go back up. They explained that during contractions, the baby receives less oxygen and needs breaks in between to “catch their breath.” I was contracting A TON and he wasn’t getting any breaks so his heart rate was dropping. They flipped me back and forth on different sides and finally had me get on all fours to try to move him up some. Without warning they put a shot in my arm of a medicine that is made to halt contractions. Finally things slowed down and his heart rate went back up and things were fine. I felt ok emotionally but started getting the shakes really bad from the adrenaline. After a while of things being calmer, they checked me again and I was STILL at a 1, despite my body having super contractions. So they decided to insert a foley bulb. And I’m like “hey what’s a foley bulb?” And they’re like “oh just a medieval torture device, it kinda hurts but like whatev” and I’m like “ok cool sounds great.” Spoiler alert: NOT GREAT. OPPOSITE OF GREAT. This thing was inserted past my cervix, then inflated to mimic the pressure of baby’s head. Then they tie a weight to it and HANG IT OFF THE BED and they were like OK JUST CHILL TILL IT FALLS OUT.

My contractions ramped up a TON while it was in and in between contractions I still had a lot of pain so there were no breaks. Every minute or so I was in excruciating pain, gripping the bed and moaning. This lasted about 45 minutes until I had the worst pain yet and thought that death sounded pretty great right now when the damn thing finally popped out. I had immediate relief and they came to check on me and said I had dilated to a three. huzzah.

The contractions calmed back down and my husband and I began to discuss whether I wanted an epidural or not. I had dreams of going natural, but the pain of contractions during the foley bulb felt like a sneak peek of what was to come and I knew that wasn’t something I could handle. We opted for the epidural but before they could come in and do it, little man’s heart rate plummeted again. Same procedure as before, swarm of people, flipping me back and forth, end up on my hands and knees and get another shot to stop contractions. Shaking like crazy again and still having a lot of pain with contractions, I was nervous about the epidural but hopeful for some relief. GUYS. Allow me to preach about the beautiful sweet relief of a good ass epidural.

My legs got warm and comfortable, the hard hospital bed felt like a cloud, I could finally breathe and relax. I settled in to labor for as long as I needed to. This was gonna be great. And then the baby’s heart rate plummeted. You know the drill at this point. Flip, flip, shot. The doctor comes in to check on me. STILL AT A 3. Doctor says basically my body is READY to have this baby and is having aggressive contractions but the baby is just not agreeing (the shots were made to stop contractions all together and they barely even slowed mine and i had THREE). They said I could keep laboring and they would keep flipping me and hope for the best, but they were getting worried about little man’s safety. The situation wasn’t emergent yet, but a c-section would be less risky if we did it right then instead of waiting for things to become emergent. My husband and I looked at each other, took a deep breath and said ok. TBH I felt relieved. I had been in labor for over 12 hours and still had such a long way to go. A c-section promised control and a swift finish. I was terrified but ready.

I wont go into detail about the c-section. It was very clinical and made me feel really disconnected from the experience. I started to get stressed that I wasn’t excited to meet the baby and I wasn’t feeling the emotions I was expecting. Then suddenly I felt a release of pressure and out came the baby and he immediately cried and I BURST into tears. A wave of emotion and relief flooded me and I just sobbed. It was the single best moment of my entire life.

Everything went smoothly after that. Baby was perfect and amazing and recovery has been so much easier than I was expecting. My birth experience was so far from what I expected but I am so grateful that I had an amazing team of nurses and doctors who took such good care of me (except that first dude who needs a map to find a cervix. Fuck that guy). Sorry this story was so long! Here’s a cute picture of my sweet little guy as a reward for getting through it!