Birth Story

Had a birth experience fitting of 2020. Originally went into labor at 35 weeks but stopped contracting and dilating at 3.5cm and was sent home on 8/15. Went to my normal 36 week appt and had blood pressure of 160/90 and was sent to L&D for labs to rule out preeclampsia. Labs came back and confirmed that I did in fact have preeclampsia and would be induced 8/25 at 37w and was given a steroid shot to develop baby’s lungs and told to collect my urine for 24 hours and come back the next day for follow up labs and a second steroid shot and then to be at the hospital for induction Monday 8/24 at 6pm. Feeling fine I felt lucky that I knew exactly when baby was coming and had a weekend to spend with my 5 year old and get everything in order for who would watch him and get last minute baby and hospital bag stuff. Went back to L&D the next day for my labs and shot and was told that the protein in my urine needed to be below 300 to be safe and mine had come back over 4000 and was accompanied by a bp reading of 161/101 and basically that I wasn’t going anywhere and they needed to get baby out. So I text SO and told him what was up and to grab the hospital bag and drop off 5yr old ASAP cuz it sounded like they were trying to get baby out right right away. On call dr came in and said I was being admitted but wanted to keep me pregnant as long as possible with the latest I would be pregnant being my original induction date at 37weeks exactly but that they would induce earlier if I had 3 bp readings over 160/100 within a 2 hour span of checking bp every 5min and was told I had already had 1 and my bp was hovering around 155/95. I have a no contact order with the father of my 5yr old but it defaults custody matters to our already established before it was put in place. So basically he can’t contact me unless it is a type of contact listed in the custody agreement like he can ask about our child or call or video chat our child and gets all his visitations and what not so as you can imagine if you have ever had an abusive ex he uses the custody order to harass me without breaking the no contact order. This is important to mention because it is a decent chunk of the 2020ness that was this birth experience. So yeah I text my ex letting him know that I had been admitted to hospital for preeclampsia so our son would not be available for phone calls or video chats as he was not with me but that I would be home before his scheduled visitation on Friday so it should be no problem. He then proceeds to demand to talk to his child. Also keep in mind I am in Iowa where there was just a land hurricane. We had just gotten power back as a city the day before after 11 days and most still didn’t have any cell reception due to destroyed cell towers and to the day most still don’t have Internet. So I tell him who he’s with because I legally have to but again that he can’t speak with him because they don’t have cell service or internet. After many more hours of harassment I put my foot down and am like alright dude I told you everything I legally have to youre fucking with my bp I’m trying to have a baby and not die go away. Another fun fact is that because our custody agreement is listed in our no contact order any violation of our custody agreement is a violation of our no contact order and results in immediate arrest. I’m sure you can tell by his mental stability so far in this story that he has never tried to catch me up so he could have me arrested.....SO! A couple hours of peace pass go by and I receive a text from my 5yr old’s dads cousin who I am very close with. It’s a screenshot of a post that he has posted on Facebook stating that his 5yr old is missing and that he believes he is in mortal danger because I claim that I have him but refuse to let him speak to him and that he has contacted the police and they refuse to do anything 🙄. So this insane nonsense is floating all over the internet and city and I of course can’t comment on it cuz ya know...no contact order so I’m just sitting their rolling my eyes trying to stay out of the drama when SO’s phone rings and it’s the police. THIS MAN REALLY TRIED TO FILE A MISSING PERSONS REPORT AND HAVE ME ARRESTED FOR VIOLATION OF NO CONTACT WHILE I WAS IN THE HOSPITAL ON BEDREST WITH PREECLAMPSIA! Anyway SO explained the situation to the cop and they said all’s good and not to worry about it anymore. Bp stayed under where it needed to until the fateful day so Monday night after a very uncomfortable weekend in the hospital bed on bed rest the nurse let me know I could order breakfast when the cafeteria opened at 630am and then doctor would be in at 8am to break my