Birthing Baby Berry

So I thought since today marks a week since we went to the hospital for the induction that I'd take the time to write Charlotte's birth story. (She's great by the way, although Chris and I are pretty exhausted with late-night feedings, getting the hang of breastfeeding, and I'm still recovering -- we'll post pictures soon along with a link to a photo share site I created for pictures of Charlotte). I'm not going to sugar coat this in any way, so if you're squeamish, you might not want to read all of this.

Chris and I arrived at the hospital at 7 AM last Thursday morning. It took us quite awhile to get admitted because the room we were supposed to be in wasn't clean, so they sent us to the "Dump and Drop" room, the room closest to admitting, for those moms who come to the hospital literally ready to push and give birth. There was some confusion about which nurse would be assigned to us, but finally we got Lorna, who was awesome. I changed into the hospital gown and we waited for the midwife, Lynnette, to come in and check me before starting the Pitocin drip. I hadn't made any progress since the Tuesday before, but they decided to start me on the lowest dosage of Pitocin, thinking that maybe if I even just whiffed it, contractions would start.

Since I was on constant fetal and contraction monitoring, we could see the contractions starting, but they weren't painful and pretty inconsistent. Chris and I passed the time of this "early labor" playing cribbage and watching the first season of "Flight of the Conchords" on DVD, which is really quite hilarious. Every hour or so Lorna would come back and up the Pitocin. At around 2:30, I finally started feeling painful contractions. Chris and I were still playing cards, but I would have to pause and breathe through the contractions. At 3 PM, there was a shift change in nurses and Lorna brought in her replacement, Ivanka, whom we later found out is originally from Macedonia but had lived in the Chicago area for a long time (Orland Park). Lorna also mentioned that if we were still there the next morning, she wanted to be our nurse, which was nice to hear. Ivanka, as we came to learn, was quite the "take charge" nurse. She saw that my contractions were getting a little out of hand, so gave me an injection of fentanyl, pain meds that were supposed to last an hour, but worked so well, I didn't need another dose for 2 and a half hours. She also checked me and said that I was about 2 1/2 centimeters dilated, which I was really disappointed to hear considering how long we'd been there already.

The second dose of fentanyl, around 5:30, definitely did not last as long. By the way, during almost the entire day and night, Chris spent the majority of the time pacing the room. Lorna called him the cliched nervous dad when she introduced us to Ivanka, and that was certainly true. So anyway, by around Jeopardy!, which was about 6:30, I was in all sorts of pain. Chris was trying to get me to relax, but all I could do was shove him off and yell at him to "stop touching me!" Finally, I told him to page Ivanka and tell her I was in horrible pain. She comes in and says in her thick Greek accent: "You vant epidural, I get you epidural. Why you not ask until now?" She gave me another dose of the fentanyl and called the nurse anethestist to administer the epidural.

Ahh, the epidural. We all know that I wanted to try the whole natural childbirth thing, but seeing as how I did not go into labor naturally, I finally succumbed to the epidural. It was easy to administer and didn't take long at all to start working. And seriously, it was a GODSEND. My entire lower half of my body was completely numb, and although the monitor showed me having contractions, I couldn't feel them anymore. It was great. I was able to relax and even fall asleep. This happened between 8 and 9. Around 10, Chris went out to call our parents and give them a status update. I was listening to my iPod and when he came back around 10:30, I was talking to him, when all of a sudden I knew I had to vomit. I had barely enough time to sort of point to Chris, who just in the nick of time grabbed the vomit bag, and I threw up, several times. Now mind you, I never once even came close to throwing up my entire pregnancy. Thank goodness Chris was there because given the fact that I was completely immobile, I would have vomited all over myself and the hospital bed.

