Birth Story, Part I: Labor

LukeMotherhoodZoey

Mar 27

Written By Kristen

Hi Everyone!

So I wanted to share a bit about the experience we went through with the birth of our twins.

Wednesday, March 14, I went in for a routine 36-week OB visit. My OB was out of town for the week, and the doctor covering for her told me she (and everyone else in the practice, except for my regular OB) would go straight to C-section with twins that were vertex/breech like mine were. We joked about me needing to make sure to wait until my regular doctor was back in town.

Then I went to the hospital to get monitored (non-stress test), like I'd been doing every week. They asked for a urine sample, which they always do, and I normally tell them I already gave one to my OB, but this time for some reason I did a second sample. Which was really lucky, because I think the sample at my OB's office had somehow fallen through the cracks and hadn't been tested. My favorite nurse was taking care of me, and I lay down and got strapped onto the monitoring machine and started reading my book, figuring I'd be home within an hour.

Instead, my urine came back with lots of protein in it. And my blood pressure was high, and higher every time they checked. And I'd been having terrible swelling in my feet/ankles/lower legs for weeks, which didn't seem to concern anyone until these other things came back abnormal.

So, labs were ordered, and I called my husband to come be with me. Based on the results of the labs, they decided to admit me. I wasn't really given any more information, other than that the on-call doctor would come talk with me.

This all started about 2 PM. It was about 8 PM when the on-call doctor, another doctor in my OB's practice, came in and said that they wanted to keep watch on me overnight but didn't feel like the situation was an emergency. But depending on how things went and how things looked in the morning, they would probably induce me. The twins were doing just fine, I was told, but I was rapidly developing preeclampsia and pregnancy-induced hypertension (which I thought were one and the same, but everyone talked about them as two separate things), and in order to not jeopardize my health, we needed to get the babies out.

They offered me a sleeping pill, which I was so happy to have...I had been sleeping terribly due to the discomfort of being pregnant...also had a pretty bad cold going on...

The night was uneventful. In the early morning, there were more labs, and at 8 AM I was told they were going to induce. I was given cytotec, which is supposed to help soften your cervix (mine was fully closed, my body wasn't anywhere near going into labor). And then we just kind of lay around waiting for something to happen.

About an hour later, I was told that my platelets were dropping fast and I had to get an epidural right away because if we didn't do it then my platelets would be too low for me to have one, and a C-section was what everyone was kind of expecting would happen, so they wanted to make sure I had an epidural in. I kept saying over and over, "I want to do a vaginal delivery if at all possible," I really didn't want a C-section, but I was trying to get used to the idea because that's all anyone was talking about.

So in went the epidural, which hurt. They didn't start the meds, though, because I wasn't really in any pain, they just put it physically in place.

They checked my cervix at 12 PM. Still completely closed. Another dose of cytotec. They checked it again late afternoon. Still closed. Around 6 PM, I started having some labor pain with my contractions (contractions had been happening since the previous afternoon when I had first come in for monitoring). It was a little intense, but my husband helped me through it, and it wasn't awful. I could have stood more.

Around 8 PM, a third doctor from my OB's practice came to see me. She was the doctor on call that night, and said the twins were coming out one way or another. (In the meantime, I'd had a 24-hour urine sample collected and the results of that seemed to alarm everyone.) She said we needed to have "the talk," meaning about how I was going to need to have a C-section. But first, let her look at the babies on ultrasound and let her check my cervix, just to see if anything had changed.

The ultrasound showed the babies had somehow moved into vertex/vertex, which is the best possible position for vaginal delivery. And, when the doctor checked my cervix, it had finally started to open...I think I was dilated to about a 1. The doctor asked the nurse to give her the hook to break my water, and told me if my labor progressed at a reasonable rate we could try for a vaginal delivery. Yay!

I was told pitocin would be started and that they recommended some meds be put through my epidural, as the pitocin would make things pretty intense. I said OK, and the relief from the pain I'd been feeling was pretty much immediate and complete. I'd always been pretty open to an epidural (I'm pretty much a baby about pain), so having one (and using it) wasn't a huge disappointment to me like I know it might have been to some women.

Anyway, everything had been happening so slowly, my husband went home to take a shower and change, get a bite to eat. My mom stayed with me; I wasn't feeling anything at all, expect in my hip/lower back some pain with the contractions, which I was told was a little spot where the epidural wasn't working. My mom rubbing the area during contractions was enough to help, though.

My husband had barely been gone any time at all when the nurse came in to check me and said that I was complete.

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means you are ready to deliver these babies."

So crazy...from nothing happening all day to being fully dilated in about an hour...and they had barely used any pitocin at all, either....everyone kept saying, "HOW MUCH pitocin did she have?!?" like they couldn't believe how fast things had happened, either.

So a frantic call was made to my husband to get back to the hospital. The on-call doctor was called back in, everyone got into scrubs, I asked some questions about what to expect pain-wise (not much, I was told) and I was wheeled to the OR to deliver (they wanted me there in case they had to go to a C-section, they didn't want any delay.)

I was freaking out a little, because everything was happening so fast. I started shivering, teeth chattering, more because I was afraid than cold, but my husband stayed with me and calmed me down. I was so excited to meet our babies, but a little freaked out by the fact that the time was here. I'd been expecting to be pregnant another week or more, or at least until four in the morning, which seemed like a reasonable amount of time for labor. I just couldn't believe I was about to deliver these babies.

Here are some pictures from right before delivery:

My husband, by my bedside...

The on-call doctor who delivered me...love the hat...

One of my nurses...and talk about medical interventions...I felt like I had everything known to man going on...jealous of women who get to do the hippie birth center no pain meds thing...I'm so grateful for everything that was available to me, but a little sad my birth experience couldn't have been simpler/more organic...