water and it should be pretty fast and easy because I was already so dilated but of course no food after my water breaks. So I popped on some game of thrones and snuggled up with SO and played the obnoxious game of “this is the last time we’ll blah blah before baby comes” and passed out around 10pm to get a decent amount of sleep before game time. So 615am comes and pop goes my water all by itself 15min before breakfast opened so I officially can’t eat til baby comes lol 2020 strikes again lol. Even though my water had broken I wasn’t having any contractions so I put in my big girl diaper and went back to sleep. On call dr comes in at 8am and checks me. Still at a 3.5 and still no contractions so they start me on pitocin. Cool. Couple hours pass and pitocin is at full blast, still no contractions still not dilating. Nursing let me know it’s still early in the game so not to worry and to just let them know when I need pain meds. So around noon contractions start but the monitor isn’t picking them up at all they they don’t know how far apart they are. I say they seem really close together but I can’t really tell and they’re not super painful. Check me again still at 3.5. 1pm roles around and the contractions still aren’t the worst worst but I’m over them because it is just a constant contraction hula hooping from my front to my back and back around and I’m not trying to go natural or see how long I can handle the pain I’m just trying to time it so the epidural doesn’t wear off before it’s baby pushin time so they check me again 3.5 but I can get the epidural now if I want. I want. So the anesthesiologist comes in with the liquid gold and I’m feeling like I’m about to miss out on most of the pain of this labor. Super win. So he starts doing the epi and it super hurts because I don’t have contraction pains to cover up the discomfort so they give me an IV dose of fentynol to calm me down while he finishes. Magical. Nap time again. So 2pm rolls around and I’m feeling pain but mostly pressure the nurses says it’s normal and I believe her cuz the pin should be way worse and closer together if I was actually feeling labor. Nice nurse is on my side though so she does a test with ice to make sure I’m not actually feeling anything. Felt the ice completely so she came to the conclusion that the epidural had failed and I was feeling pain because the fentynol was wearing off but no biggy checked again only at a 5 so we’ll just call in for a second one. Drug magician comes, does his thing, but is arguing with the nurses that he doesn’t believe they checked me because they’re saying I’m a 5 but the sounds and motions I’m making are telling a different story. I found this odd because I wasn’t screaming or crying or yelling or anything just focusing and breathing. So he gets all done and the nurse immediately checks me again mostly to prove she’s right and the second nurse asks if there’s any change and the first nurse says yeah but I don’t want to say a number until you check too. So 2nd nurse checks and I’m at an 8. So I’m freaking out a little because I’ve got from 5cm 70% effaced to 8cm in all of 10 min but I’m just staying calm because this epi should only take 15-30min to kick in and then it’s roses. There were no roses. So 5min later I’m breathing heavy trying to deal with the pain I so didn’t ask for and the nurse starts asking if I feel like I need to poop and all these questions and I just keep repeating I don’t know because 1. I don’t have the brain capacity to think right now and 2. I had a very successful epidural with my other 2 children and my last one was 6 years ago. All I knew was whatever I was feeling I had never felt before and I wanted the pain meds to kick in and it to stop asap. About 10seconds later my body starts pushing on its own which people say is a thing but I could never really wrap my head around it so in case you also can’t wrap your head around it it’s like when your body starts convulsing to throw up only instead of dry heaving throw up its your vagina trying to dry heave a human. So I’m like yeah I need to push and nurse starts yelling at me that I need to not push because they have to wait for the doctor to be in the room to which I just yell back I’m not pushing my body is pushing! We’re on the same side lady I want this kid to stay in until my drugs kick in! So the doctor runs in after about 2min of me twisting and turning trying to keep the baby in and rolls me on my back and baby literally falls out into her hands at that exact moment after 3 involuntary pushes. No rips or tears and accidentally born all natural 8/25/2020 at 2:59pm Lachlan was born at 6lbs 2oz 18.5in long.