After that, we both caught some sleep until about 2:30 AM, when the midwife came in and checked me. I was 5 cm dilated, so she decided to break my water. Apparently, it was quite the flood, but I didn't feel a thing. She also inserted an internal pressure monitor to get a more accurate reading of the contractions, which weren't progressing like she wanted. The nurse in the 11PM to 7AM shift (I can't remember her name because I was sleeping almost the entire time) upped the Pitocin again to 22 micrograms (I started at 2) and I went back to sleep. Around 5:30, I woke up to some backpain and pressure, even though my legs were still completely numb. I paged the nurse, who checked me and I was now 9 cm! I had dilated 3 to 4 cm in only 3 hours! Finally, I thought. At about this time, we heard a lady screaming in the hallway and nurses running toward her. This was one of those "Drop and Dump" ladies who came in ready to push. A nurse even opened our door thinking that the room was available. Given the sounds she was making, Chris remarked about why anyone would want to go through that meds-free.

So Lynnette came in around 7:30 -- mind you, she was working a 24 hour shift 8 to 8-- and said how disappointed she was that she wouldn't be the one to deliver me. But, the good news was that the midwife coming on board after her was Susan Stone, whom I had seen a few times early in the pregnancy. Susan is wonderful and actually worked at my organization a number of years ago. Lynnette checked me and said that she could feel the baby's head and I was in fact 10 cm dilated. At the same time, Lorna, our nurse from the day before came in. I told Lynnette that I was naming the baby Charlotte Kay because I knew that was also Lynnette's middle name. Turns out it was Lorna's middle name as well (and of course it's my middle name and my mom's, which is why I chose it in the first place)! Lorna said it was meant to be.

Around 8AM, after Lorna and her nursing student Carrie got all the instruments and warming table ready, we decided to do some practice pushes. Chris grabbed one leg, Carrie the other, and away we went. Lorna was satisfied by pushes, so called in Susan. She watched me push for a bit, said it would take at least an hour and that she'd be back. Given that Charlotte wasn't born until 11:22 AM, obviously it took much longer. Why, you ask? Because I got this horrible cramp around my right diaphragm (like when you're running and get a stitch in your side)that made it impossible to breathe through. At one point, I was in so much pain and was yelling so bad that Susan called in the attending OB/GYN, who, ironically enough turned out to be the OB I'd been seeing throughout my pregnancy. What are the odds of having both your midwife and your OB at the hospital at the same time? Pretty low for Kaiser. Susan thought I was exhausted by pushing and asked if Dr. Castillo-Rico could use a vacuum to get her out. This I did not want to hear at all. Instead, I told them that I felt okay on my left side, so we tried that out and it worked out fine.

Chris was still holding my leg during each contraction and could see that I was definitely making progress. He could even see the head poking through! Susan asked if I wanted a mirror, and I said yes because I couldn't feel what I was doing and whether or not I was making any progress. Well, the mirror was an amazing source of motivation for me. I could see the head a little bit and with each contraction, I could see myself making even more progress. This really picked up the pace and pretty soon, out she came and they put her right on me! Chris was crying, I was in shock, and everyone was commenting on how big she was! Of course no one expected her to be 9 and a half pounds!

And, by the way, I barely tore at all. Charlotte's head, which is 14 inches around (above the average of 13), didn't tear me, but her shoulder did. It's internal and superficial, but ouch does it still hurt. It took about an hour for Susan to repair me, meanwhile, I got to hold my baby skin to skin, which felt amazing.

It was an amazing experience. When things were painful or not progressing as fast I thought they'd be, I was really regretting my decision to induce. However, once Charlotte was born and seeing as how big she was, I'm really glad I did. Susan said that if I had waited much longer, it could very well have turned into a c-section, something I desperately didn't want. And seeing as how large Charlotte was, chances are if we have another baby someday (some day, far, far, away! :) ), they won't let me go past my due date.

So all in all, not a bad experience. About 23 hours of labor and 3 hours of pushing. Some women who are induced take much longer than that. Charlotte wants to be fed, so I'm signing off for now. More pictures to come soon!