Labor Story Part I

As I said in the last post, I wanted to get my labor story down in writing for me and for people who have asked me questions.  I will also be giving advice that is obviously just my personal opinion, but that were things that I found helpful.   Let me also say that I realize every birth , and baby, is different, but this is how my labor with little Miss Abby G went:

After being sent home early the morning of our scheduled induction, 11/14, because I was progressing naturally on my own, I continued to have light bleeding and contractions.  Throughout the day the contractions got closer together as well as stronger.  That night I tried to go to bed around 10 PM, but I was only asleep for about 30 minutes before I woke up with pretty intense contractions.  I started to time them but there was no consistent pattern.  Some would be as close as 3 minutes apart and some would be as long as 12 minutes apart (I found out later why there was no pattern).  The average was about 5 minutes apart, though, and so I tried all the things they tell you to do to alleviate pain: warm bath, heating pad, even a walk around the block (yep, Rock went out with me at midnight to walk like a champ).  This did nothing to alleviate pain and in fact the contractions were getting more intense so Rock and I decided to go to the hospital around 4 AM.  We figured the worse case scenario was that they’d tell us to come back at 7 for our scheduled induction.

So this brings me to my first piece of advice: your nurse is the NUMBER ONE most important medical team member during your labor and because of this I would highly recommend you ask for a new nurse if your nurse is not caring/supportive/a good listener/etc.  When we first got there, the nurse assigned to my room was an older, crotchety woman.  She told me based on how I looked I clearly wasn’t in “real” labor and coupled with the fact that I was a first time mom, she was sure I was “wasting their [i.e., the nursing staff’s] time,” but that she’d check me anyway.  Before she checked my cervix she asked me what level pain I was in…OK, let me say that’s tantamount to asking someone who has never eaten chocolate to describe the taste!  All I knew was that I had never had a baby before, but that I sure wasn’t comfortable and that the contractions were more painful than period cramping.  So when she asked me to give the pain level on a scale from one to ten, I said a 6 (again, because I would put period cramps at about a 4 or 5).  She let out a condescending laugh and said, “OK, so you are really at a one then because you’ll KNOW when you are having ‘real’ contractions.”  She said this while the monitor she had set up on my belly was giving graphical evidence that I was in fact having “REAL” contractions…and yes, in hindsight, I will admit that she was right about the early contractions being nowhere NEAR as bad as the later ones, but throw me a bone here!  I had never given birth and as far as I was concerned, pain is pain! 

She proceeded to very begrudgingly take out a pair of sterile gloves as she prepared to check me.  She then forcibly opening my thighs checked my cervix and rolled her eyes:  “You’re barely at 2 cm [heavy sigh].”  She snapped off the gloves and looked at me over her glasses and said she had to go see what the doctor wanted her to “do with me” since it was now around 5 AM and I was scheduled for a 7 AM induction.  She told me that if it were up to her she’d send me home so that the nurses didn’t have to “babysit” me.  No joke.  She said that!  I was so angered by this woman and our interactions that I just wanted my labor to stop so I didn’t have to be with THIS nurse!  When she came back she told me the doctor wanted me to stay and just labor in the room until my induction.  Then she told me the best news ever: she was about to end her shift!!!  Angel trumpets sounded as she told me a new nurse would be coming in shortly and that SHE would be my nurse for the labor!  She headed off to the nurses’ station (I am assuming) and at one point I had a question so I sent Rock to go get her.  When she came in, I showed her what I had a question about and asked if it was normal and she just said “[sigh] yes,” and walked off.  Now I could just be speaking for myself here, but to me, if you are going to be a nurse, I think a prerequisite should be that you are caring.  And part of caring is realizing that if someone has never done something before (e.g., birthed a baby), they are going to have a lot of questions and since you are the medical professional, you should help keep them calm by answering their questions…not make them feel silly for asking!!!  Anyway, suffice it to say, I was ecstatic about her ending her shift! 

I wanted to describe the first nurse because she made me so uncomfortable and tense (doubting what I was telling her and not really listening to me) that I feel that if I had kept her as my nurse, I would have had a completely DIFFERENT outcome to my labor.  If you’re tense your labor doesn’t progress as quickly during an induction, that can lead to a c-section!  If Rock and I have more children in the future, I will definitely know to be very particular about the nurse!

It turns out that the nurse that replaced Ole Grouchy Pants was an absolute angel!  Her name is Mary and she was so amazing and made my labor so memorable because she loves what she does and is wonderful at it!  She spoke very softly and calmly and listened to what I had to say and before I could even worry about something, she would reassure me that it was a normal part of labor and to not be worried. 

Mary had Rock and I walk the back flight of stairs to keep labor progressing which we did for about 45 minutes (holy calf muscles, Batman!) and then she told us to go have a light breakfast before the doctor came in at 7 to start the induction.  It turns out that the doctor was held up, so I didn’t start my pitocin until about 9:30 AM, but that was OK by me because it gave my body more time to labor naturally.  You are less likely to require a c-section during an induction the longer your body is allowed to naturally progress because pitocin causes more intense contractions which puts undue stress on you and your baby and if the labor doesn’t progress after a long time of being exposed to pitocin, they intervene.

So at 9 AM Mary inserted my IV and at 9:30 she started the pitocin and we were on our way!