My Birth Story

SO, I figured I should write this down so that I would remember it for myself! It may be a bit long, but its kind of a crazy story. On October 14th at around 2:30 in the morning I woke up because I thought I was peeing on myself. Went to the bathroom and stood up from the toilet to a huge gush all over the floor. I had absolutely no signs that I was going to go into labor prior (baby hadn't dropped, no loss of mucus plug, no bloody show, etc.) so I was a bit in shock. I was also only 38 weeks. I woke up my husband and told him that my water broke. In true fashion, he didn't register what I told him and fell back asleep for a couple of minutes until it registered in his brain. After that he popped up and started getting things ready. I had threatened preterm labor at 32 weeks so we already had our bags packed, car seat in the car, and all of that fun stuff.

I wasn't having any contractions, but I also didn't have any pads to soak up my water breaking so had to change my pants and underwear about 4 times before we left the house. My original plan was to labor at home as long as possible and have an unmedicated birth, but that kind of went out the window after my water broke.

We got to the hospital at around 3:45 and they hooked me up to all of the monitors and made sure it was actually my water that broke. Obviously, it had, but I wasn't really having any contractions and was only at 2 cm, 70% effaced so they transferred me to a labor and delivery room and gave me about an hour before they started me on a pitocin drip at a level 2 just to see if it could speed up the contractions a bit. They also brought in a peanut ball and had me use that to see if it could speed up the process as well.

Fast forward a bit, I was still going with no pain medication because that was my goal. I silently cried and squeezed my husbands hand through most of them, some of which got to a TOCO level of over 200. It was, to put it lightly, pretty excruciating, from what I can remember. At a certain point, it turned out that my little man was not a fan of being sped along with the pitocin drip. I dilated from a 2 to an 8 in about 2 hours, but once I got to 8 cm, all hell broke loose. I had a contraction that would not stop for about 15 straight minutes. Baby's heart rate dropped in the 90s (I didn't know that at the time) and all of a sudden three nurses and my OB were in the room running around and they had me on oxygen and moving in a bunch of different positions to try to stabilize his heart rate. They made everybody leave the room (even my husband who looked terrified). I had to get a dose of terbutaline which stabilized it finally, but also pretty much stalled my labor completely. After that I decided it's better to be safe than sorry, so I asked for the epidural just in case. From that point it turned into a waiting game. The epidural wasn't painful at all and gave me at least a little bit of relief.

Over the next 18 hours, they manipulated my legs into different positions, put me in stirrups, tried for passive transition by sitting me completely upright and nothing seemed to be working. They had an internal probe hooked up to me to monitor my contractions more closely. I finally got to 10cm and 100% effaced, but baby was still at a zero station and wasn't moving. After all of this, my OB came in and did a check and realized that baby was sunny side up (talk about exhaustion and frustration) and that if I had a vaginal birth it would probably fracture his collarbone or he would get stuck in the birth canal. So, after laboring for 22 hours, my doctor told me that I was going to have to have a c section which I suppose is pretty traumatic for a FTM. I freaked out, but things started happening very quickly after that was decided. Several nurses, doctors, anesthesiologists, and other people came in with different medications, information, etc that they were spouting out to me. I was absolutely terrified because obviously this was never part of my "birth plan" and I just wanted my baby to be okay. About 15 minutes later, they wheeled me into the OR and went to work. My husband was thankfully able to hold my hand the whole time and take pictures because I was super out of it since I hadn't really slept and was on so many medications. The only thing I remember is hearing him cry for the first time and the doctor saying that he was very big.

I am happy to say that after all of that, my lovely little William James Lambert was born at 12:48am on October 15th, 2016 and we are super duper in love with him. He weighed 8 pounds, 3 ounces (big baby) and actually had a huge head! The recovery was very difficult and not at all what I expected, but hoping I can do a VBAC for the next one. I am extremely glad I opted for the epidural when I did because I was able to still be awake for my baby's birth and hear his first cries instead of having to go under general. If you read that whole thing, thank you!! I felt that I needed to get it out.