Birth story:

This is the birth story of my first child. You may disagree with some of the choices that were made, & that's fine. But please be respectful, as I did the best I could with the information I had & in a very intense situation.

I was 40 weeks 5 days pregnant when my water broke at home. As instructed by my OB/GYN & the nurses at L&D, we went to the hospital. I always had wanted to do a natural, low intervention birth, and had an OB who was extremely supportive and the nurses were very supportive of our plan as well.

For 15 hours, I labored with no pain medications. For 15 hours, my body stalled at 3cm.

I walked the halls at the hospital. I rocked hour after hour on my birth ball. I soaked in the whirlpool which was helpful. They only required i be monitored for 15 minutes of every hour, & when they did I was allowed to remain on my ball. I used every relaxation technique i had in my arsenal.

At hour two, the contractions began to come in groupings with 3 happening one right after the other, with less than a minute between the end of one & start of another. The longest break was 3 minutes. They began to monitor pressure from the contractions, each maxing out above 175 mmhg, on average. My nurses said they were comparable to if i had a drip of pitocin running. I didn't.

Labor started at 1500. At 5 am, they checked me and i had not progressed past 3 cm. I couldn't rest because there was no break between contractions. My nurse commented she only saw these groupings of contractions under 3 circumstances: 1. Abnormally large baby 2. Malpositioned baby and the third one I believe had to do with pitocin which i wasn't on. We couldn't get him to rearrange no matter what we tried. & then my fever spiked to 100.8 and my heart rate refused to drop below 100.

finally broke down & long story short, wound up with an epidural by 6am. I sobbed for hours after getting it because I felt weak. As though I had let myself & my baby down.

The epidural first didn't slow anything. In fact, within 2 hours I dilated to 5. And stayed there until noon. My fever was persistent and I was given antibiotics as baby was now tachycardic with declerations. They started pitocin to try to speed things along, though i fought hard to avoid it. But even in pitocin, the progress was painfully slow. The day shift nurse, who made me miss the night shift nurses with whom I struggled through the worst pain, kept threatening C-sections & interventions beyond what I already had consented to. Ladies, it doesn't matter if your care taker is a OBGYN or a midwife. I'll be forever grateful to my doctor for his support of what I wanted beyond what would have made life easier for him. He was very supportive of at least sustaining what was left of my birth plan.

I delivered my son vaginally at 437 pm. 7lbs 13 oz, 20 3/4 inches. The epidural was disconnected during pushing so I could feel the pressure at very least. I delivered my son, being coached by my very patient OB. The anterior lip of my cervix never fully went away and my doctor pushed it back and dilated it manually so I could deliver before he would be forced by hospital policy to section me. I delivered without a single tear & no stitches.

My birth was not what I had envisioned. And maybe that's ok. I did the best I could under the circumstances presented. And this was my beautiful result: