Brianna's Birth Story

Sunday morning I woke up and went to the bathroom. Upon wiping, I discovered a lot of. . .slime. It was a very significant amount, much more than a mucus plug so I got a bit concerned. I called the hospital, and because I was already dilated to 5cm, they told me to come in right away to determine if my water was broken or not. After checking in and getting examined, they said it was not anmiotic fluid, but they couldn't figure out what it was. They were not happy with the thought of sending me home at 5cm, but also didn't think I was in labor yet.

After talking to the doctor that had scrapped my membranes on Friday, they gave me a choice; I could stay, they'd break my water and that doctor would come in to deliver Brianna, or I could go home and come back on Monday to have my regular doctor induce me. Since I have only been under my doctor's care since we moved in September, it's not like I have a big connection to him, and I really like the other doctor too so I figured why go home and wait another day?

The nurses decided to break my water. Sounds easy, right? Because of all the slime, they couldn't figure out where the sack was. It took three nurses three tries each and they still weren't sure if it was broken or not. They decided they had probably poked holes in it, and it would gush soon. They were right. Despite the broken water, I was barely feeling my contractions so they put me on Pitocin to make them stronger. At this moment, I was thinking I should ask for an Epidural, but I wasn't in pain yet and didn't want to jump the gun either. I decided to wait-BIG mistake! I wasn't expecting the Pitocin to progress so fast. In less than a half hour my pain scale went from 1 to about 8! It was torture to wait for the Epidural, but well worth the wait.

Brianna was "sunny side up" as the doc called it. I didn't find it all that sunny! Basically, most babies come out head first, facing down. This give the best flexibility in the neck to easily get the baby past the momma's pelvic bone. When a baby is "sunny side up," s/he is facing up instead of down. This makes it significantly harder to push the baby past the pelvic bone, and seriously almost killed me! I pushed about an hour and a half, but the contractions were so far apart that it seemed like a lot of my work was getting wasted between contractions. It felt like it took forever to get her to crown, and even longer to get her out! I thought she was stuck for a while. Just when I thought it was all over, the placenta got stuck. After forty minutes of trying to get it out with the help of occasional pushing, the doc had to "go in after it." The epidural had been turned off, and would have taken too long to put back on, so that was really painful. Then she had to search to make sure that no pieces of the placenta got left inside.

The biggest difference between Bri's labor and Gracie's was my audience. With Gracie, it was just the nurse and Brian with me. The doc had another woman in labor next door, so he ran in as Gracie was coming out. With Bri I told the grandmas and Carrie that they could stay as long as they were comfortable staying. At one point I had two nurses, the doctor, both grandmas, Carrie, and Brian in there! It was my own cheering section.